Paramilitary organizations

Turkey on Jan. 2 strongly condemned a "heinous" terror attack targeting employees of a Turkish company that undertook the Mogadishu-Afgoye road construction and "contributes to the development and prosperity" of Somalia.

The deputy leader of Kosovo Liberation Army War Veterans' Organisation, Nasim Haradinaj, who is accused of obstructing justice and intimidating witnesses, declined to enter a plea at his initial appearance at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague in Friday.

"In regards to my plea, my lawyer will speak on my behalf," Nasim Haradinaj told the pre-trial judge, Nicolas Guillou.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi paid a one-day official visit to Ankara on Dec.17 to discuss with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan economy and security matters, including combatting the PKK and ISIL, the re-construction of Iraq, trade and energy.

The Pentagon said on Dec. 4 it is pulling most U.S. troops out of Somalia on President Donald Trump's orders, continuing a post-election push by Trump to shrink U.S. involvement in counterterrorism missions abroad.

Albania's parliament voted on Thursday to set up an investigative committee to collect information on other investigations conducted by local and international bodies into alleged crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army in Albania in the war in Kosovo two decades ago.

The parliament will then present a resolution based on the findings.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers published on Monday a redacted decision by a pre-trial judge confirming an indictment against former President Hashim Thaci and three former fellow guerrilla commanders accusing them of crimes against humanity and war crimes during and after the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

A 27-year-old Syrian man suspected of being a member of the Islamic State terrorist organization is due to testify to an Athens magistrate Monday, following his arrest in the Greek capital last Thursday.

Terrorists linked to the ISIL killed dozens of people in the latest of a flurry of bloody attacks in northeast Nigeria, local sources said on June 14.

Inhabitants of remote Goni Usmanti village told AFP that terrorists gunned down 38 people in a raid on June 13 and set a truck ablaze, killing an unknown number of passengers.

Greek Cyprus' supreme court on May 29 upheld an order to extradite a suspected Hezbollah member to the U.S. on money laundering charges, official media said.

A five-judge bench unanimously dismissed an appeal against a decision by a lower court in September 2019 to extradite the man, identified only by his surname Diab, the Greek Cyprus News Agency said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has denied a parole request by Hampig Sassounian, an Armenian who assassinated a Turkish diplomat in Los Angeles in 1982.  

The announcement came on May 25 with Newsom reversing the Board of Parole Hearings' decision which found Sassounian suitable for parole.