The U.N. Security Council will discuss the alarming humanitarian situation in Syria and the recent displacement of tens of thousands of people fleeing a Russian-backed assault around Aleppo, New Zealand's U.N. envoy said on Tuesday. The closed-door consultations are scheduled...

An Iraqi-led operation to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul is unlikely to take place this year, a top U.S. intelligence official told Congress on Tuesday. The comments by Marine Corps Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart were more pessimistic than some recent...

Turkey summoned the U.S. ambassador to express its displeasure on Tuesday after a State Department spokesman said Washington did not regard Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) as a terrorist organisation, a Turkish foreign ministry official said. Tensions between the...

Two former SS men will go on trial this month for their alleged complicity in the murder of thousands of people at Auschwitz, as Germany accelerates its bid to prosecute ageing Third Reich criminals. Reinhold Hanning, 93, faces court in the western town of Detmold from Thursday, charged with...

The wife of a deceased Islamic State leader was charged on Monday with conspiracy in the death of an American aid worker who was killed a year ago while being held hostage in Syria by the militant group, the U.S. Justice Department said. Nisreen Assad Ibrahim Bahar, 25, an Iraqi citizen and...

At least nine civilians and 16 separatist fighters were killed as security forces try to root out Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, the army and the region's biggest parliamentary party said separately on Monday. Security forces have imposed 24-hour...

Human Rights Watch has condemned Hamas' execution of one of its own fighters after the Palestinian militant group's military wing said the killing was carried out at the weekend. The Al-Qassam Brigades -- the armed wing of Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip -- said it had executed one of its...

The UN Security Council on Sunday strongly condemned North Korea's rocket launch and said it would adopt soon a sanctions resolution "in response to these dangerous and serious violations." The statement was backed by China, Pyongyang's ally, and the 14 other council members during an...

 The Iraqi Prime Minister is dismissing plans to build a wall around the Iraqi capital, according to a statement released by his office Saturday night. The plan for the wall was originally drafted by the Interior Ministry as an effort to prevent ISIS group attacks inside Baghdad....

Israeli police say a soldier has been stabbed in southern Israel. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri says the soldier was standing near the central bus station in the southern city of Ashkelon Sunday when he was stabbed in his torso. He was lightly wounded. The stabber was shot and apprehended....

Tunisia's defense minister has visited an anti-jihadi fence that's being built on the country's border with Libya to stop Islamist militants from entering Tunisian territory. Defense Minister Farhat Horchani inspected the first completed part of the 196-kilometer (122-mile) fence Saturday,...

Three members of Britain's special forces were injured in fighting with Islamic State gunmen in Iraq, the Mirror newspaper reported on Saturday without giving any details about its sources. The Ministry of Defence said it did not comment on special forces operation. The Mirror said the...

The Pentagon on Friday released 198 photographs linked to allegations of abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them showing close-ups of cuts and bruises to arms and legs of prisoners held in U.S. facilities. The Pentagon said the photos came from criminal...

Translation by Yusra Ahmed (Eqtsad)- The Syrian rural areas, especially rural Damascus, have lost its characteristics and started to lose its three distinctive features: people, trees and buildings after 5 years of devastating war waged by the regime and regional allies. Comparing between the...

The United States and its allies are probably many weeks or even months away from launching a new military campaign against Islamic State in Libya, despite mounting concern about the group's spread there and its attacks on oil infrastructure, U.S. officials say. The Pentagon...

Turkey all but ruled out direct talks with Kurdish militants to end one of the worst periods of bloodshed in a three-decade insurgency on Friday, saying the government would instead bring what it called civil society groups to the table. In a speech in the southeastern city of...

German police Thursday arrested two Algerians suspected of links to the Islamic State group and hunted two others after raids targeting several sites including refugee shelters where some of the suspects lived. The four "from the jihadist scene are under investigation over suspicions that they...

An air strike believed to have been carried out by a US drone in south Yemen on Thursday killed a prominent chief of Al-Qaeda's branch in the war-torn country, a family member said. Jalal Belaidi, alias Abu Hamza, a top commander of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was...

Sunni Muslim Arab fighters backed by Kurdish forces and U.S.-led air strikes retook a village in northern Iraq on Wednesday in an example of effective military cooperation on the ground between them against Islamic State insurgents. The offensive in the Makhmour district south...

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani has declared that the "time has come" for the country's Kurds to hold a referendum on statehood, his office said on Wednesday. "The time has come and the conditions are now suitable for the people to make a decision through a referendum on their future,"...