Three Al Shabaab militants were killed in fierce fighting after the Al Qaeda-allied insurgents launched an attack on a government military base in Jala-laksi district of Hiran region in central Somalia.

Jala-laksi deputy administrator Mahamod Fidow told journalists on Monday that Somali military officers repulsed the attack by heavily armed Al-Shabaab fighters on their military base on Sunday night, Xinhua news agency reported.

“They attacked our military base, but the forces stopped them. We have managed to kill three of the attackers while the others fled away from the scene,” Fidow said.

He said the military officers later launched security operations in the region and arrested several suspects who were being investigated for various incidents of insecurity in the region.

“We will investigate them and later release innocent people while those found with offences will be taken to court,” Fidow added.

The official also said that the situation was calm, denying there were casualties among the security forces.

The Al Shabaab has not claimed responsibility, but the group has carried out similar terror attacks before, vowing to intensify attacks on government bases and African Union peace-keepers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The spokesman for South Sudan’s army has expressed doubt about a recent United Nations report accusing the army of committing atrocities.

The report, which was based on interviews with 115 witnesses, accused the South Sudan army of committing atrocities including raping and burning women and girls alive in oil-rich Unity State between April and June.

Col. Philip Aguer dismissed the report as being without merit. He demanded an independent inquiry into the atrocities to determine who committed them.

“We are doubting the truth of this report because it was politically motivated,” said Aguer. “If it is a reality it has to be followed by a transparent investigation that will include the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the SPLA [Sudan People’s Liberation Army] and other stakeholders to prove that really the army has committed such atrocities.”

“The suspiciousness is that the report is based on people that were interviewed within the camp of the United Nations in Unity State. And more than 90 percent of those in the camps are supporters of Riek Machar and supporters of the rebellion. And therefore, they would never say anything good about the government or about the army,” he added.

The conflict between the government and rebels loyal to the former vice president Riek Machar has left tens of thousands dead and displaced an estimated 3 million people from their homes.

Aguer says the army has taken steps to ensure soldiers fighting on behalf of the government don’t commit human rights violations.

But both sides have been accused of committing human rights violations in the ongoing conflict. Several attempts by regional leaders to help resolve the conflict have so far been unsuccessful, despite several peace agreements signed by President Salva Kiir and Machar.

Aguer questioned the timing of the report’s release, saying it was biased to bolster the stance of the rebels in the conflict.

“We feel that the report came at the time when Riek Machar rejected the agreement in Nairobi, and this to us is providing Riek Machar with tools of intransigence in which he is rejecting any agreement and taking this as a moral ground that he has a case. So the coincidence between the timing of the report and the rejecting of the rebels of the peace agreement is a concern,” said Aguer.

He said only an independent investigation could lead to those who committed the atrocities.

“We are calling for the report to be investigated, and if found that the SPLA committed these atrocities, those responsible must be brought to justice and court of law,” said Aguer.

“We are concerned because some of the atrocities that are mentioned they are not really part of our cultures and we have never burnt people alive as an army, even when we were fighting the real enemy of the people of South Sudan. This is why the army is concerned and we have to start the investigation immediately.”

Two bombs have exploded at a crowded mosque and an elite Muslim restaurant in Nigeria’s central city of Jos, killing at least 15 people.

There was no immediate official word on the Sunday night blasts.

Witnesses who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals say the explosion at Yantaya Mosque came as a leading cleric who preaches peaceful co-existence was addressing a crowd during the holy month of Ramadan. The witnesses say they don’t know how many worshippers died.

Another bomb exploded at Shagalinku, a restaurant patronised by elite politicians. Mark Lipdo of the Christian Stefanos Foundation says at least 15 people died there.

Jos has been targeted in the past by bomb blasts claimed by Boko Haram Islamic extremists that have killed hundreds of people.

A dozen armored vehicles approached Bouraima Adamma and his colleagues, who were resting under a tree. French soldiers got out, searched the men’s belongings and confiscated Adamma’s AK-47 and ammunition.

The French captain explained that Adamma is not a member of the Malian army and therefore not allowed to carry weapons.

A peace deal in May came after months of negotiations in Algeria between Mali’s government, Tuareg separatist groups and armed groups allied with the government. On June 20th, rebel groups travelled to Bamako, the capital, to ratify the agreement.

But a disarmament plan to prevent tensions from rising again has yet to be enforced.

Adamma is a part of a government-allied armed group called Gandaa Izo.

“Our leader in Gao told us to leave Menaka because all is well since the peace accords,” said another member of his group, Hassan Husseini Diallo. “He told us to go back to care for the cattle. They will call us to bring in our weapons.”

These men gave up their arms peacefully, but it’s unclear how arms will be collected across the vast desert region of northern Mali. French forces intervened in 2013 after Islamic extremist groups took over areas of the north following a grab by separatist groups.

U.N. Mali mission spokeswoman Radhia Achouri said the “disarmament itself is the responsibility of the signatories.” However, since the peace deal was signed, these French forces are assisting Malian authorities in confiscating weapons.

The deal has increased people’s hopes.

“Since we’ve heard this we’re very happy, says retired teacher Adamma Touri. “Since the signature we’ve noticed that people live in quiet. There aren’t any problems. People sleep peacefully.”

African Union troops fighting Somalia’s Shebab insurgents have pulled back from several key towns following a series of attacks by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters, local officials said.

The withdrawal, a rare retreat after AU troops seized swathes of territory from the radical Islamists, includes the towns of Qoryoley and Awdhegele, which have since been taken over by Shebab in Somalia’s southern Lower Shabelle region.

The Islamic militants have stepped up their attacks during Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan.

“They pulled out of Qoryoley, there is not a single soldier left behind,” local government official Mohamed Haji Osman said. Residents reported that the Shebab had since moved in and hoisted their black flag over the town, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu.

“Shebab fighters entered the town and their flag is flying over the district headquarters. All AMISOM and Somali troops pulled out,” said resident Ahmed Hassan.

Awdhegele district commissioner Mohamed Aweys said he left the town after soldiers from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) retreated.

“This is a complete setback because Al-Shebab is gaining ground,” he said.

The Shebab is fighting to overthrow Somalia’s Western-backed government which is propped up and protected by the 22,000-strong AMISOM force.

Last week, the Shebab attacked an AMISOM base in Lego village, 100 kilometres (62 miles) northwest of the capital Mogadishu, manned by around 100 Burundian soldiers.

The Shebab later boasted of having killed 80 soldiers and carried off the bodies of 60 of them, before setting the base on fire.

Video images taken by the Shebab and seen by AFP show several bodies scattered around the ransacked base, with one shot showing around a dozen bodies lined up.

Shebab commander Mohamed Abu-Abdallah said his fighters were celebrating their advance in Lower Shabelle.

“The enemy is fleeing from the region… this is the beginning of the fall of the Christian invaders,” he said.

For the first time since its formation, one of Mali’s most violent Islamist extremist rebel groups is actively trying to expand internationally into Mauritania and Ivory Coast. The group, Ansar al Dine, attacked towns on Mali’s borders with both countries this past week and leaders of the group say they are planning more raids. The group’s new threat prompted forces from Ivory Coast to carry out a mission inside Mali Wednesday to try to track down the rebels who are thought to be hiding in the Sama forest.

Statements by the group’s leaders and the attacks carried out by rebels within the past week mimic those of groups like Boko Haram, the Nigerian militant group that is trying to expand from its land in Borno State into Cameroon and Chad.

The growing rebellion in the southern part of Mali comes just over one week after the Malian government and semi-moderate ethnic Tuareg rebel umbrella group signed a peace deal in Bamako. The two parties signed the deal after years of international pressure from Algeria, France and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country. The peace deal calls for the creation of elected regional assemblies but stops short of autonomy or federalism for northern Mali, known by locals as Azawad.

The peace deal solidified the control by Tuareg rebels in the north and forced groups like Ansar al Dine to look south.

Leaders of Ansar al Dine told Agence France-Presse that the group would “multiply the attacks in Ivory Coast, Mali and Mauritania” and accused all three countries of collaborating with “the enemies of Islam.”

Malian local media reported Wednesday that soldiers from both Mali and Ivory Coast traveling with U.N. peacekeepers initiated a search operation on the border of Ivory Coast near the town of Fakola where the rebels attacked over the weekend. Three rebels were killed in the search.

Officials did not specify if the rebels killed were affiliated with Ansar al Dine, though the rebel group is the only one active in the southern part of the country.

Ansar al Dine, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2013, formed during the Malian political turmoil in 2012. The group follows the Saudi-inspired Salafist/Wahhabism Muslim ideology even though most of the people in Mali identify with the Sufi sect — often defined as a faction of Islam that follows the inner, mystical aspects of the religion.

The group is led by the infamous former Tuareg rebel leader Iyad Ag Ghaly. (Tuareg rebels are a part of an ethnic group that lives throughout the Sahara region.) A number of its militants are Tuareg fighters who returned from Libya after fighting alongside Moammar Gadhafi’s troops.

Ansar al Dine wants to control land in Mali and elsewhere and to implement Shariah law there. Analysts say the group is closely connected to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is led by Ag Ghaly’s cousin Hamada Ag Hama.

Until now, the rebel group has sought to control land in northern Mali and to create an Islamic State there. It took over several towns, seizing territory from more moderate Tuareg rebel groups, in 2012 and 2013. It still holds territory in Timbuktu and Gao.

Ansar al Dine has grown stronger over the last year, attacking military outposts and government buildings with increasing force. (It does not attack civilians.)

The group receives its money from foreign donors, some from Algeria, others from Libya and Tunisia. It also relies on a broad smuggling network. The group not only participates in the human trafficking trade that is booming in Mali, but also participates in trafficking cocaine, marijuana and cigarettes.