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At least four killed as fighting in DRC continues despite truce: Report

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At least four killed as fighting in DRC continues despite truce: Report

The US had announced a humanitarian truce between Kinshasa and the M23 rebel group on July 5.

Two children and two teenagers have been killed in a bombardment in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), local sources have told AFP news agency.

The United States announced a humanitarian truce on July 5 between Kinshasa and the M23 rebel group operating in eastern DRC. It was supposed to last until July 19, but fighting erupted on Friday.

A spokesman for one of the armed groups backing the DRC forces said the fighting occurred 70km (43 miles) northwest of the North Kivu provincial capital, Goma.

By Monday, the fighting had reached the town of Bweremana, around 15km (9.3 miles) west of Goma, where the deadly bombardment struck.

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The dead included two children from the same family, according to Innocent Mwitehofu Mumbara, a local civil society leader. The four victims were aged two, three, 16 and 18, Mumbara added.

A mother and her four-year-old child were among the wounded, said Bweremana Police Commissioner Paulin Ilunga, claiming that the shell had “come from the hills where the M23 is”.

Confirming the deaths of four people in the attack, a hospital source told AFP that five more had been admitted with serious injuries.

The DRC has been facing political instability and armed violence since 1996, with an estimated six million people killed since the conflict began.

Since the end of 2021, the M23, supported by units of the Rwandan army, had seized vast swathes of territory in North Kivu, going so far as to almost completely encircle Goma.

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According to a Human Rights Watch report, M23 allegedly executed scores of villagers and militia members between November 2022 and April 2023, burying them in mass graves in the village of Kishishe, North Kivu.

The report says that M23 has committed unlawful killings, rape, and other war crimes since late 2022, exacerbating the dire humanitarian crisis in the country. A total 171 civilians were executed in the last 10 days of November alone, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

At the end of June, the M23 and the Rwandan army seized several towns in Lubero territory, in the north of North Kivu, following the collapse of the Congolese army and its auxiliary militias.

Nearly 50 soldiers were sentenced to death in the following days for “fleeing the enemy”.

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Britain drags feet on IRGC terror designation as Iran-linked center allegedly sells extremist merchandise

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Britain drags feet on IRGC terror designation as Iran-linked center allegedly sells extremist merchandise

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is facing intense criticism over its failure to swiftly outlaw Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The development comes as a London-based Islamic center has been accused of selling merchandise supporting terrorism.

Potkin Azarmehr, a British-Iranian expert on Iran who has written extensively on Iran’s influence operations in the United Kingdom, told Fox News Digital the “Islamic Centre of England is a regime outpost.

“The head of the center is directly appointed by Iran’s supreme leader. The letter of the appointment is publicly read during the inauguration ceremony. There is not a shred of doubt that the center is used to peddle the influence of Iran’s political Islam. It is also used to recruit disgruntled British individuals who are sent to Iran for training.”

The Daily Telegraph reported in late January that U.K. authorities were investigating the Islamic Centre of England for allegedly selling Hezbollah phone cases and pro-Iranian regime key rings. Britain has sanctioned the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist movement, Hezbollah.

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A Google Maps photo showing the Islamic Centre of England in London. (Google Maps)

The pro-Hezbollah and pro–Islamic Republic goods were reportedly sold at a bazaar Dec. 14, 2025, according to the paper. One key ring displayed the words, “With the kindness of God, Seyyed Ali [Khamenei] is our leader.” The Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Khamenei, would order the murder of thousands of Iranian demonstrators just weeks later.

The bazaar also allegedly had stickers of late IRGC global terrorist Qassem Soleimani, who was responsible for the murders of over 600 military personnel, according to the Trump administration. President Trump ordered a drone strike in January 2020 that killed Soleimani in Iraq.

Emma Schubart, a research fellow at Britain’s Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital, “The Islamic Centre of England is not an isolated religious institution; it is part of a wider ecosystem of Iranian state-linked influence operating openly in the U.K., and at the center of that ecosystem sits the IRGC.

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“The U.K. Government is dragging its feet over designating the IRGC. By delaying action, ministers are allowing hostile Iranian networks to continue operating under the cover of civil society and religious life. This is a dangerous blind spot in Britain’s national security.”

The Islamic Centre of England is a registered charity. When asked about reports of the Islamic Center’s role in selling pro-terrorist merchandise, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Charity Commission told Fox News Digital, “As part of our ongoing statutory inquiry into (the) Islamic Centre of England, we have raised concerns with the trustees about material sold by third parties at a recent event hosted at the charity’s premises. We take very seriously any alleged links between a charity and extremism or terrorism. Such links are abhorrent and corrosive to the trust on which the charitable sector depends.”

A British Union flag flies from a souvenir stall near the Houses of Parliament in London Oct. 27, 2025. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Azarmehr, however, countered, “The U.K. Charity Commission, the regulatory body, has been ‘investigating’ the center for five years with no decisions and no updates other than appointing an interim director, but the center carries on business as usual.

“The only tangible result is that every time you make a complaint to the charity about the center, they reply by saying that because they are investigating the center, they cannot comment.

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The first head of the center, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, is now a member of Iran’s powerful Assembly of Experts and a key figure in propagating Iran’s soft power abroad. Araki’s family have U.K. citizenship. The previous U.K. government, in which Alicia Kearns was part of its administration, even paid the center in excess of £100,000 in COVID-19 furlough.”

In this photo released Jan. 6, 2020, by the official website of the Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fourth from left, leads a prayer over the coffins of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and his comrades who were killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone strike at the Tehran University campus, in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Kearns, who is the shadow minister for home affairs for the opposition Conservative party, is now demanding that the Islamic Center be shuttered. 

“These latest revelations of terrorist tat being sold by the Islamic Centre of England are yet more evidence of why the center must be closed and those responsible for propagating terrorist propaganda face the law,” she told the Telegraph.

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“The figures being idealized are responsible for the cold-blooded murder of tens of thousands of young Iranian protesters, adding to the many regional and international crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

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A spokesperson for the Islamic Centre of England told Fox News Digital, “The trustees take all concerns about the center very seriously. We are currently reviewing matters pertaining to the Dec. 14 event and, in light of this, are unable to comment further at this time.”

The EU announced last week that it has classified the IRGC a terrorist entity. The U.S., Canada and Australia have previously designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization. The IRGC played a key role in the massacre of Iranian demonstrators last month.

Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026.   (MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

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The proliferation of pro-Iran activism unfolded last weekend in London. Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party in the United Kingdom, posted on X, “When people in Britain are chanting support for the thuggish regime in Iran, we are in serious trouble as a nation.”

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Video footage embedded in Farage’s post and other clips on social media shows a mix of pro-Palestinian and pro-Iran regime messaging at the protests.

Multiple Fox News Digital inquiries to the British prime minister’s office went unanswered.

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Council of Europe chief calls for political and financial backing of Ukraine Special Tribunal

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The head of Europe’s leading human rights organisation, the Council of Europe, told Euronews that European countries need to provide the budgetary resources and political will to ensure accountability for Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.

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Sporticast 525: Live From the Super Bowl With a Former NFL MVP

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Sporticast 525: Live From the Super Bowl With a Former NFL MVP

On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams chat from Super Bowl Radio Row in San Francisco.

They open by discussing a chaotic start to the week for the NFL. Commissioner Roger Goodell held his annual state of the league press conference Monday, and he answered a number of questions that no commissioner wants to address. Reporters asked about why no Black head coaches were hired in this recent cycle, how Goodell feels about halftime performer Bad Bunny’s political comments at the Grammy’s and how the league is reacting to New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch’s frequent communications with Jeffrey Epstein.

Next they share clips from a few radio row interviews. In the first, former Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander discusses significant changes in how NFL teams treat his former position. Running backs were once among the highest paid players on an NFL team. Now, they’re valued quite differently. A former NFL MVP, he speaks about his own experience, his contracts and injuries, and why he thinks running backs are currently undervalued.

In another clip, USA Football CEO Scott Hallenbeck talks about the sport-wide push for flag football. At the Super Bowl alone, there was a flag Pro Bowl, a celebrity flag game and an exhibition for the flag football that will be coming to the Summer Olympics in 2028. He discusses NFL players participating in LA28 and the way flag football has opened the sport to wider demographics.

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(You can subscribe to Sporticast through Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.)

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