82 abducted girls freed in Nigeria
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Eighty-two Chibok schoolgirls seized three years ago by Boko Haram have been freed in exchange for detained suspects with the extremist group, Nigeria’s government announced early today, in the largest release negotiated yet in the battle to save nearly 300 girls whose mass abduction exposed the mounting threat posed by the Islamic Statelinked fighters.
The April 2014 abduction by Boko Haram brought the extremist group’s rampage in northern Nigeria to world attention and, for families of the schoolgirls, began years marked with heartbreak.
Some relatives did not live long enough to see their daughters released. Many of the captive girls, most of them Christians, were forced to marry their captors and give birth to children in remote forest hideouts without ever knowing if they would see their parents again. It is feared that other girls were strapped with explosives and sent on missions as suicide bombers.
With Saturday’s release, 113 of the girls remain unaccounted for.
Hamas picks new leader
JERUSALEM — Ismail Haniya, a longtime leader of Hamas in Gaza, was on Saturday officially named the senior leader of the militant group, which has been trying to soften its public image as it jockeys for influence in the Palestinian territories and internationally.
Mr. Haniya’s election as chief of the group’s political bureau concluded a secretive, monthslong process meant to set the future direction of Hamas as it battles the aging, mainstream Palestinian leadership for supremacy.
Mr. Haniya succeeds Khaled Meshal, who led the group from exile for 21 years. Mr. Meshal now lives in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
Four killed in Syria
BEIRUT — Violence left at least four opposition fighters dead and a child wounded in central and southern Syria on Saturday despite relative calm prevailing across the warravaged country after a deal to set up “de-escalation zones” in mostly opposition-held areas went into effect, opposition activists and government media outlets said.
The casualties were the first after the implementation of the agreement hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran — the latest attempt to bring calm to the country — started Friday.
The establishment of safe zones is the latest international attempt to reduce violence amid a sixyear civil war that has left more than 400,000 dead, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal.
Also in the world
The United States has joined the European Union and U.N. human rights agencies in expressing concern over the extended pre-trial detention of five Cambodian human rights workers held for more than a year...Min Bahadur Sherchan, an 85year-old man from Nepal died Saturday while attempting to scale Mount Everest to regain his title as the oldest person to climb the world’s highest peak. Mr. Sherchan first scaled Everest in May 2008 when he was 76 — at the time becoming the oldest climber to reach the top. His record was broken in 2013 by Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura, 80.