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Hezbollah’s top military commander in Syria, Mustafa Amine Badreddine, was killed in artillery fire by jihadists, the Lebanese group says.

Badreddine’s death near Damascus airport was announced on Friday and initially blamed on Israel, Hezbollah’s chief enemy. Badreddine was believed to have run all Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria since 2011.

Thousands of Hezbollah troops are supporting President Bashar al-Assad. This has pitted it against several groups of anti-Assad rebels – from so-called Islamic State (IS) to the al-Nusra Front. Without naming any group, the Hezbollah statement said: “Investigations have showed that the explosion, which targeted one of our bases near Damascus International Airport, and which led to the martyrdom of commander Mustafa Badreddine, was the result of artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups in the area.”

Takfiri is used to describe militants who believe Muslim society has reverted to a state of non-belief.

The Lebanese Shia Islamist movement has played a major role in helping Iran, its main military and financial backer, to prop up the government of President Assad since the uprising erupted in 2011.

Thousands of Hezbollah fighters are assisting government forces on battlefields across Syria, particularly those near the Lebanese border, and hundreds are believed to have been killed. The Hezbollah statement said Badreddine’s death “will increase our determination… to continue the fight against these criminal gangs and defeat them”.

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The UN Security Council has said it is alarmed by ties between Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamist militants and the Islamic State (IS) group.

In a statement, it said Boko Haram – which pledged allegiance to IS in 2015 – continued to “undermine the peace and stability” in West and Central Africa.

Meanwhile, a senior US official said there were reports of Boko Haram fighters joining IS in Libya. Nigeria is to host a summit on Saturday on fighting Boko Haram. President Muhammadu Buhari will welcome counterparts from Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger for the gathering in Abuja, along with French President Francois Hollande, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

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In the statement, the 15-member UN Security Council expressed “alarm at Boko Haram’s linkages with the Islamic State”.

It also voiced its support for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s “crucial initiative” to hold the security summit in Abuja.

Meanwhile, Mr Blinken – who is already in Nigeria – said he was concerned by reports that Boko Haram militants were going to Libya, where IS influence has grown in recent months. “We’ve seen that Boko Haram’s ability to communicate has become more effective,” he said. “They seem to have benefited from assistance from Daesh [IS].” Mr Blinken added: “So these are all elements that suggests that there are more contacts and more co-operation, and this is again something that we are looking at very carefully because we want to cut it off.”

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At least 10 soldiers have been killed in three attacks on army bases in the southern Yemen city of Mukalla, military sources say.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) said it was behind at least one of the attacks, a suicide car bombing. Mukalla was held by al-Qaeda militants up until a month ago, when it was recaptured by pro-government forces.

The attacks came hours before Yemen PM Ahmed Obeid bin Dagher was due to arrive in Mukalla for a visit.

Officials said a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into the gate of a naval base in the Mukalla’s outskirts. Two other explosions were reported to have hit the military headquarters in the city. The blasts were followed by fierce clashes between militants and government forces, officials said.

IS in Yemen, in a statement posted online, said one of its militants carried out the attack on the naval base. IS has not previously staged attacks in the city, which had for nearly a year been under the control of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni troops last month launched an operation to clear AQAP militants from Mukalla, provincial capital of Hadramout, and surrounding towns.

The Pentagon revealed last week that “very small number” of US military personnel had also been deployed around Mukalla in support of the operation to retake the city.

The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Houthi rebels and their allies for over a year, after the rebels forced Yemen’s government to flee into exile. Peace talks have been taking place in Kuwait but have so far yielded few results.

The US has activated a land-based missile defence station in Romania, which will form part of a larger and controversial European shield.

Senior US and Nato officials are attending the ceremony in Deveselu, southern Romania.

The US says the Aegis system is a shield to protect Nato from short and medium-range missiles, particularly from the Middle East. But Russia sees it as a security threat – a claim denied by Nato. Relations between the West and Russia have deteriorated since Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula in 2014. Russia is also accused of arming separatists in eastern Ukraine and sending its troops there – a claim denied by the Kremlin.

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Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other senior officials from the military alliance are at the opening ceremony at an old Romanian air base in Deveselu. The US is believed to have spent $800m (£554m) on radar and SM-2 missile interceptors since 2013. The station will have a battery of SM-2 missile interceptors.

Nato and US officials say the system has been developed to track and intercept missiles fired from a “rogue” state. In the past Iran was mentioned in that context, but the US has also had North Korea in mind.

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Two car bomb blasts are reported to have rocked the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, just hours after an attack on a market left 64 people dead.

Police sources told the Reuters news agency that at least 15 people had been killed in the northern Kadhimiya area and seven others in the city’s west.

A car bomb was also used in the earlier attack at the crowded market in the mainly Shia district of Sadr City. The Sunni jihadist group Islamic State (IS) claimed it was responsible.

IS, which controls swathes of northern and western Iraq, has frequently targeted Shia, whom it considers heretics. Many of the victims in the Sadr City attack were children and women, including brides who appeared to be getting ready for their weddings at a beauty salon, Iraqi police and medical sources said. Pictures showed vehicles and the facades of several buildings heavily damaged.

An eyewitness told the Associated Press that the bomb was in a pickup truck loaded with fruit and vegetables. Its driver parked the vehicle and quickly disappeared among the crowd, he said. “It was such a thunderous explosion that jolted the ground,” Karim Salih, 45, told the news agency. “The force of the explosion threw me for metres and I lost consciousness for a few minutes.” Another witness told the Reuters news agency that many of those killed were poor people, only earning between 5,000-10,00 dinars ($5-$10) a day.

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