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An army unit clashed with an armed terrorist group in al-Huseinyeh in Saida Zeinab area in Damascus Countryside and killed all of its members.
An official source told SANA reporter that leader of the group, terrorist Mohammad al-Batal, was identified among the dead.
The source said that a DShK-equipped vehicle was destroyed and weapons and ammunition were seized.
While political leaders struggled to conclude a truce deal in Cairo, medics said four Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night, bringing the day’s death toll to 27.
Two brothers — Abed Abu Mour, 24, and Khalid Abu Mour, 19, — were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the al-Juneina district of Rafah.
An earlier airstrike killed another two brothers in Deir al-Balah, medics said. They were identified as Salim Ayish Abu Sitta and his brother Muhammad.
Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo have entered the main city of Goma in the mineral-rich east of the country, according to a reporter on the scene.
A column of rebel fighters entered the city from the main airport road on Tuesday, sweeping past government troops, and moved toward the centre.
The development marks an escalation in the fighting, which erupted last week after a four-month lull and which has raised fears of a wider conflict engulfing the volatile region.
Rwanda accused U.N.-backed Congolese forces of shelling its territory during a battle with rebels near the border on Monday but said it had no plans to respond militarily to what it called Kinshasa’s “provocation”.
Tension between the central African neighbors has stretched to the breaking point over an insurgency in Congo’s eastern hills that Kinshasa’s government says is orchestrated by Rwanda with designs on the region’s mineral riches.
“Rwanda does not intend to respond to provocation coming from the DRC,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told Reuters. “Issues in (eastern Democratic Republic of Congo) are too serious to be subjected to game playing.”
Leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have announced a two-month unilateral ceasefire. The announcement was made on the first day of peace talks with Colombian government officials in Cuba.
Colombia’s FARC rebels announced a two-month ceasefire on Monday as they opened negotiations with the government in an attempt to restore peace after nearly half a century of war.
FARC spokesman Luciano Marin, known under the alias “Ivan Marquez,” said the group will halt all military operations beginning at midnight on Monday until January 20.
A Rwandan-backed rebel group has advanced to within two miles of Goma, a crucial provincial capital in eastern Congo, the first time rebels have been so close since 2008. The advance came despite the deaths of 151 rebels and two army officers in fighting that culminated in a series of attacks by UN helicopters on rebel positions in eastern Congo on Saturday.
A Congolese army spokesman, Colonel Olivier Hamuli, said the fighting around Goma started at 6am on Saturday. He denied reports that Congolese soldiers were refusing to fight and fleeing.
Palestinian medical sources announced on Sunday at dawn that the continued Israeli bombardment against Gaza have left 60 killed, including 16 children, while 550 others were injured since Wednesday.
Two children were killed when an air raid targeted their home in northern Gaza, while 13 others were injured.
Several air strikes were reported across the Gaza Strip, escalating after midnight.
Moreover, six journalists were injured when Israeli warplanes fired missiles at “Ash-Shawwa and Al- Husari” building in Gaza City.