Politics

  BAGHDAD/ AP In March, a senior commander with the IS group was driving through northern Syria on orders to lead militants in the fighting there when a drone blasted his vehicle to oblivion. The killing of Abu Hayjaa Al Tunsi, a Tunisian extremist, sparked a panicked hunt within the group’s ranks for spies who could have tipped off the ...

  MANILA / AP The Philippine president-elect has encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, urging citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back in their neighbourhoods. In a nationally televised speech late Saturday, Rodrigo Duterte told a huge crowd in the southern city of Davao celebrating last month’s ...

Beirut / AFP US-backed Syrian rebels advancing on IS group fighters in the strategic northern town of Manbij have progressed to within five kilometres of the extremist bastion, a monitor said on Sunday. Supported by air strikes by the US-led coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias launched an ...

Chittagong / AFP Suspected militants killed the wife of a senior anti-terror officer in the Bangladesh city of Chittagong on Sunday, the latest attack thought carried out by local extremists, police said. Three unidentified men stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Begum in the head as she walked her son to a school bus stop near her home, Chittagong Metropolitan Police ...

  New Delhi / Tribune News Service India is widely expected to be the 35th member of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) this week, a move that will boost the country’s efforts to export and import missile technology subject to non-proliferation rules from friendly nations. If made partner in the regime, a precursor to being admitted into the Nuclear Suppliers’ ...

  Singapore / AFP Chinese construction on a South China Sea islet claimed by the Philippines would prompt “actions being taken” by the United States and other nations, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned on Saturday. Speaking at a security summit in Singapore, Carter said Beijing risks building a “Great Wall of self-isolation” with its military expansion in the contested ...

  Niamey / AFP Thirty-two troops have been killed in a clash with Boko Haram extremists on Niger’s border with Nigeria, Niger’s defence ministry said on Saturday. “Hundreds of assailants” attacked a military post at Bosso on Friday evening, it said in a statement that gave a “provisional toll” of 30 Nigerien and two Nigerian soldiers killed and 67 wounded. ...

  Lagos / AFP Nigerian troops killed 19 Boko Haram militants during clashes in northeast Borno state, while two soldiers suffered gunshot wounds, the army said on Saturday. Acting upon an intelligence report on the presence of Boko Haram fighters in the militants’ Chukungudu camp, troops and civilian JTF (joint task force) members, launched the attack on Friday. “During the ...

  Beijing / AFP Chinese police have detained several activists while others were placed under surveillance for the anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, which was heavily policed on Saturday. On June 4 1989 military tanks rolled into the square in the centre of Beijing to crush pro-democracy protests, killing hundreds of unarmed civilians—by some estimates thousands. Nearly ...

  Paris / AFP Moscow on Saturday said for the first time it would agree to foreign monitors observing the separatist conflict in east Ukraine to carry arms. Kiev has been pushing for an armed observer mission in the area where the existing unarmed monitors of the fragile ceasefire between government forces and Russia-backed separatists have reported an upsurge in violence. ...