The International Criminal Court has transferred two former Congolese militia leaders, convicted of war crimes, to a prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Thomas Lubanga and Germain Katanga are the first ICC convicts to be allowed to serve sentences in their home country, the BBC reports.

Turkey says it will pull more of its troops out of northern Iraq, following a partial withdrawal earlier this week, soon after US President Barack Obama urged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to "de-escalate tensions" with the Iraqi government.

The Turkish foreign ministry said it acknowledged a "miscommunication" with Iraq over the deployment of its forces, after Baghdad strongly objected to the deployment at the Bashiqa camp near the Islamic State held city of Mosul, where Turkey is engaged in training Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution endorsing an international road map seeking a peaceful political solution.

The resolution, endorsed on Friday, supported a plan agreed by world powers in Vienna on how to help transition Syria form civil war to a political solution.
 
The US Secretary of State John Kerry told the 15 nation council that,

Thousands of Iraqis protested against Turkey’s deployment of troops to a base near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday.

The deployment of Turkish troop into Iraq earlier this month sparked uproar in Baghdad, which appealed to the United Nations Security Council to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Turkish troops from northern Iraq.

Turkey has refused, stating that the troops were part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces fighting Islamic state militants, reports Reuters.

Almost 800 cases of rape, torture and murder were committed over eight months in the Central Africa Republic by armed groups, reported the UN mission MINUSCA on Friday.

MINUSCA’s first human rights report said 775 violations and abuses affecting at least 785 victims were committed between September 2014 to May 2015.

The 25 page report found that “serious challenges remain given the lack of progress towards the disarmament of armed groups and the absence of a functioning state authority in much of the territory.”

A former Rwandan mayor who was wanted for genocide was arrested by the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday.

Ladislas Ntaganzwa, accused of orchastrating the killing of tens of thousands of people during the 1994 genocide, was indicted in 1996 and accused of genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide as well as extermination murder and rape.

Rwanda’s Prosecutor General Richard Muhumza, in a statement made after the arrest, said,

Syria’s political and armed opposition agreed to meet with the Assad regime for talks seeking a political solution to the conflict next month announced the chair of the opposition groups conference in Saudi Arabia.

Over 100 members of Syria’s opposition parties and rebel fighting groups agreed, at the end of two days of discussion in Riyadh, to attend talks with President Assad’s government, reports Reuters. 

Several military bases across Burundi were attacked by insurgents, killing at least 12 attackers.

An army spokesperson said that five soldiers were injured in the clashes.

It is unclear who is behind the violence but the spokesperson said insurgents wanted to take weapons before freeing prisoners.

A presidential adviser, Willy Nyamitwe, said the insurgents had failed, describing them as Sindjuma, meaning "I am not a slave".