NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Taliban attack: The Taliban launched attacks from multiple directions on a city in western Afghanistan early Tuesday, killing and wounding at least six security forces, officials said. Fared Bakhtawer, head of the Farah provincial council, said the insurgents overran several security checkpoints in the provincial capital of the same name. He said casualties were high among security forces, but couldn’t provide a precise number. Afghan forces have struggled to combat the Taliban in recent years, as the insurgents have seized several districts across the country. The U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, but they still provide support.
2 Last rebel enclave: Syrian government forces are in full control of the last rebel enclave in Syria’s largest province after “overpowering terrorism” following the evacuation of thousands of armed men and civilians, an army officer told state-run TV Tuesday. The rebels have agreed to surrender the northern countryside of Homs province to the government under an agreement reached in early May. According to the deal, thousands of rebels and civilians who refuse to live under government control were to be evacuated to other rebel-held areas in the country’s north. Activists say more than 27,000 civilians and gunmen have left the northern countryside of Homs in the past days, the latest in a string of capitulation deals by the rebels around the country.
3 Jailed opposition leader: A Moscow court sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in jail for staging an unsanctioned protest in the capital. Navalny organized a series of protests on May 5 in Moscow and other Russian cities before President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a new term. Demonstrations under the slogan “He is not our czar” took place in many cities throughout the country. Navalny argued that the authorities’ refusal to allow the protest was illegal and criticized the accusations against him as “ridiculous and unlawful.” The anticorruption campaigner, who has become Putin’s most visible foe, has served several weeks-long jail terms for organizing protests.
4 Suspected militant shot: Indonesian police fatally shot a militant and arrested 13 others Tuesday suspected of links to suicide bombings carried out by two families in the country’s second-largest city. Surabaya police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said the militant died in a shootout in a Surabaya neighborhood with counterterrorism police, who had tried to arrest him over possible involvement in the attacks that killed at least 13 people. He said the arrests of suspected militants were made in raids in Surabaya and its neighboring cities of Malang and Pasuruan. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for all the attacks.
5 Citizenship revoked: A Bahrain court on Tuesday revoked the citizenship of 115 people at a mass terrorism trial, the most to lose their nationality at any one time, amid a years-long crackdown on all dissent in the island kingdom. Bahrain’s Sunni-rule government increasingly has wielded denaturalization as a hammer to beat back dissent on the Shiite-majority island off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. Prosecutors said the case involved a little-known militant group it identified as the “Zulfiqar Brigades.” Bahrain accused defendants of building and detonating bombs, receiving weapons training and plotting to kill police officers.