In Somalia itself, the Minister of Defense says the operation by Kenyan and Somali forces to capture the city of Kismayo is making good progress. He told the BBC that a strategic location has been seized including the port and airport. And the Somali troops were dug in around the city. He says special forces were gathering intelligence inside Kismayo .

A wave of car bombings and shootings across Iraq have killed at least 32 people and wounded more than 100. One of the worst attacks was in the town of Taji where four car bombs exploded in quick succession. Rami Ruhayem reports from Baghdad.

Across Iraq, car bombs went off as army patrols drove by. And gunmen with silencers attacked army checkpoints. It started in and ROUND BAGHDAD but quickly spread outwards. The northern city of Mosul and the southern city of Kut were hit in addition to Kirkuk which borders the Kurdish region in the north. Civilians were among those killed and injured. But the aim of the attackers seems to have been to kill as many security personnel as possible wherever they could reach them.

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An Islamist group in Syria has published an online video which, it says, shows five captured Yemeni officers purportedly sent to Syria to help fight the rebels. The video shows identity cards of the five men, one of whom appears to be a lieutenant colonel. A rights group in Yemen said they were army officers who had been studying at a military academy in Aleppo and whose families reported their missing last month.