Kurdish forces said they drove Islamic State militants out of villages near the oil city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Wednesday, in an offensive backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition. The assault consolidated their control over Kirkuk and brought the peshmerga, the...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday accused Israel of sabotaging U.S. efforts to broker peace and said that Israeli security operations at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem could lead to a religious war. In an address to the United Nations General Assembly before a...

Iran demanded an apology from Saudi Arabia on Sunday over the deaths of 769 people at the haj pilgrimage and accused it of trying to evade blame, while Riyadh in turn accused Tehran of playing politics with the disaster. At least 155 Iranian pilgrims died in the crush of pilgrims...

China and the United States will improve cooperation on fighting militancy, including intelligence exchanges, and work together to bring peace to Afghanistan, China's foreign ministry said after a leaders' summit in Washington. China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist militants...