PAKISTAN: Gunmen fatally shot a police officer assigned to protect polio workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, an official said today.

At least 10 police have died this year while providing security for vaccination campaigns in the province.

No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

KAZAKHSTAN: Authorities arrested a former interior minister today in connection with a deadly police crackdown on unrest that gripped the country in 2022.

The prosecutor-general’s office announced on Monday that Erlan Turgumbayev had been detained on charges of “abuse of power and official authority resulting in grave consequences” during the harsh police crackdown, local media reported. 

CAMBODIA:  A huge explosion that killed 20 soldiers at an army base in the country’s south-west at the weekend appears to have been an accident caused by troops mishandling ammunition, a senior military official said today.

Saturday’s blast in Kampong Speu province also destroyed military vehicles and four buildings at the base, with homes in a nearby village also damaged.

MALI: A senior jihadist commander wanted over the deaths of US military personnel in Niger has been killed in an operation by Malian state forces, the army said.

Abu Huzeifa, known by the alias Higgo, was a commander of the group known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. 

Mr Huzeifa is believed to have helped carry out a 2017 attack in Tongo Tongo, Niger, which left four US and four Nigerien soldiers dead.