Somalia

BELGRADE - Increased participation of members of the Serbian Defence Ministry and Armed Forces in UN and EU peace missions around the world confirms that Serbia has become a significant exporter of security and equal partner in protecting global peace, Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic has said.

One thing the biographies of Jihadi John, the Islamic State's executioner of foreign hostages, and several of his European associates have in common is their passion for football and their dashed hopes of becoming professional players.

Police find another group of illegal migrants

BELGRADE -- The Serbian police have discovered a group of 15 foreign nationals who carried no personal documents on a highway near the town of Velika Plana.

The daily Blic writes that they are citizens of Syria, who told the officers that they avoided border crossings and crossed to Serbia from Macedonia on foot.

"Jihadi John", the masked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant linked to the beheading of Western hostages, was named on Feb. 26 as Kuwaiti-born London computer programmer Mohammed Emwazi by experts and the media.
      

16,500 people sought asylum in Serbia last year

BELGRADE -- Deputy Commissioner for Refugees and Migration Ivan Gerginov said on Wednesday that 16,500 people have sought asylum in Serbia in 2014.

11,300 of them found shelter in asylum centers, he revealed.

Turkey has condemned a series of deadly bombings in eastern Libya and the Somalian capital Mogadishu.

A statement issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the bombings in Libya's eastern Al-Qubbah city that left 47 people dead and dozens injured on Feb. 20, offered condolences to the victims' families and wished a fast recovery for the injured.

Between four and 20 people have been killed and many injured in a suicide bombing of a hotel in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, international news outlets reported on Friday.

Mogadishu's deputy mayor Mohamed Aden and a Somali member of parliament were among those killed, AP reported.

The United States sought to unite nations around a common vision for combating violent jihadist groups in three days of talks which ended on Feb. 19 long on words but short on concrete steps.

Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents killed at least 25 people on Feb. 20 in an attack on a popular hotel in the capital Mogadishu where government ministers and officials were holding Friday prayers.
      

Foreign fighters are flocking to Syria at an "unprecedented" rate, with more than 20,000 volunteers from around the world joining the Islamic State or other extremist groups, US intelligence officials said on Feb. 10.