MOGADISHU -- Somali National Army (SNA) said Thursday its forces killed 19 al-Shabab fighters in Deynunay village, about 25 km from Baidoa town in the southern part of the country.

The military said its forces also burnt two vehicles belonging to the terrorist group after inflicting heavy casualties on the fighters in an attack which took place on Wednesday. (Somalia-Al-Shabab)

- - - -

RAMALLAH -- Palestine condemned Thursday the killing of three Palestinians, including two security officers, by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement that the Palestinian presidency condemns Israel for the escalating violence and killing of the three men. (Palestine-West Bank)

- - - -

PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan -- Three Afghan soldiers and an assailant were killed and three soldiers wounded in a pre-dawn Taliban suicide car bombing in the country's northern province of Baghlan on Thursday, a local army source confirmed.

The assailant tried to carry out a car bombing against an army base in Bagh-e-Shamal locality of provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri city early Thursday, Abdul Hadi Nazari from the army's 217th Pamir Corps told Xinhua. (Afghanistan-Taliban-Car Bombing)

- - - -

SYDNEY -- A "lab-leak hypothesis" about the origin of COVID-19 is flawed, said Dominic Dwyer, a professor at the University of Sydney, in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald published Tuesday.

The key flaw, he said, is that no evidence shows that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had SARS-CoV-2 before the pandemic. (WHO-COVID-19-Lab Leak Theory)