( The Guardian )- Iraqi forces have advanced to the base of the toppled minaret of Mosul’s Great Mosque of al-Nuri, hours after it was destroyed by Islamic State militants, as the bitter eight-month battle to recapture the city reached a tipping point. The destruction of the mosque marked a...

President Donald Trump appeared to cast doubt on the assessment of 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that blame Russia for election meddling, questioning Thursday why the Obama administration didn't try to stop it. "By the way, if Russia was working so hard on the 2016 Election, it all took...

Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday there was high degree of certainty that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was dead, RIA news agency reported. Moscow said last week its forces may have killed the secretive ISIS leader, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and...

The Gaza Strip's sole power station has been fired up again, the energy authority in the Palestinian enclave said Thursday, after fuel supplies from Egypt helped to ease an energy crisis. The announcement came after Egypt delivered a million litres of fuel to the station on Wednesday, three...

The leader of a protest movement in northern Morocco was "severely" beaten and verbally abused by police during his arrest, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said Thursday. Nasser Zefzafi -- leader of Al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or the "Popular Movement" -- was detained on May 29 in a...

France has instructed local officials to show more humanity towards migrants, the government spokesman said on Thursday, after a human rights watchdog said it bore responsibility for the inhuman conditions migrants face in the Calais region. About 400 migrants from the Middle East and Africa...

French authorities are investigating the death of a fashion blogger reportedly hit by an exploding whipped cream canister that was withdrawn from the market in 2013, officials and the company that makes the product said Thursday. The prosecutor's office in the eastern city of Mulhouse said...

U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien described the cholera outbreak in Yemen, which is fast approaching 300,000 cases, as a "man-made catastrophe" caused by the warring sides in the country's civil war and their international backers. The number of suspected cases of the disease, which is...

Iran called on its regional rival Saudi Arabia on Thursday to free Iranian fishermen, pay compensation for killing a sailor and punish those behind the "irresponsible act", the semi-official Fars news agency reported. Iranian media reported last week that Saudi border guards opened fire on...

Mosul's trademark leaning minaret was missing from its skyline for the first time in centuries Thursday after desperate militants blew it up as Iraqi forces advanced on an ancient mosque compound. Explosions on Wednesday evening levelled the Nuri mosque where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gave his...

The United States has told Turkey it will take back weapons supplied to the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria after the defeat of ISIS, Ankara said on Thursday, seeking to address Turkish concerns about arming Kurds on its border. Turkish defense ministry sources said U.S. Defense...

A small blast at a graveyard adjacent to the grounds of a NATO military facility in western Turkey damaged the installation's perimeter walls on Thursday but caused no injuries, Turkish media reports said. The state-run Anadolu Agency said the explosion in the city of Izmir was caused by a...

Belgian authorities said Thursday that police detained four people in a series of raids in Brussels linked to the failed bombing at a rail station this week by a man shouting "Allahu akbar." The federal prosecutor's office said that the four were picked up during searches in the Molenbeek...

Iran has begun exporting gas through a pipeline to Baghdad under a deal set to make Iraq the Islamic republic's top customer, the oil ministry said. "Iran's natural gas exports to Baghdad began Wednesday evening," Deputy Oil Minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia said late Wednesday in comments...

 North Korea on Thursday called US President Donald Trump a "psychopath" as tensions soar following the death of American student Otto Warmbier, who was evacuated in a coma from North Korean detention last week. Pyongyang's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the US president was in a...

Large amounts of business investment is being postponed because of uncertainty over the future outcome of Brexit negotiations so Britain should seek clarity as early as possible over a transition arrangement, Finance Minister Philip Hammond said Thursday. "There would be a sigh of relief...

Cristiano Ronaldo said Portugal were worthy winners after scoring his first goal of the Confederations Cup to steer his country to a 1-0 victory over hosts Russia on Wednesday. The Real Madrid star brushed off the tax storm clouding his club future by heading in the only goal in Moscow after...

The Islamic State jihadist group on Wednesday blew up Mosul's iconic leaning minaret and the adjacent mosque where their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance in 2014, a top commander said.  "Our forces were advancing toward their targets deep in the Old City and...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered weekend missile strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria, Revolutionary Guards said, contradicting a previous report that they were authorised by the country's security council. The Guards fired six mid-range surface to surface missiles...

President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday he saw no legitimate successor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and France no longer considered his departure a pre-condition to resolving the six-year-old conflict. He said Assad was an enemy of the Syrian people, but not of France and that...