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Fierce clashes broke out on Monday between Somaliland troops and separatist rebels in Sool’s Hudun district, about 60 kilometres north of the main Las Anod town. It is believed several hundred rebels have been stationed in Hudun since June 2010.
Reports in the area said troops repelled an attack by the rebel Khaatumo early Monday, inflicting “heavy” casualties. They added the clash lasted less than an hour and the troops, who were in full control, conducting searches in the area.
Scores of Syrian soldiers have been killed by a suicide car bomb in the central province of Hama and at least 20 rebel fighters were killed in an air strike in the northwest province of Idlib, activists have said.
Monday’s clashes came as the main Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Council (SNC), in makeover talks in Qatar, agreed to expand its structure to accommodate 13 other groups, a spokesman said.
Residents say al-Shabaab fighters launched Sunday night a mortar attack against ships docked the port of Kismayo city, where is largely controlled by Somali and Kenya forces along with the pro-government Raskamboni fighters.
The attack happened late last night as ships reportedly carrying weapons for the Kenyan AMISOM army in Kismayo trying to dock at the harbor, with some reports the attack caused uncounted loss of life and property in the port.
The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army North said on Friday that it repulsed an advance by government troops on a village in South Kordofan state, killing “70 enemy combatants” in a lengthy battle.
Fighting in South Kordofan between the SPLM/A-N and the government has intensified since Sudan and South Sudan signed a security deal on 27 September dictating cessation of support to rebel groups in each other’s territories.
A unit of the Armed Forces and security members at Taftanaz Airport in Idlib confronted several armed terrorist groups which attacked the airport with heavy weapons and mortars.
An official source told SANA reporter that the Armed Forces killed a large number of terrorists and destroyed their vehicles which were equipped with machineguns, in addition to destroying a weapons carrier.
A new video from the Syria conflict that circulated via the Internet on Thursday showed antigovernment fighters armed with rifles kicking and summarily executing a group of prisoners, apparently soldiers or militiamen, in what human rights activists called evidence of a war crime and another indication that both sides were increasingly committing atrocities.
The graphic video, which could not be authenticated independently but still attracted the attention of Amnesty International and other rights groups, appeared to have been made in Saraqeb, a town in Idlib Province in northern Syria that has been the scene of particularly brutal fighting between rebels and loyalists in the 20-month-old conflict.
Syrian rebels killed 78 soldiers on Thursday, about half of them in attacks on military checkpoints in the north just hours after a wave of bombings hit the Damascus area, activists said.
The unusually high toll for regime forces came after days of intense air bombardment of rebel positions around the country that killed hundreds more.