Turkish warplanes strike 15 targets in Syria’s al Bab area

President Tayyip Erdogan has said seizing control of al Bab, around 30 km south of the border, is a goal of the operation before targeting Manbij, from which Kurdish-led forces recently drove IS, and the IS stronghold of Raqqa.Ten Islamic State defensive positions, command centres and an ammunition store were destroyed in the strikes, the army said in a statement. Nine Syrian rebels were killed and 52 wounded during clash-es in the region, it added. The Turkish military launched the operation, dubbed ‘Euphrates Shield’, on August 24 and the rebel forces have so far seized control of about 1,620 square km of territory, the military said. 

The operation has also targeted the Kurdish YPG militia in the region and 10 of the group’s fighters were ‘neutralised’ in shelling over the last 24 hours as they tried to seize control of the Tal Jijan area, the statement said.

Myanmar’s military has killed about 30 members of what it has described as a Rohingya Muslim militant group, state media said on Monday, marking the largest escalation of the conflict since fighting erupted in the northwest a month ago. The weekend’s killings in restive Rakhine state have essentially destroyed any hopes for a swift resolution to the fighting and a gradual restoration of communal ties, observers and diplomats say. Soldiers have poured into the Maungdaw area along Myanmar’s frontier with Bangladesh in the north of Rakhine, responding to coordinated attacks on three border posts on October 9 in which nine police officers were killed. Security forces have locked down the area, where the vast majority are Rohingya Muslims - shutting out aid workers and independent observers - and conducted sweeps of villages. Skirmishes took place throughout the weekend with state media reporting casualties sustained both on Saturday and Sunday.