NEWS IN BRIEF

Date: 06 February 2015 - 21:19

News ID: ۱۰۶۵۰

CAIRO (PRESS TV) – The Egyptian army has killed twenty-five al-Qaeda-affiliated militants during airborne attacks in the violence-plagued Sinai Peninsula of the North African country.
A security source said Egyptian AH-64 Apache attack helicopters on Friday pounded two houses in the town of Sheikh Zuweid, situated 334 kilometers (214 miles) northeast of the capital, Cairo.
The Ansar Bait al-Maqdis terrorists were planning attacks against Egyptian government forces. Some 20 other militants were also wounded in the airstrikes.
The development comes a week after Egyptian security officials said at least 44 people were killed and over 80 others injured after militants carried out attacks on army and police targets as well as an office of a daily newspaper in the strife-stricken Sinai Peninsula.
Ansar Bait al-Maqdis militant group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
On January 31, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi vowed to defeat militants fighting against government forces in the Sinai Peninsula.
He said his government is ready to brace for a long fight to defeat extremists, noting that the fight will be long but Egyptian forces will not give Sinai to the militants.
A state of emergency has been declared in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula since a militant attack on an Egyptian army checkpoint killed more than 30 soldiers in October 2014.
The Egyptian military considers the Sinai Peninsula a safe haven for gunmen, who use the region as a base for their "acts of terror.”

KIEV (Reuters) – Convoys of buses converged from two sides on the town of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine on Friday after separatist rebels and government forces appeared to have patched together a truce to allow civilians to be evacuated.
A Reuters correspondent outside the town of Horlivka, west of Debaltseve, said around 30 empty buses were heading towards Debaltseve under an escort from monitors from the OSCE security watchdog and rebel police and military.
Another Reuters witness said a similar convoy, controlled by Ukrainian forces, was heading to Debaltseve from Artemivsk, east of the town.
Government forces have been holding on to Debaltseve, a strategic rail hub linking the two separatist-held regions of the east, for several weeks despite prolonged artillery and tank attacks by the separatists.
The temporary truce was declared as German and French leaders pressed forward with a new peace plan to end the crisis in Ukraine.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in a conflict which has caused the biggest crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.
The rebels said the truce came into force at 9 a.m. Moscow time and witnesses said there was no firing between the two sides as the convoys moved towards Debaltseve.

ABUJA (PRESS TV) – Boko Haram Takfiri militants have attacked a town in Niger near the border with Nigeria.
The Nigeria-based militants raided Bosso early Friday, said Abba Hassan, a pharmacist local resident.
He added that Niger’s soldiers managed to repel the militants after fighting them for an hour.
The attack came on the second day of a three-day meeting in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé, with the aim of finalizing plans to establish a 7,500-strong force from Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Benin.
"Niger and Chadian planes are conducting surveillance at the moment in town and troops on the ground are combing through the streets,” Hassan was quoted by AP as saying.
Niger is Nigeria’s second neighboring country, after Cameroon, where Boko Haram-related violence has escalated over the past days.
Cameroonian officials said that on February 4-5, Boko Haram militants raided Cameroon’s border town of Fotokol, killing nearly 100 people and wounding 500 others.
The region of Niger where recent violence took place is an area where refugees already have arrived by the thousands seeking safety from Boko Haram attacks.
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden,” controls parts of northeastern Nigeria and says its goal is to overthrow the Nigerian government.