A Kurdish-led force arrested 63 suspected militants in the Syrian city of Raqa Thursday during an operation against jihadist sleeper cells, it said in a statement. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said those detained belonged to "terrorist cells directly responsible for spreading...

The death toll from the collapse of an Istanbul apartment block rose to 10 on Thursday as more bodies were pulled from the rubble, Turkish authorities said. The eight-storey building, which is located in the Kartal district on the Asian side of the city, collapsed on Wednesday but the cause...

The Iranian government arrested, imprisoned or executed at least 860 journalists in the three decades between the Islamic revolution in 1979 and 2009, according to documents leaked to media monitoring group Reporters Sans Frontieres. At a news conference in Paris attended by Iranian...

A U.N. watchdog urged Syria on Thursday to grant full rights to its displaced children, adding that thousands had been killed, tortured or enslaved during the country’s civil war. Rights experts said all children living in opposition-held areas and returning as refugees should be given...

The United Nations aid chief on Thursday urged Yemen's Huthi rebels to grant access in the coming days to a food storage site in Hodeida containing enough grain to feed millions of starving civilians. The Huthis are refusing to allow UN aid agencies to cross front lines and reach the Red...

Recent gains by Kurdish-led forces in Syria have shrunk the Islamic State group's "caliphate" to less than one percent of its original size, the US-led coalition said on Thursday. Major General Christopher Ghika, the coalition's deputy commander, described the size of the last patch of land...

The Ramallah-based Palestinian government has reduced monthly stipends paid to the families of Palestinians martyred or imprisoned by Israel, according to local sources.  Daoud Shihab, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad movement, said: "Cutting stipends for the families of martyrs,...

Ousting US troops from Iraq despite Donald Trump's vow to stay is now the top goal of pro-Iranian Shiite armed groups. And their leaders say there are only two ways -- by passing a new law, or by force. US-Iraq relations have grown tense once again, after a series of ups and downs over the...

 Steps on forming a planned safe zone in northern Syria should be taken as soon as possible, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. Speaking to members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Turkish-American Council, Erdogan said Turkey had every means to create the safe...

The death toll from the collapse of an eight-storey building in Istanbul rose to six on Thursday, while 13 others were wounded, the governor of Turkish city said. The residential building, in the Kartal district on the Asian side of the city, collapsed on Wednesday. It was not immediately...

The Israeli army has released a Lebanese national arrested earlier this week for illegally crossing the border between the two countries. “The army arrested the suspect on Tuesday for infiltrating Israel from Lebanon," Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee said in a statement. According...

At least 18 members of the Daesh terrorist group were killed in two separate army operations in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk and Saladin provinces, according to official sources. In a Thursday statement, Iraqi police spokesman Yehia Rasool said that army forces, with support from U.S.-led...

US President Donald Trump predicted Wednesday that the Islamic State group will have lost by next week all the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria. The president told representatives of a 79-member, US-led coalition fighting IS that the militants held a tiny percentage of the...

Iranian Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ali Motahari on Wednesday said his country's policy of promoting "Shia doctrine" in the region had adversely affected its foreign policy. “Iran’s current political approach is problematic, both internally and externally,” Motahari was quoted as saying by...

A Syrian nonprofit organization on Wednesday urged the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to make strides to investigate 191 chemical attacks by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said in a report at least 221 chemical attacks...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival in an April election has raised the possibility of pulling back from the occupied West Bank, in remarks published Wednesday that drew right-wing criticism. Benny Gantz, the former armed forces chief of staff, spoke positively of...

The Iraqi Central Bank and its Iranian counterpart have signed an agreement to pay Baghdad's debts to Tehran.  Signing the agreement aims to "attain mutual consent for debt payment," an Iraqi Central Bank source told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity because he was not...

Israeli defense officials have warned that the health system in the blockaded Gaza Strip was close to collapse, according to Israeli daily Haaretz on Wednesday.  In an assessment to Israel’s security cabinet, the officials warned that the deteriorating health conditions in the...

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen on Tuesday said his country would not follow Washington’s lead by relocating its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Speaking at a joint press conference in Ramallah with Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas, Van der Bellen asserted: “We...

Daesh continues to be a threat to the international community even as it transforms its operations following military defeats in Iraq and Syria, according to an advance copy of a UN report obtained by Anadolu Agency. "ISIL has substantially evolved into a covert network in Iraq, where it...