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A bomb blast at the entrance of the police headquarters of northeast Nigeria’s Borno state killed many people on Friday, mostly police, witnesses and security officials said.
A police officer at the scene, who could not be named, said five police vans had been loaded with the dead.
“Many people, mostly members of the police, which include men and women, were killed in the explosion,” said witness Ali Alhaji in the city of Maiduguri, the focal point of an insurgency by Islamist sect Boko Haram.
Soldiers of the Democratic Republic of Congo army and rebels have clashed at an army base in the country’s east, killing at least 19 people in the latest outbreak of violence that has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.
DRC officials said on Wednesday that the attack had been carried out by Mai Mai fighters, linked to former rebels who were at one point integrated into the army but deserted in recent weeks over the government’s decision to arrest a renegade general, Bosco Ntaganda.
Their uprising is believed to have dragged in armed fighters from neighbouring Rwanda, complicating fragile relations between the two neighbours. Clashes in the last two months have forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes.
The Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan’s separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region said that one of its soldiers was killed and two wounded in shootouts with Azerbaijani forces overnight.
The statement says the incident occurred when “Azerbaijani troops attempted to enter the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Baku considers Nagorno-Karabakh — an ethnic Armenian separatist enclave — its territory.
A military official confirmed on Sunday that at least six militants linked to al-Qaeda were killed and others were wounded when army troops repelled an attack launched by militants on a branch of the Central Bank as well as on other institutions in Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan governorate, in a bid to gain control of the city.
The unidentified official told the state-run news website that clashes with the militants lasted from 5 to 7 a.m. Sunday, and the troops managed to repel the militants’ attack and to kill some of them.
Tripoli’s international airport was occupied by militia from the western town of Tarhuna on Monday, in retaliation for the kidnapping of their commander, Abu-Alija Habshi, by unknown assailants on Sunday afternoon.
The arrival of government-controlled security forces late this afternoon has resulted in a gun-battle that saw the government retake control of the airport, with a number of militia reportedly captured.
Rebels told the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Monday that more than 100 soldiers were killed in clashes and attacks on security forces’ checkpoints across Syria, including the suburbs of Damascus and Idlib Province.
The observatory said local doctors had confirmed the names of 80 dead Syrian soldiers.
At least 19 soldiers, eight rebels and 19 civilians were killed in violence on Sunday, the watchdog added.
Israeli forces launched renewed airstrikes on the Gaza Strip overnight Sunday, injuring one person, medics said.
A dairy factory in a Gaza City neighborhood was hit in the third day of airstrikes on the coastal enclave. One man sustained moderate wounds, medics said.
Another airstrike targeted an open area east of Gaza City, witnesses said. No injuries were reported.