President Joe Biden on Thursday directed U.S. military air strikes in eastern Syria against facilities belonging to what the Pentagon said were Iran-backed militia, in a calibrated response to rocket attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq. The strikes appeared to be limited in scope,...

The airstrike was the first military action undertaken by the Biden administration, which in its first weeks has emphasized its intent to put more focus on the challenges posed by China, even as Mideast threats persist. Biden’s decision to attack in Syria did not appear to signal an intention...

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s interior minister on Thursday said he was in Lebanon looking to repatriate more Albanians related to other nationals who had joined Islamic extremist groups in Syria and Iraq. Bledi Cuci, in Beirut in the last two days, said he met there with Maj. Gen....

A U.S. airstrike in Syria targeted facilities belonging to a powerful Iranian-backed Iraqi armed group, killing one of their militiamen and wounding a number of others, an Iraqi militia official said Friday. The official told The Associated Press that the strikes against the Kataeb...

Citing “disturbing new food security data” published by the World Food Programme (WFP), Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock stated that some 60 per cent of the population “do not have regular access to enough safe and nutritious food”.   “The increase may...

 After ten years of conflict, Palestine refugees, particularly those taking shelter in Yarmouk, continue to be one of the most vulnerable groups in Syria with immense humanitarian needs. Palestinian families taking refuge in Yarmouk Camp continue to launch cries for help over their...

Syria's health minister on Thursday said his government procured coronavirus vaccines from a friendly country which he declined to name, adding that frontline health workers would be the first to be inoculated starting next week. It was not clear why Hassan Ghabbash declined to name the...

German prosecutors hailed a worldwide first after a former member of Syrian President Bashar Assad's secret police was convicted Wednesday of facilitating the torture of prisoners in a landmark ruling that human rights activists hope will set a precedent for other cases. Eyad Al-Gharib...

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza released 45 prisoners affiliated with rival Palestinian faction Fatah on Thursday. In a statement, it said the released prisoners were arrested over security issues that harmed resistance groups in Gaza, adding their arrests were not politically...

The perpetrators of a 1992 massacre by Armenian forces in the town of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh which left over 600 people dead should be punished, the head of the World Azerbaijani Congress said Wednesday. Asif Kurban said in a statement that Armenian armed forces, terrorist groups and...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa Thursday about the Gulf state's possible involvement in establishing a vaccine plant in Israel, a statement from the Israeli leader's office said . The two leaders discussed a...

A former member of Syrian President Bashar Assad's secret police was convicted Wednesday by a German court of facilitating the torture of prisoners in a landmark ruling that human rights activists hope will set a precedent for other cases in the decade-long conflict. Eyad Al-Gharib was...

Syria’s rebel-held northwest will receive its first shipment of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine by the end of next month, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. The doses were procured through the UN body’s Covax program, which aims to provide equitable worldwide access to...

Bashar al-Assad’s regime had executed one of its top chemical weapons scientists by firing squad in 2001, after he had been exposed as a US intelligence agent since 1988, The Times revealed on Monday. The newspaper reported that, “Known to the CIA as ‘the chemist’, the scientist was...

A former Syrian intelligence service agent was on Wednesday sentenced to four and a half years in jail for complicity in crimes against humanity in the first court case over state-sponsored torture by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. Eyad al-Gharib, 44, was convicted of being...

 Renewed rocket attacks on US targets in Iraq show Iran-aligned factions are heaping pressure on the government while Tehran may be seeking leverage over America's new administration, analysts say. Iraq, scarred by decades of war and insurgency, has been a strategic battleground for...

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and US President Joe Biden spoke by phone Tuesday, discussing a range of topics.  "I spoke to @POTUS today. We reaffirmed our commitment to bolstering Iraqi-US ties for the benefit of our peoples and cooperation in fighting Daesh to ensure...

Delegations from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar met in Kuwait on Monday for the first time since an agreement last month to end a rift of more than three years, the UAE state news agency WAM said. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt agreed in January at a summit in Saudi's al-Ula...

The Syrian regime has authorized the use of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, its embassy in Moscow said Monday. The country is the latest to approve the Russian vaccine, named after the Soviet-era satellite. Sputnik V was registered in August before clinical trials were underway,...

Anis Naccache, a former pro-Palestinian militant who participated in the 1975 kidnapping of oil ministers in Vienna, died Monday after battling COVID-19, a Palestinian official and Lebanese media said. He was 69. Naccache, a Lebanese citizen, participated in attacks around the world but...