An American official has expressed grave concern over allegation of Russia’s bombing of US-backed militants in Syria. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters on Thursday that Russia bombed US-backed militants in southern Syria earlier in the day, raising “serious concern” over the incidence. “Today, Russian aircraft conducted a series of airstrikes near al-Tanf against Syrian counter-ISIL forces that included individuals who have received US support,” said the senior defense official.

“Russia’s latest actions raise serious concern about Russian intentions. We will seek an explanation from Russia on why it took this action and assurances this will not happen again.” “Russian aircraft have not been active in this area of southern Syria for some time, and there were no Syrian regime or Russian ground forces in the vicinity,” the official said. The US military launched a $500 million program in early 2015 to train entire units of what it described as “moderate” militants in the Arab country. But the program drew heavy fire last fall after admitting the efforts had floundered, with numbers of trainees falling massively short of the planned 5,000.

One group even handed over ammunition and other gear to a local al-Qaeda affiliate, known as the al-Nusra Front. Since then, the Pentagon has worked with militants from different groups, instead of an entire unit. This is while the CIA has also been involved in training militants in Syria. Since September 2014, the US and some of its allies have been carrying out airstrikes against purported positions of Daesh (ISIL) militants inside Syria.

The Takfiri militants, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, control large areas of Iraq and Syria. The Syrian government has charged that the airstrikes had targeted the country’s infrastructure in many instances and done little to stop the advances of terrorists. Syria’s years-long foreign-sponsored militancy has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since early 2011 and left behind vast trails of destruction in a country where millions of people have been displaced.

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Police in Turkey have arrested a man trying to sell a smuggled ivory dagger belonging to slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to a Saudi national. The Turkish businessman, identified only as A.A., and two others suspected of being his accomplices were arrested in an anti-smuggling raid in the Esenyurt suburb of Istanbul, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Monday.

The dagger bejeweled with diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies was confiscated along with a bespangled scabbard and a base ornate with lion figurines. The Turkish national had reportedly bought the dagger, which was looted from one of Gaddafi’s palaces in 2011, for $4.6 million in Libya three months earlier. He planned to sell the dagger to a Saudi businessman for more than double the price at $10 million.

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The death toll from a mass murder at a night club in Orlando, Florida, has reached to 50 people, the worst mass shooting in US history. About 53 other people were injured in the shooting, which took place in the Pulse Club on Sunday morning.

The gunman, identified by US media as an alleged Daesh sympathizer named Omar Mateen, took hostages at the club and barricaded himself in the complex but was later killed by specially trained SWAT units. “It appears he was organized and well-prepared,” Orlando Police Chief John Mina said, adding that the assailant had an assault-type weapon and a handgun.

Authorities described the attack as a domestic act of terrorism. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is also involved in the case. According the White House, President Barack Obama was filled in on the shooting and would later on deliver a statement.

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Italy says over 1300 stranded refugees have been rescued at sea in a single day of naval operations through the Mediterranean. The Italian Coastguard said in a statement on Saturday that 1,348 asylum seekers of various African nationalities were rescued during 11 rescue operations in the stretch of sea between Sicily, Italy’s largest island to the south and North Africa.

The operations, which were coordinated by the Italian coastguard, involved the European Union naval mission Eunavfor Med, the Malta-based NGO Moas and a private tugboat. The refugees, including men, women, children and even toddlers and babies, were all reportedly transferred to Sicily. The picked-up people on Saturday brought the total number of rescued refugees to over 3,000 in the past three days.

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The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Cameroon has warned that the security situation in the country is deteriorating at catastrophic rapidity.  In a rare public interview she granted the BBC, Najat Rochdi said Boko Haram jihadists continue to attack villages and agro industrial plants on a daily basis in Cameroon. Najat Rochdi also indicated that the number of displaced Cameroonians has tripled to 190,000, not counting the 60,000 Nigerian refugees and 312,000 Central Africans who have fled violence in their countries.

The UN official stressed that “the impact of the violence is not over”. She made a clarion call on the international community to remain vigilant. For her, Cameroon has eventually become a fertile ground for the recruitment of jihadists. She sounded a note of caution that if humanitarian aid was not channeled to Cameroon, the giant of the Sub Saharan region may witness a radicalization of its youth population.

The atrocities carried out by the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram has claimed the lives of at least 20,000 people since 2009. A multinational force from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Benin and Cameroon, has since last year weakened the group. But attacks from the jihadists are far from over.

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The US military has acknowledged bombing a Syrian militant unit it had trained and armed purportedly to fight Daesh terrorists in the country, a report says. The incident was the most serious setback for a controversial Pentagon program that is angling to find new recruits for training after last efforts ended in disaster, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The Pentagon carried out a series of airstrikes in and around Syria’s northern town of Mare’ on May 27 and May 28. The Mutasim Brigade, a force of US-trained militants, said one of the airstrikes hit the brigade.

The US military said at the time that three strikes had targeted “two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL tactical vehicles and an ISIL vehicle” near Mare’. But Mutasim Brigade’s leaders told The Journal that one of the airstrikes hit the brigade’s fighters while they were battling Daesh terrorists. Ten US-backed militants were killed in the “friendly-fire incident.” Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the US military’s Central Command, said an investigation had been launched into the incident. “We will continue our support to counter-ISIL forces and will apply any lessons learned derived from the investigation to improve our operations in the future,” Col. Ryder added.

It is unclear why the US military chose not to disclose the errant airstrike earlier. Col. Ryder told the Journal that the “dynamic and complex nature of the battlefield” led to a lag time in reporting.The US military acknowledged last year that a $500 million program to train and equip militants for Syria had managed to produce only a handful of fighters. The mission was halted under mounting pressure from members of Congress. However, new training efforts were launched this year for more “vetted” recruits. Daesh terrorists, who were among the militants initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Iraq and Syria. They are engaged in heinous crimes against humanity in territories under their control.

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Defense ministers from Iran, Russia and Syria are scheduled to meet in Tehran on Thurday to discuss the campaign against terrorism as well the recent developments in the Middle East. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and his Syrian counterpart Fahd Jassem al-Freij will participate in the meeting on the official invitation of their Iranian counterpart Hossein Dehqan.

The defense ministers are to exchange viewpoints on the latest regional developments and ways to strengthen and extend the fight against terrorism during the trilateral meeting, the IRNA news agency reported. In a speech to the newly-elected parliament in Syria on Tuesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad expressed gratitude for Russia, China, and Iran for the support they have provided to the Damascus government.

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An Egyptian passenger plane, en route from Cairo to Beijing, makes an emergency landing in Uzbekistan due to a bomb threat, a report says.State carrier Uzbekistan Airways said on Wednesday that there were 118 passengers and 17 crew members on board, all of whom were safely evacuated. Egyptian aviation sources said a false bomb threat forced the EgyptAir flight to make the emergency landing. The plane, an Airbus A-330-220, landed in Uzbekistan three hours after it took off from Cairo at around 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

It landed at the airport in the town of Urgench, about 840 kilometers (600 miles) west of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. Officials said an anonymous caller telephoned security agents at the Cairo airport to say that a bomb was on board the flight. The plane was searched after landing, but no explosives were found, they said. EgyptAir has received a number of bomb threats since one of its aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean on May 19, killing all 66 people aboard the Airbus A320 jetliner. All those threats have turned out to be hoaxes.

Egypt’s aviation industry has been under international scrutiny since Oct. 31, when a Russian Airbus A321 crashed in the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people aboard. The plane was traveling to St. Petersburg from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Russia said the crash was caused by a bomb planted on the plane, and the local branch of Daesh claimed responsibility. The incidents have further damaged Egypt’s tourism industry which is already reeling from years of political turmoil.

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US Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has won the number of delegates required to secure the party’s nomination. The Associated Press declared the former First Lady as the presumptive nominee after asking undecided superdelegates which candidate they were supporting. In its survey, AP confirmed that Clinton had enough support to reach the 2,383-delegate threshold needed for the nomination. The announcement came on the eve of six major primaries in Tuesday, including big states like California and New Jersey. Winning the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday put Clinton 19 delegates away from becoming the nominee.

The former secretary of state, however, was not too excited about theAP report, saying that there is still work left to do. “We are at the brink of a historic moment but we still have work to do,” she told at a campaign event on Monday. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, echoed the candidate, saying that while the AP call was “an important milestone” Clinton did not intend to declare victory until Tuesday night, when she “will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates.”

Meanwhile, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who is running against Clinton in the White House race took a dim view of AP’s math, saying that he would lobby Clinton superdelegates to shift their support to him by arguing that he is the party’s best chances to defeat the presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. “It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, said in a statement.

To prove that he really stands a chance against Clinton, Sanders needs to bolster his campaign scoring a victory in California. The latest polls show Sanders and Clinton in a virtual tie in California, the country’s most populous state. A loss in California for Clinton would make a sour and deflating end to her primary campaign possible.

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