Briefly

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban strike while pushing for talks

The Taliban claimed a deadly attack on an Afghan intelligence agency post on Monday, even as they urged the new power-sharing government to accelerate a prisoner swap to pave the way for talks. At least seven intelligence personnel were killed by the car bomb in the eastern province of Ghazni, officials said. The bombing came a day after President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed a power-sharing accord in Kabul, ending their bitter months-long feud. The agreement overcomes one of the hurdles to negotiations with the Taliban, which warned on Monday that talks cannot open until a piecemeal prisoner swap is completed.

YEMEN

UK-flagged tanker attacked by pirates

Pirates attacked a United Kingdom-flagged chemical tanker off Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, Stolt Tankers said. The vessel's armed guards exchanged fire with two skiffs manned by six armed pirates, who approached the vessel Stolt Apal at high speed, the company said in a statement. The vessel's guards disabled one skiff and ended the pursuit. There were no injuries on board, and only the vessel's bridge area sustained minor damage from bullets. This was the ninth reported attack in the Gulf of Aden this year, observers said.

DR CONGO

Fresh ethnic violence claims 20 lives

An armed group killed at least 20 civilians in an overnight raid on a village in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DR Congo, on Sunday, the latest incident in a surge of ethnic violence that has forced 200,000 people from their homes in two months. Fighters from the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo militia group, which is made up of fighters from the Lendu ethnic group, attacked the Hema village of Ndjala in Ituri Province at around 1 am on Sunday, the army and local authorities said.

Agencies - Xinhua