Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday for an unannounced trip that the State Department said would emphasize the importance of Iraqi sovereignty and discuss the future of U.S. troops there. The visit comes after President Donald Trump said this month...

U.S.-led coalition warplanes struck Islamic State’s last stronghold in eastern Syria and hundreds of civilians fled the besieged enclave on Monday as U.S.-backed fighters pressed their campaign to seize it. Coalition jets roared overhead as columns of white smoke rose from the Islamic...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that Iran was determined to expand its military power and ballistic missile program despite mounting pressure from hostile countries to curb Iran’s defensive work, state TV reported. “We have not asked and will not ask for permission to...

Four soldiers were killed when a military helicopter crashed in a residential neighborhood on the Asian side of Istanbul on Monday, the governor of Turkey’s biggest city said. The helicopter went down in an area of apartment buildings, Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya said. Television images...

  Israeli tank artillery hit a demolished hospital and an observation post in Syria's southern Qunaitra province near the border with Israel, Syrian state media said Monday, adding there had been only material damage. The two sites were hit by several tank artillery rounds,...

Russia and Turkey agreed on Monday that they needed to take decisive measures to stabilize the situation in Syria’s Idlib province after talks between the two country’s defense ministers, Russia’s RIA news agency reported. The announcement, made after talks between Russian Defense Minister...

Dozens of Turkish police blocked a march by pro-Kurdish opposition lawmakers in Istanbul on Monday that was organised in solidarity with a hunger striking MP who was released from prison last month. Security officers carrying anti-riot shields surrounded around 40 MPs and activists from the...

Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Monday called for Iran's help to return Syrian refugees to their war-torn country.  Lebanon "needs a [formula] that takes into account their safe return to stable Syrian areas," the official Lebanese News Agency quoted Aoun as saying during a meeting...

US-backed Syrian forces captured 41 positions held by Islamic State group militants and destroyed their fortifications in the last tiny pocket they hold in eastern Syria amid fierce fighting, a spokesman said Sunday. Mustafa Bali said the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces made the...

The Arab League said on Monday there was no consensus yet among member states that may allow the reinstatement of Syria’s membership which was suspended in 2011 over its crackdown on protesters at the start of the civil war. U.S.-allied Arab states including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the...

Two Palestinians including a Hamas policeman suffocated to death from gas in a cross-border tunnel under Gaza's frontier with Egypt, the enclave's interior ministry said Monday. Interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozum said 39-year-old policeman Raid al-Ekar and Sabhy Abu Qarushayn, 28,...

Israeli forces rounded up 22 Palestinians in overnight raids carried out across the occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli military on Monday.  The individuals were arrested for “suspected involvement in popular terrorist activities”, the army said in a statement, without...

Turkey called on China to close its internment camps for Muslims, saying the camps which reportedly hold a million ethnic Uighur people are a “great shame for humanity”. Last week, rights activists urged European and Muslim nations to take the lead in establishing a U.N. investigation into...

Speaking to African leaders on Sunday, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas lashed out at the U.S. for encouraging Israel's mistreatment of his people. “What encourages Israel to behave [as if it was] above the law is the U.S. administration,” Abbas told the 32nd Summit of African Heads of...

French howitzer-guns deployed in the Euphrates Valley desert just inside Iraq stand ready to pour fury on Islamic State group diehards in their last holdout across the border in Syria. Warplanes flash through the sky, followed seconds later by explosions on the Syrian side that send up a...

Nudged by rightwing political rivals after a deadly Palestinian attack on a young Israeli woman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who seeks re-election pledged Sunday to freeze money transfers to the Palestinian Authority. Israel collects around $127 million a month in customs duties...

A Jordanian court sentenced two brothers to death on Sunday in connection with a 2016 attack claimed by the Islamic State group, overturning a life sentence handed to the men last year. The shooting attack in Karak, home to one of the region's largest Crusader castles, killed seven...

French howitzer-guns deployed in the Euphrates Valley desert just inside Iraq stand ready to pour fury on Islamic State group diehards in their last holdout across the border in Syria. Warplanes flash through the sky, followed seconds later by explosions on the Syrian side that send up a...

Iran is waiting for Lebanon to show a desire to accept its military assistance, Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday, reiterating an offer of support to the U.S.-backed Lebanese military. Mohammad Javad Zarif, whose government backs the powerful Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, was...

Palestinian activists on Sunday launched a campaign aimed at protecting local residents against settler attacks in the West Bank city of Hebron. "The campaign aims to provide protection to local residents around the clock," Mohamed Zghayyar, a spokesman for the NGO Youth Coalition Against...