Ten soldiers were killed in a FARC ambush in the northeast of Colombia Saturday; the second time within 48 hours guerrillas are able to kill that amount of soldiers.

According to media reports, the hit-and-run attack took place in Tame, a municipality in the Arauca department that has seen several rebel attacks on security forces this year.

At least two soldiers survived the ambush, but were injured and sent to nearby hospitals.

General Ernesto Maldonado, commander of the army’s eighth division, FARC rebels opened fire and launched gas bottles at the convoy after which the guerrillas fled.

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After more than 40 years of violent struggle for independence in the traditional Basque homeland in Spain and France, the separatist group ETA declared a unilateral end to its campaign of bombings and shootings on Thursday, saying it wished to seize a “historical opportunity to reach a just and democratic resolution to an age-old political conflict.”

The group’s announcement of “the definite cessation of its military activity,” and its appeal for a “direct dialogue” with the governments in Madrid and Paris, came in the form of a written statement and an accompanying video posted online, which were sent to news organizations.

The renunciation of armed struggle went a step further than previous cease-fires the group has declared, and often broken, over the years. It was perhaps an acknowledgment that the group had been badly weakened by a crackdown by Spanish and French security forces.

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Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan strongman who fled into hiding after rebels toppled his regime two months ago, was killed Thursday as fighters battling the vestiges of his loyalist forces wrested control of his hometown of Surt, the interim government announced.

Al Jazeera television showed gruesome footage of what it said was Colonel Qaddafi, alive but wounded and bloody, being dragged around by armed men in Surt.

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Kurdish rebels killed 24 soldiers and policemen Wednesday in a series of pre-dawn attacks in south-eastern Turkey, inflicting the heaviest single blow on the Turkish military for years.

Turkey responded with airstrikes on suspected bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq while Turkish troops crossed the Iraqi border in pursuit of the rebels, the NTV channel reported.

By late Wednesday, CNNTurk was reporting a total of 21 PKK members killed in those operations, either in Turkey or northern Iraq - although there was no official confirmation of that figure.

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Kenyan troops are making further advances some 120 kilometers deep inside Somalia to seize the rebel-held town of Afmadow, military officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Military Operations Information Officer Major Emmanuel Chirchir said the soldiers will soon capture the town which has been surrounded by al-Shabaab fighters blamed for spate of abductions involving foreigners in Kenya.

“Our troops are advancing towards the Afmadow very soon and our activities will be concentrated in this town,” Chirchir told Xinhua by telephone on Tuesday.

However, local officials said the progress of Kenya and Somali troops has been slowed by muddy terrain after heavy rain.

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The National Transitional Council has announced through its military spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani, that its forces have managed to take almost complete control of the desert enclave of Bani Walid, one of the two last remaining bastions loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Al Qathafi.

Bani said Monday that after two days of fighting and the capture of the strategic centre of the town, now 95 percent of the Bani Walid, which is 140 kilometres southeast of Tripoli, is in the hands of the revolutionaries.

The NTC fighters are also predicting that the remaining five per cent in which there are some pockets of resistance should be under their control within hours.

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Kenyan troops have crossed the border into war-torn Somalia to attack Islamist al-Shabaab rebels they accuse of being behind several recent kidnappings of foreigners, Kenyan officials said Sunday.

“We have crossed into Somalia in pursuit of the al-Shabaab, who are responsible for the kidnappings and attacks on our country,” government spokesman Alfred Mutua told AFP.

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