SYRIA
Blast at border kills 10
A bomb blast at a border crossing between Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province and Turkey killed at least 10 Syrian rebel fighters on Sunday, activists said, as a wave of airstrikes pounded the region and fighting raged in the contested northern city of Aleppo. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a suicide bomber struck a bus transporting fighters through the Atmeh border post, one of several crossings Syrian rebels use to bring in fighters and supplies. The monitoring group, which relies on activists inside Syria, said the attack killed 10 fighters. A media activist in the province said the blast killed 40 people. The activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said some 200 rebels from various factions are based near Atmeh and bring in weapons through the crossing. Idlib is dominated by ultraconservative Islamic insurgents, including a group linked to al-Qaida.
IRAQ
Kurds claim to retake villages
Iraqi Kurdish forces say they have retaken five villages east of the Islamic State-held city of Mosul in an operation launched early Sunday. U.S.-backed Kurdish forces known as peshmerga aim to “clear several more villages” in “one of many shaping operations” that will increase pressure on the extremist group, the Kurdish region’s Security Council said. Peshmerga Brig. Gen. Dedewan Khurshid Tofiq described the operation outside Mosul as “ongoing.” A local television network showed footage of smoke rising from a village as armored vehicles pushed across a field.
England
Airship’s launch postponed
The makers of a blimp-shaped, helium-filled airship billed as the world’s biggest aircraft postponed its maiden flight at the last minute on Sunday. The 302-foot-long Airlander 10 was due to take off from an airfield 45 miles north of London on the first in a series of test flights. Stephen McGlennan, chief executive of Hybrid Air Vehicles, said the airship had a technical issue and there was not time to fix it before darkness fell. He didn’t say when the flight might be rescheduled.
Russia
Itching for Mosquito Festival
For residents of one Russian town, the more mosquito bites the better. At this past weekend’s Russian Mosquito Festival in Berezniki, 9-year-old Irina Ilyukhina won the “tastiest girl” category with 43 bites to show for going berry-picking in the forest with her mother. She was awarded a ceramic cup in recognition of the welts all over her legs. Unusually hot and dry weather in the Ural Mountains town, however, has greatly depleted the number of mosquitoes this year. Festival organizers had to cancel the traditional mosquito hunt, where participants try to collect as many of the insects as possible in jars. The heat also had Yana Solyarskaya sweltering in her mosquito costume as she led some of the dancing at the festival, now in its fourth year. Russia has detected only a few Zika virus cases, all in people who are believed to have been infected in areas overseas.
Compiled from wire reports.