At least four Malian army soldiers were killed and a dozen others wounded in an attack on Tuesday evening in Nara, in the west of the country, an area where jihadists are based, according to a provisional report by the Armed Forces Malian (Fama).

In Sudan, tens of thousands of demonstrators march on Thursday under tear gas canisters to demand civilian power, while the country has been controlled by the army since its independence.

Communications were cut and Karthoum locked. Four demonstrators were shot dead by security forces. 

Some of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram nearly seven years ago have finally escaped from their captors, a father of one of the girls told CNN.

Halima Ali Maiyanga, one of more than 100 young women still missing, called her father to say she and others had managed to flee Boko Haram militants Thursday.

APRNEWS - The Comorian government on Monday said it had recovered weapons used by rebels over recent disturbances in the island nation.

Prosecutor, Mohammed Abdallah said the seized weapons have been examined after they were abandoned by rebels on the Comorian island of Anjouan.

NEWS.COM - LEADERS in Turkey and Syria have reacted angrily to the United States-led coalition’s plans to build a 30,000-strong border force to fight Islamic State.

REUTERS - Over 300 protesters were arrested overnight and the army was deployed in several Tunisian cities in violent demonstrations over prices, taxes and unemployment that have swept the country.

AFP - Myanmar security forces took part in a massacre of 10 Rohingya in September, the army chief's office said Wednesday, as it admitted for the first time abuses during a crackdown that sparked a mass exodus of the Muslim minority.

AFP - Four west African states have launched a major offensive against the Boko Haram jihadist group in Nigeria, the military said on Tuesday.

Soldiers from Nigeria and the neighbouring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger are targeting a Boko Haram faction led by Abubakar Shekau in the Sambisa Forest, and another led by Mamman Nur, on and around Lake Chad.

 AFP - The Israeli army overnight carried out air strikes and fired rockets at targets in Syria, causing damage near a "military position", the Syrian army said in a statement on Tuesday.

AFP - North and South Korea held their first talks for two years Tuesday, stirring hopes of a tentative rapprochement between the bitterly divided neighbours.

Tensions soared last year as the North made rapid progress on its banned nuclear weapons programmes, while US President Donald Trump engaged in an increasingly bellicose verbal scrap with Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong-Un.