Taliban insurgents on Tuesday clashed with Afghan forces trying to reach the site of a U.S. military plane crash. The Bombardier E-11A aircraft went down on Monday in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province, a Taliban stronghold. The insurgent group claimed responsibility, but there is no indication enemy fire downed the electronic surveillance plane, said Col. Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for U.S. forces in the country.

One U.S. serviceman and two American contractors died in an attack on an airstrip in Kenya early on Sunday morning. The Kenyan military confirmed five of the attackers died in the assault, which damaged several U.S. and Kenyan aircraft and vehicles at the military base known as Camp Simba. The al-Shabaab Islamic terror group claimed responsibility.

A truck laden with explosives detonated at a busy checkpoint in Mogadishu on Saturday, killing dozens of people. The number of reported deaths stood at 78 in the aftermath of the attack, but officials expected it to rise as more than 100 people sought treatment for injuries. Many of those killed were students returning to class after the holiday break. Witnesses described bodies and body parts strewn through the street alongside the burned-out frames of vehicles.

Islamic State militants in Nigeria released a 56-second video they said shows the execution of 11 Christians on Thursday. ISIS said it captured the Christians in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State but did not release their names or the location of the killings.

Insurgents on motorcycles rode into the town of Arbinda on Christmas Eve, killing at least 35 civilians in an hourslong attack. Security forces in the northern Soum province responded by killing at least 80 of the attackers. An ambush on Christmas Day left at least 11 soldiers in an army patrol dead in the same province.

On the first day of December, about 10 gunmen stormed the SIM Evangelical Church of Hantoukoura in eastern Burkina Faso during Sunday service. They sprayed gunfire inside the church and killed 14 people, including the pastor.

In a statement, the Federation of Evangelical Churches and Missions (FEME) condemned the latest of the recurring attacks and called on Christian organizations to engage in the fight for peace.

About 100 Islamist militants ambushed an army camp and killed 71 soldiers in western Niger. The three-hour assault was the deadliest terror attack on Nigerien forces in years. About a dozen other soldiers sustained injuries during the overnight assault, army spokesman Col. Boukar Hassan said on Wednesday.