Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitary groups said they started an offensive on Saturday against Islamic State positions west of Mosul, assisting in the campaign to take back the city. The militias, collectively known as Hashid Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Forces, started moving in the...

(The Daily Star)- Iraqi paramilitaries launched an operation Saturday to retake the town of Tal Afar from ISIS and cut extremist supply lines from Mosul to Syria, a spokesman said. Forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary umbrella organisation dominated by Iran-backed Shiite...

(The Daily Star)-  A Palestinian attacked Israeli troops with his car and then with a knife in the occupied West Bank before being shot and seriously wounded, the army said Saturday. The attack happened late Friday near the Jewish settlement of Ofra, northeast of the city of Ramallah,...

 The United States accused the Syrian government Friday of using "starvation as a weapon of war" -- a war crime under the Geneva Conventions -- stepping up the rhetoric against Bashar Assad and his Russian backers. Rejecting the Kremlin claims that attacks on Aleppo have stopped, a U.S....