Forces loyal to the Libyan UN-backed government launched a military operation to pursue Islamic State (IS) remnants in areas east and southeast of Tripoli, a government spokesman said.

“According to the instructions of Prime Minister Fayez Serraj, a military operation called Homeland Storm was launched at Monday dawn to pursue the remnants of terrorist groups, mainly IS,” said spokesman Mohamed Al-Sallak.

The operation started from the eastern city of Misurata, 200km east of the capital Tripoli, covering valleys and the desert area of the nearby cities of Sirte, Bani Walid and Tarhouna, according to the spokesman.

Eight people were killed by a bomb-laden vehicle on a checkpoint near Libya’s eastern city of Ajdabiya, a stronghold for forces loyal to the military commander Khalifa Haftar, according to a local security source, APA reports quoting AA.

The source, who spoke to Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity, said the attack killed six soldiers and two civilians, while it injured some others.

On March 9, three people were also injured by a car-bomb attack in the south of Ajdabiya city. The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Libya has remained dogged by turmoil since 2011, when a bloody uprising ended with the ouster and death of President Muammar Gaddafi after more than four decades in power.

Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power — a legislative assembly in the eastern city of Tobruk (to which Haftar is loyal) and a government based in the capital Tripoli — along with a host of heavily-armed militia groups.

Tunisian army troops have clashed with an armed group near a residential compound near the country’s western city of Kasserine, like reported by middleeastmonitor.com.

According to a statement by the official spokesman of the Tunisian Defence Ministry, Belhassen Al-Waslati, the armed group, which was equipped with weapons, came close to one of the residential compounds in Kasserine.

The army targeted them, forcing them to flee, Al-Waslati added. He pointed out that the military operations in the area are still carried out with the aim of tracking the armed group’s base.

The army and security forces have for years been carrying out operations against extremist armed groups that are fortified in mountainous regions in Tunisia, especially Kasserine that is close to the Algerian border.These groups often pledge their allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or Daesh.

One of the militants killed in a U.S. air strike in Libya over the weekend was a “high-ranking” official in al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Pentagon said according to reuters.com.

The strike, the first against al Qaeda militants in Libya, killed “two terrorists” as part of efforts to deny militants a safe haven in the country’s vast desert.

The military had previously acknowledged the weekend strike, but had not until now said who the target of the strike was.

In a statement, the U.S. military said Musa Abu Dawud, the senior al Qaeda militant, had trained recruits in Libya to carry out attacks in the region.

“He provided critical logistics support, funding and weapons to AQIM, enabling the terrorist group to threaten and attack U.S. and Western interests in the region,” U.S. Africa Command said.

The Saturday strike had hit on the outskirts of the city of Ubari and was carried out in coordination with the internationally recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

Libyan National Army (LNA) Mig-24 fighter jets carried out an airstrike in the south of the country targeting a checkpoint run by the Chadian opposition militia the Counceil de Comandament Militair Pour le Salut de la Répunlique (CCMSR) in Tmassah village, 161 kms south-east of Sebha, like reported by libyaherald.com.

No details on casualties or damage were provided by the LNA. In a separate earlier incident on Sunday LNA airstrikes targeted positions of what the LNA alleged were hostile Chadian militias near Torbou (A key illegal migration passage) located between Um Aranib and Zueila village, where a makeshift palm hideout used by foreign militias was targeted.

It will be recalled that the CCMSR opposition militia group itself splintered from another Chadian opposition militia group, the Le Front pour l’alternance et la concorde au Tchad (FACT). FACT itself has been involved in the fighting in Libya. FACT had been targeted in its makeshift barracks in Doualki near Sebha on 14 April 2016.

The heavy presence of mercenary foreign militias in southern Libya is a direct result of the Libyan political split between Tripoli and Tobruk, with each side recruiting militias to support its fighting effort. The involvement of mercenary foreign militias has been blamed for the rise in crime rates, human trafficking and the drug trade to subsidize the war effort.

The UN Libya Experts Panel report blamed foreign interference in Libya for the failure of the two Libyan sides to achieve reconciliation that is being mediated by the UN.

It will be recalled that the Presidency Council (PC) formed Ceasefire Committee arrived in Sebha from Tripoli on Wednesday and commenced peace talks between the warring Tebus and Awlad Sulieman tribes.

LNA forces started arriving at the Tamenhint and Brak Al Shatti airbases Friday morning with military logistics and armoured vehicles as part of the LNA’s “Law enforcement” operation in reaction to the ongoing fighting in the south of Libya.

Jordan announced on Sunday that it has foiled an ISIS plot to target police stations and the intelligence bureau in the city of Ruseifa, 15 kilometers northeast of Amman., like reported by aawsat.com.

Next week, the military-run state security court will begin examining a list of charges against a dormant cell of 15 ISIS-linked members for planing terrorist attacks on employees at the Intelligence Bureau, the Police directorate and a security center in Russeifa.

The dormant cell also planned to target security patrols on the Amman-Zarqa highway by the end of 2017.

The suspects face seven charges: Plotting to carry out terrorist attacks, possession of weapons to use them in terrorist activities, spreading the ideologies of terrorist groups, selling weapons for illegitimate use and not reporting information linked to terrorist operations.

According to the charges, the suspects had been informed of an ISIS fatwa allowing them to carry out military operations in Jordan.

The 15 suspects, who originate from Russeifa, were all arrested by the Jordanian intelligence between November 24 and 27, 2017.

According to the list of charges, the suspects had pledged allegiance to the first suspect as the Emir of the cell, representing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Based on this pledge, the first four suspects agreed to carry out attacks on members of the Ruseifa intelligence office.

The third suspect had planned the attacks to take revenge from members of the intelligence office, who had previously arrested him on criminal charges.

In recent years, Jordan has been targeted by several terrorist attacks, particularly since becoming a leading member of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Arab media reported Sunday evening that Israel has attacked Hezbollah outposts in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley region of Baalbek adjacent to the Syrian border, like reporetd by ynetnews.com.

The Al Arabiya network reports were denied by the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen network.

The terror-affiliated network cited what was described as a trustworthy source to prove that there was no basis for the reports of an Israeli attack.

Hezbollah’s military public relations site also insisted that the reports were without foundation and that no attacks were launched either on Lebanese or Syrian soil.

The reports come days after Israel confirmed that it was responsible for the 2007 destruction of a Syrian nuclear reactor.

Earlier in Sunday, head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate (MID) Maj.-Gen. Herzi Halevi provided his first public comment on the split with former Mossad head Tamir Pardo, who claimed that the late discovery of the Syrian nuclear reactor was an abject intelligence failure, saying it was “improper to present success as failure.”

“MID has a strategy of partnerships, and we don’t have the privilege of working alone. Even after removing the blackout, I’m proud MID is at an all-time flourish—with Israel’s citizens as benefactors,” Halevi said, speaking Sunday afternoon in a conference organized by Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth to celebrate 70 years of Israeli success.

Two Jordanians were sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in jail with hard labor for planning attacks on the Amman embassies of Russia, Iran and Israel, like reported by toi.com.

Jordan’s state security court convicted the two men for having manufactured explosives and plotting attacks on behalf of “a terrorist group.”

In the charge sheet seen by AFP, the two were accused of belonging to the Islamic State group and of planning to carry out bomb attacks in 2016 on the Russian, Iranian and Israeli embassies in Amman.

They were arrested in March 2016.

A suicide bombing in June of that year claimed by IS near a border post with war-torn Syria killed seven Jordanian soldiers.

Israel’s embassy in Amman has been shuttered since a deadly scuffle there in July.

Last month, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced the appointment of Amir Weissbrod as Israel’s new ambassador to Jordan.

The announcement came after Israel and Jordan reached an agreement to end a diplomatic standoff over the July 23, 2017, shooting deaths of two Jordanian men by an Israeli embassy security guard. Israel says the guard opened fire in self-defense after being attacked by one of the men.

Israel’s outgoing ambassador to Jordan, Einat Schlein, hurriedly left Amman late on July 23 along with the rest of the embassy staff, leaving the mission empty.

Despite spending billions of dollars to reinforce border security, Algeria remains incapable of securing its large desert borders where terrorist and trafficking networks are taking advantage of the porous and low-monitored borders, HS Jane’s Information Group said.

The Group, specializing in security studies, noted that Algeria is unable to control its borders with Libya, Tunisia and Mali where Jihadists have shown capacity to infiltrate the borders and conduct attacks on Algeria’s strategic targets.

Algeria, Africa’s largest country, shares borders with six countries, all of them are closed with the exception of its land frontiers with Tunisia.

This closed-border attitude is reflective of a lack of a neighborhood policy in an increasingly integrated continent where collective efforts are the best means to countering trans-border challenges.

Experts have long insisted that fighting terrorism in the region should be a collective endeavor as national approaches have long proved their inefficiency.

Yet, there is a silently brewing lack of trust between Sahel countries and Algeria on the issue of terrorism. Algeria, the native land of the leaders of most terrorist groups operating in the Sahel, has shown ambivalence in tackling the terrorist threats, which feeds suspicions and erodes trust in Algeria’s willingness to combat terrorism.

The connivance of Algeria’s intelligence services with Algerian national Moukhtar Belmoukhtar, aka Mr Marlboro, is no secret. International reports have also accused Algeria of cooperating with Ansar Eddine and its leader Ag Ghali to quell the separatist ambitions of the secular Azawad movement. Algeria’s support for Ag Ghali was intended to foster extremism in the region to avert a spillover of an independent Touareg state on its own Touareg population.

Algeria’s laxism with Ag Ghali facilitated the merger of four terrorist groups operating in the Sahel into one group pledging allegiance to Al Qaeda and its Jordanian leader Azarkawi. The four terrorist groups were brought together under the command of Ag Ghali. The new terrorist organization bears the name of “Jamaât Nasr Al islam wa Al mouminin” (Group for the Defense of Islam and the Muslims).

The creation of the G5 has also infuriated Algerian political leaders. It is no coincidence that the anti-Sub-Saharan migrant rhetoric is on the surge following the formation of the G5 force.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in southern Tunisia, according to the country’s Interior Ministry, and according to aa.com.tr.

In a statement, the ministry said that security forces had tracked down two terrorist suspects in the southeastern city of Ben Gardane.

After one of them blew himself up, security forces exchanged fire with the second suspect, the ministry said without providing any death or injury tolls.

In March of 2016, Ben Gardane was the scene of fierce confrontations between Tunisian security forces and the Daesh terrorist group, which ended in a crushing defeat for the latter.

Daesh’s 2016 assault on Ben Gardane resulted in the death of 21 people — including security personnel — and 57 terrorists.