Libya

The Greek coast guard on Tuesday intercepted a Bolivian-flagged freighter carrying an undeclared cargo of weapons.

The “Hadat 1″ was taken to the Cretan port of Irakleio for a further inspection.

The vessel had disembarked from Turkey and was headed to strife-plagued Libya when intercepted off eastern Crete.

Crew-members include Syrians, Egyptians and Indians.

Libyan pro-government forces on Aug. 31 battled jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in second city Benghazi, where five pro-government fighters have been killed in two days of violence, media said.

Four suspects in Austria's migrant truck tragedy were remanded in custody in Hungary on Aug. 29, as Austrian police rescued three "severely dehydrated" refugee children packed into another vehicle.

A court in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan on Aug. 26 slapped jail terms of between 12 and 14 years on three men for fighting in Syria, a source familiar with the case told AFP.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had ambitious plans for Afghanistan, but Taliban resistance, US drone strikes, and a society less scarred by sectarianism mean the extremists have so far failed to repeat their Middle Eastern breakthrough.

Austrian police found the decomposing bodies of up to 50 migrants in an abandoned truck on Aug. 27, sparking a cross-border hunt for the people-smugglers responsible for the latest tragedy in Europe's migrant crisis.

At least 30 people died on Aug. 27 when a boat carrying around 200 migrants bound for Europe sank in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya, the country's coast guard said.

Turkey has introduced visa requirements for Libyans, due to security concerns, the Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Aug. 27. 

Turkey annulled a memorandum of agreement with Libya from 2009 waiving visas for nationals of both countries, with Libyan citizens having to apply for a visa to travel to Turkey as of Sept. 24, Tanju Bilgiç told reporters on Aug. 27. 

The Arab League said it had postponed indefinitely a ministerial meeting set for Aug. 27 to approve the creation of a joint military force to intervene against jihadists.

Libya?s state electricity firm is in talks with Turkish firms to get them to return to carry out badly-needed maintenance work at power plants in the North African nation, a senior official with the Libyan company said.

Libya has been hit hard by power outages as fighting between rival factions damaged plants, interrupted the grid and made the import of spare parts more difficult.