Dozens kidnapped in northwest Nigeria after bandits invite them to talks

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By Reuters and Posted by TOE Armed bandits in northwest Nigeria abducted dozens of villagers whom they invited to a meeting ‌about potential peace negotiations, authorities and residents said on ‌Monday, highlighting the region’s worsening security. Police said 39 people were seized on Sunday ​when they went to a meeting in the forest near Magamin Diddi village in the Maradun municipality of northwest Zamfara State. Some local residents and officials said the number could be as ‌high as 50. According to ⁠a Zamfara State Police Command statement, the victims were meeting relatives of a bandit leader in ⁠an attempt to broker peace and ease restrictions on movement imposed on the community. Zamfara is at the centre of a long-running security ​crisis in ​which armed groups, locally referred ​to as bandits, carry ‌out mass kidnappings, killings and village raids. The violence has disrupted farming and displaced thousands. Security forces have deployed personnel and...
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Israeli strikes on Lebanon kill eight fighters, one child, security sources say

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Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon on Friday killed at least eight fighters and one child, according to security sources, as armed group Hezbollah responded with artillery rounds and rockets across the border.

The Israeli military has been trading fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the Gaza war, with hostilities ramping up recently amid fears that a full-scale regional war could erupt.

Israeli strikes killed six Hezbollah fighters in various towns across the south, according to the party’s death notices and a security source.

Another fighter was killed in a separate strike outside Aitarun, according to the security source. It was not immediately clear if the combatant was a Hezbollah member.

A separate Israeli strike on the village of Aita, approximately 14 km (nine miles) north of the border with Israel, killed a Hezbollah fighter and a child, the security source told Reuters. Hezbollah identified the fighter killed in Aita as Mohammad Najem.

The Israeli military, in a statement posted online, said it had targeted Najem in Aita because he was a member of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit. It said it had targeted two other Hezbollah fighters across the south.

Its statement said “a number of projectiles fired from Lebanese territory” had crossed into northern Israel but that no injuries were reported.

Hezbollah’s press office said the group had fired rockets and artillery fire onto various Israeli military positions throughout the day.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been shuttling from Jerusalem to Cairo to Doha… pressing mediators and representatives of Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire deal that would pause fighting in Gaza and bring Israeli captives home.

More than 600 people in Lebanon have been killed since the start of the clashes last October, including more than 400 Hezbollah combatants and over 130 civilians, according to a Reuters toll.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/45EM9eh

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