A senior al-Qaeda leader believed to have been responsible for planning attacks on the US, Europe and Australia has been arrested in southwest Pakistan, the army announced on Monday.

Younis al-Mauritani was picked up in the suburbs of the southwestern city of Quetta along with two other high-ranking operatives for the global terror network, the military said in a statement. Cooperation between the CIA and Inter-Services Intelligence agency led to the arrests by the paramilitary, it said, without saying when Mauritani was detained.

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Libyan fighters who said they had tried to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power of Bani Walid, a key city still controlled by supporters of fugitive leader Muammar Al Qathafi, said that talks have reached a stalemate, therefore the final push towards entering the city is going to happen in the next 24 hours.

There have been numerous attempts to move forward with a bloodless handover of control of Bani Wlaid, but members of the National Transitional Council, have now said that by mid-day, Sunday, talks failed.

“Their time is over,” Mahmoud Abdul Aziz, a political analyst and one of those on the negotiation team., therefore, he added, “The push is going to happen in the next 24 hours.”

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The Indian government on Saturday signed a pact with one of India’s oldest rebel groups to end militant violence in the restive northeastern state of Assam and pave the way for peace talks.

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the largest separatist outfit in Assam, is seeking an autonomous ethnic region the state, but within the Indian union.

Under the agreement, signed by representatives of the national and Assam governments and ULFA, the guerrilla group vowed not to stage any attacks while the search for a political resolution to the dispute was under way.

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al-Shabaab terrorist group launched a direct attack against locations in Galkayo city where Puntland security forces are based.

Puntland security forces repelled the attackers, spread out into Galkayo neighborhoods and seized control of the location where the attack was planned.

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At least seven Burma Army soldiers were killed and more than three injured during two days of heavy fighting with Kachin Independence Army (KIA) troops at Lungja Bum Kadawng (Lungja hillside) in N’Mawk (Momauk) Township in Manmaw (Bhamo) Township, in Burma’s Northern Kachin State, on August 28 and 29, local sources said.

It was biggest loss of Burmese troops in fighting with the KIA in Kachin State earlier this week, KIA officials at the Laiza headquarters in eastern Kachin State said.

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Leaders of an umbrella organization of ethnic parties, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), formed a peace talk group last week in preparation for future negotiations with the Burmese government.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, UNFC secretary Nai Hang Tha said, “There are eight representatives within the group which includes Mon, Shan, Karenni, Chin, Arakanese, Karen, Kachin and Pa-O people”.

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Seven people have been killed and 18 injured in a double suicide attack in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya.

According to the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, the blasts in the Chechen capital Grozny claimed the lives of five policemen, one Emergencies Ministry worker and one civilian.

The first explosion hit Grozny at about 9:45 p.m. local time on Tuesday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up while police were trying to detain him. The second followed about an hour later, after a crowd had gathered at the scene of the first blast.

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