NEWS OF THE DAY
_1 Somalia fighting: Dozens of soldiers were killed early Thursday in a dawn attack by the Somali extremist group al-Shabab on a military base in the Somali region of Puntland. Al-Shabab — allied with Islamic State rival al Qaeda — said it was responsible for the attack and claimed to have killed 61 soldiers. The precise casualty figure was not known but the Associated Press cited a military official as saying up to 70 were killed. It was al-Shabab’s largest attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a period seen by militants as a key time for attacks. The attack on the Af-Urur military base in the Galgala mountains killed the base commander and his deputy in Puntland, a semiautonomous region that has its own 3,000-strong military force. Under a deal between the Somali and Puntland governments, the force is to be integrated into the Westernbacked national army. Somalia has been mired in civil war for decades.
_2 Drone attack: A U.S. aircraft shot down a pro-Syrian government drone after it fired upon a group of U.S.-led coalition forces in southeastern Syria Thursday, the Pentagon said. Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria told reporters that no coalition forces were injured in the attack and that the drone’s munition struck “dirt.” The incident marks a significant escalation around the Tanf border crossing, a vital link that connects Iraq and Syria. Iran considers the area part of an integral supply route that connects Tehran with Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. In the same area, U.S.-led Special Operations forces have been quietly training a small detachment of Syrian opposition fighters in anticipation of a broader campaign against the Islamic State in the Euphrates River Valley. An alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Wednesday it would attack U.S.-led coalition forces in the area if the United States crossed unspecified “red lines.”
_3 Hacking barrage: As tensions flare between Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran and their allies, reports of hacking are emerging across the gulf. The Qatar-based satellite news network Al-Jazeera said Thursday that it was being buffeted by increasingly serious electronic intrusions that it described as “systematic and continual.” Meanwhile a series of largely lightly trafficked Saudi websites were vandalized by hackers who left messages in Farsi and photographs of Ayatollahs Ali Khamenei and Ruhollah Khomeini, the current and late supreme leaders of Iran respectively.
_4 Same-sex marriage: The Scottish Episcopal Church voted in Edinburgh Thursday to allow its clerics to marry same-sex couples, the first Anglican branch in Britain to permit such weddings in church. Church members voted to remove the doctrinal clause which stated that marriage is a “union of one man and one woman.” The proposal was passed with 80 percent support from bishops and laity and 67 percent of the clergy. _5 Fugitive caught: The police in Japan have arrested the country’s longest-sought fugitive, ending the hunt for a radical leftist accused of killing a police officer nearly 46 years ago. The authorities this week confirmed the identity of the fugitive, Masaaki Osaka, 67, who was arrested last month in Hiroshima on a separate charge and refused to give his name, according to Kyodo, the Japanese news agency. The police said they identified Osaka through DNA testing. A new arrest warrant was issued Wednesday.