Dozens of Boko Haram gunmen riding on motorcycles and in pickup trucks stormed a town in Nigeria's restive northeast, killing 27 people and razing some 300 homes, a local official said Monday.
"Gunmen numbering about 70 riding on about 15 motorcycles and hilux (trucks) attacked the village late Thursday," said Baba Shehu, an official with the local government in Bama, an area repeatedly attacked by the insurgents.
Full StoryPakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday warned peace could not be achieved "by unleashing senseless force", in his first public speech since a U.S. drone strike killed Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud.
The killing of Mehsud on Friday as government representatives prepared to meet his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction triggered an angry response from Islamabad while Afghan president Hamid Karzai said the strike "took place at an unsuitable time".
Full StoryViolence and low turnout in Kosovo elections underscored the deep divisions in the territory and dealt a blow to Belgrade, which had sought to further its EU membership bid by urging ethnic Serbs to vote peacefully.
The weekend vote, the first Belgrade has backed since ethnic-Albanian majority Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008, was seen as a test of an April deal brokered by Brussels to normalize ties between the former foes.
Full StoryBritish troops are to ramp up training missions in the world's insurgency trouble spots after they leave Afghanistan, the head of the military said in an interview published Monday.
General Nicholas Houghton told The Times newspaper that after their Afghanistan combat role ends by January 2015, emphasis will shift to conflict prevention in Africa and the Gulf, plus east and southeast Asia.
Full StoryGunmen attacked and torched two NATO oil tankers, seriously wounding one of the drivers in Pakistan's troubled southwest on Monday, officials said.
The incident took place in Bala Nari area, 125 kilometers (77 miles) southeast of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas rich insurgency-torn Baluchistan province that borders Afghanistan and Iran.
Full StoryIran's President Hassan Rouhani is not "optimistic" about ongoing nuclear negotiations with world powers, the official IRNA news agency reported Monday ahead of a new round of talks this week.
"The government is not optimistic about the Westerners and the current negotiations," he was quoted as saying, echoing similar comments by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sunday.
Full StoryAbout 10,000 Russian nationalists marched in Moscow on Monday in an annual show of anger against the presence of Muslim migrants that has previously escalated into violence.
The city-sanctioned demonstration was staged in the same blue-collar region on the city's outskirts that saw riots break out three weeks ago over a stabbing murder blamed on a citizen of Azerbaijan.
Full StoryKenya charged four men Monday in connection with the Westgate mall massacre in September, an attack claimed by Somalia's Al-Qaida linked Shebab in which at least 67 people were killed.
"The accused persons carried out a terrorist attack at Westgate Shopping Mall on September 21 by supporting a terrorist group," the charge sheet read.
Full StoryAn international operation was under way on Monday to hunt the killers of two French journalists shot dead in Mali, with a police source in the country's north saying around a dozen suspects had been arrested.
Ghislaine Dupont, 57, and Claude Verlon, 55, were kidnapped and killed by what French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said were "terrorist groups" in the flashpoint northeastern town of Kidal on Saturday.
Full StoryA Pakistan court on Monday granted bail to former military ruler Pervez Musharraf over a deadly raid on a radical mosque, bringing closer his possible release after more than six months of house arrest.
The ruling by an Islamabad district court means the ex-general is on bail in all the cases brought against him since his return to Pakistan from self-imposed exile, including one relating to the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
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