Iraq risks descending into "Syria-like chaos" if its political class fails to unite and agree on a government, the United Nations envoy to Baghdad told AFP on Thursday. Nickolay Mladenov urged Iraq's leaders to press on with a political process that involves selecting a...

(Reuters) -   Iran   has reduced demands for the size of its future nuclear enrichment program in talks with world powers although Western governments are urging Tehran to compromise further, Western diplomats close to the negotiations said on Thursday. The diplomats,...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has deployed 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area, Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television said on Thursday. The world's top oil exporter shares an 800-km (500-mile) border with Iraq, where Islamic State...

A Turkish F-4 jet that was downed in June 2012 was not hit by Syrian forces, according to Gürsel Tekin, secretary-general of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Turkey claims the plane was shot in international airspace with a heat- or laser-guided missile by Syrian forces, but Syria...

DENVER (AP) — Newly unsealed court documents show the FBI thwarted a Denver woman's attempt to help a terrorist organization by arresting her before she boarded a flight in April. A federal judge on Wednesday ordered documents unsealed in the case against 19-year-old Shannon...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday it would increase security at overseas airports with nonstop flights to the country and U.S. officials cited concerns al Qaeda operatives in Syria and Yemen were developing bombs that could be smuggled onto planes. The...

BAGHDAD (AP) — An extremist group's declaration of an Islamic state in territory it has seized in Iraq and Syria poses a threat to the entire region, Iraq's prime minister warned Wednesday, saying that "no one in Iraq or any neighboring country will be safe from these plans." The...

New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) The government Wednesday said the 46 Indian nurses trapped in a building in Iraq's war-torn Tikrit town were safe and unharmed, and the Indian envoy has spoken with them. "Our ambassador (in Iraq) has talked to them. They are unharmed, safe," external...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese lawmakers failed to elect a president on Wednesday, for the eighth time, to succeed Michel Suleiman whose term ended in May, prolonging a political vacuum as the country struggles with violence, economic decline and an influx of Syrian refugees....

Iraq's leadership was under increased pressure Wednesday to form a new government to deal with a Sunni militant onslaught that has threatened to tear the country apart, after parliament's first session ended in disarray. Following a break called to calm soaring tempers, so many...

Jihadists from the Islamic State must free some 133 Kurdish schoolboys kidnapped in Syria a month ago, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. The group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, kidnapped some 153 schoolchildren on May 29. The children,...

Angel di Maria made up for a poor display by firing Argentina into the FIFA World Cup last eight with a 1-0 extra-time win over Switzerland. Not for the first time this tournament, Alejandro Sabella's men struggled to make their...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iraq is increasingly turning to other governments like Iran, Russia and Syria to help beat back a rampant insurgency because it cannot wait for additional American military aid, Baghdad's top envoy to the U.S. said Tuesday. Such alliances underscore that the...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Tehran has not received a request from Baghdad to supply it with weapons but is ready to do so if asked, Iran's deputy foreign minister said on Tuesday during a visit to Moscow. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that Tehran had no plans to send troops to back...

Washington, July 1 (IANS) US President Barack Obama said that about 200 troops arrived in Iraq to protect the US embassy in Baghdad amidst fierce fighting in the war-torn country, a media report said Tuesday. The new troops, who arrived Sunday and Monday, will provide security...

BEIRUT (The Daily Star): Saudi King Abdullah appointed Prince Bandar Bin Sultan as his special envoy and Prince Khaled bin Bandar as head of Saudi Intelligence two days after the latter’s dismissal as deputy defense minister. Abdullah had sacked Khaled from his...

(Reuters) - More than 2,400 Iraqis, most of them civilians, were killed in June as Sunni militants swept through the north triggering the country's worst violence in years, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Sunni insurgents led by al Qaeda offshoot the Islamic State in...

(Reuters) - At least 14 people were wounded by mortar fire near an important Shi'ite shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra, officials and security sources said on Tuesday, as the Shi'ite-led government fights a major Sunni insurgency. A 2006 bombing at the same site, the Imam...

(Reuters) - Israel bombed dozens of sites in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, striking at Hamas after finding the bodies of three missing teenagers whose abduction and killing it blames on the Palestinian Islamist group. Israel's security cabinet, which held an emergency session...

Reuters) - The bodies of three missing Israeli teenagers were found in the occupied West Bank, and Israel vowed to punish Hamas, the Palestinian group it accuses of abducting and killing them. "They were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by beasts," Prime Minister Benjamin...