U.S. President Donald said on Friday he had aborted a military strike on Iran because such a response to Tehran’s downing of an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone would have caused a disproportionate loss of life. In a series of early morning tweets, Trump said U.S. economic sanctions against...

 A bomb blast killed seven people at a Shiite mosque in eastern Baghdad Friday and wounded more than 20, police sources said. The explosion took place in the Baladiyat neighborhood. A senior police source said that either a suicide belt or improvised explosive device had been used in...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he blocked a planned military strike against Iran because it would not have been a proportionate response to Tehran's downing of an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone, adding that more sanctions were imposed late Thursday. "10 minutes before the...

The United States is trying to create “Iran phobia”, Iran’s defence minister Amir Hatami said on Friday, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA). “Very complicated and suspicious conditions exist in the region,” he was quoted as saying. “It seems that all of this is in line with...

U.S. President Donald Trump approved military strikes Friday against Iran in retaliation for the downing of an unmanned $130-million surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching the attacks, the New York Times said. Trump had initially approved strikes on a handful of targets such as...

Iran's foreign minister said on Twitter that a U.S. military drone that was shot down by Tehran Thursday had taken off from the United Arab Emirates. "At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace. It was targeted at 04:05 at the coordinates (25°59'43"N...

President Donald Trump said Thursday that Tehran had made a "very big" error, after Iranian forces shot down a U.S. spy drone near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. "Iran made a very big mistake!" he tweeted in his first public reaction to the strike. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard...

Palestinian businessmen boycotting the Trump administration’s Bahrain workshop designed to encourage investment in the territories say only a diplomatic path to statehood can end decades of conflict with Israel. The United States has billed the June 25-26 gathering in the Gulf kingdom as an...

 Iraqi farmer Riyadh woke on May 13 to find his wheat crop ablaze. In his fields in Diyala province, he found the remains of a mobile phone and plastic bottle which he believes was an explosive device detonated in the night to start the fire. Riyadh and his neighbors in Sheikh Tami...

Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down a U.S. drone on Thursday amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over its collapsing nuclear deal with world powers, American and Iranian officials said, while disputing the circumstances of the incident. The Guard said it shot down a RQ-4...

A nearly week-long barrage of anonymous shelling attacks on American interests across Iraq are intended to signal Iran's long reach and "embarrass" Baghdad amid spiralling US-Iran tensions, observers say. The incidents were not claimed but largely originated from areas where...

 Iran said on Wednesday it would not give European powers more time beyond July 8 to save its nuclear deal by shielding it from U.S. sanctions. The spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said Tehran was ready to go through with a threat to enrich uranium to a higher level if...

U.S. President Donald Trump said he was prepared to take military action to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear bomb but left open whether he would back the use of force to protect Gulf oil supplies that Washington fears may be under threat by Iran. Worries about a confrontation between Iran...

A rocket struck the site of the residential and operations headquarters of several global major oil companies, including U.S. giant ExxonMobil, near Iraq's southern city of Basra early on Wednesday, wounding three people, Iraq's military said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility....

Palestinian finances are on the brink of ruin after the suspension of hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. aid, the head of the Palestine Monetary Authority said Tuesday. The mounting financial pressures on the Palestinians' self-ruling entity have sent its debt soaring to $3 billion,...

Germany is doing all it can to defuse heightened tensions with Iran in a peaceful way, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday, adding, however, that Iran must stick to the 2015 international nuclear agreement. “We are pushing for Iran to keep to (the nuclear pact) - if that is not the...

Iran said Tuesday it has dismantled a new espionage network linked to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and arrested a number of spies. "Following clues in the American intelligence services, we recently found the new recruits Americans had hired and dismantled a new network," state news...

Russia told the United States Tuesday to drop what it called provocative plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East and to cease actions that looked like a conscious attempt to provoke war with Iran. The comments, from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to Russian news agencies,...

Iran will not wage war against any nation, President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday, a day after the United States announced the deployment of more troops to the Middle East amid rising tensions between Tehran and Washington. Fears of a confrontation between Iran and the United States have...

The United States said Monday it has approved the deployment of 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East, against the backdrop of soaring tensions with Iran. Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan said in a statement that the troops were being sent "for defensive purposes to address...