Reuters, Washington
The U.S. Congress on Friday released a long-classified section of the official report on the Sept. 11 attacks describing an array of potential links between some of the hijackers and officials in Saudi Arabia.
The 28 pages of the report on the 2002 investigation focus on potential Saudi government ties to the 2001 aircraft attacks on the United States, in which nearly 3,000 people died.
Russia to deploy air defence
systems in Crimea
AFP, Moscow
Russia will deploy its most advanced S-400 air defence systems to the annexed Crimea peninsula in August, a military official said Friday.
Russia is currently using its older S-300 systems on the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in March 2014 in a move condemned by the West that led to the imposition of US and EU sanctions. “In August 2016 the (S-400) systems are expected to be unloaded in Feodosia where they will be permanently located,” Yevgeny Oleinikov, deputy commander of the Russian army’s 18th surface-to-air missile regiment, told RIA Novosti state news agency, referring to an eastern Crimean town.
20 loyalist troops killed fighting IS in Libya
AFP, Tripoli
Twenty Libyan unity government fighters were killed and more than 100 wounded Friday in clashes with the Islamic State group in the jihadists’ coastal stronghold of Sirte, pro-government forces said.
Fighting was fiercest around Sirte’s conference centre, which has become a command headquarters for IS at the heart of the city, a statement from forces loyal to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) said.
Air raids kill 19 in Aleppo
AFP, Beirut
Air raids on rebel-held districts of Syria’s battleground second city of Aleppo killed 19 civilians including children on Saturday, a monitor said. “Eleven civilians, including four children, were killed by air raids after midnight in the Bab al-Nasr area of Old Aleppo, and seven others were killed in Fardous neighbourhood,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
