Turkey arrested 49 alleged members of Daesh (ISIS) Saturday, some of whom were suspected of planning an attack on Turkey's national holiday Sunday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The arrests in the capital Ankara came a day before celebrations across the country for the...

Iraqi and Kurdish commanders held talks Saturday on a withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from disputed areas after a truce was declared in clashes over a key border post, the premier's office said. "The main task of this joint technical committee is to allow the deployment without violence...

Iraqi forces set a tight deadline Friday for Kurdish fighters to withdraw from an area on the Turkish border that is critical for oil exports, a government source told AFP. The senior security source, asking not to be named, said Kurdish peshmerga fighters were being given "a few hours" to...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkey’s decision to release a German human rights activist is a sign of improving relations between the two NATO allies, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday, adding that Germany wanted all its citizens detained in Turkish prisons freed. Peter Steudtner,...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Israel is willing to resort to military action to ensure Iran never acquires nuclear weapons, the intelligence minister said on Thursday in Japan where he is seeking backing for U.S. President Donald Trump’s tougher line on Tehran. Trump said on Oct. 13 he would not...

BAGHDAD/LONDON (Reuters) - When the Iraqi army and Iranian-backed Shi‘ite militia entered a key oil processing facility in Iraq’s north to retake it from Kurdish Peshmerga forces last week, the installation was deserted and its alarm bells ringing. Engineers and workers on the facility,...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran’s defense capabilities are not negotiable, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday in remarks made previously but which now come amid increased pressure from the U.S. government over Tehran’s ballistic missile program. Ties between Iran and the...

NEW DELHI: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that US sanctions against Iran targeted the country's "malign behaviors" and were aimed at helping the Iranian people take control of their government. Tillerson told a New Delhi press conference after talks with India's Foreign...

 Iraqi forces are about to launch an offensive to recapture the last patch of Iraq's territory still in the hands of Daesh (ISIS), a military statement said on Wednesday. "Your security forces are now coming to liberate you," said leaflets dropped by the Iraqi air force on the...

French President Emmanuel Macron has disappointed rights activists when he refused to publicly call out visiting Egyptian leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi for his country's dismal human rights track record. President Emmanuel Macron has brushed off calls to "lecture" visiting Egyptian...

(Reuters) - The Kurdistan Regional Government in a statement early on Wednesday offered to freeze the results of an earlier referendum on independence as part of an offer to defuse the crisis with the Iraqi central government in Baghdad. The statement also called for an immediate...

 Egyptian security forces have arrested 12 suspected members of the Islamist militant Hasm Movement in the province of Fayoum 60 km (40 miles) south of Cairo, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday. A ministry statement said police also confiscated a number of weapons and explosive...

 Extremists from Daesh (ISIS) and fighters from Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition were locked in fierce clashes near Mosul Tuesday, with nearly 30 reported dead, the coalition said. Mosul, Iraq's second city, was retaken from Daesh in July after a massive months-long...

Iraqi pro-government paramilitaries launched an offensive against Kurdish troops on Tuesday near the Turkish frontier, pushing towards a strategic border crossing and oil export pipeline hub that Baghdad says must come under its control. The Iraqi government has transformed the balance...

Kurdish Peshmerga forces on Monday redeployed from positions on Iraq’s Sinjar-Dohuk highway to a nearby border crossing. The Faysh Khabur crossing links the Duhok province in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region to both Turkey and Syria. “Peshmerga fighters have reclosed the main road...

Israeli police raided a Palestinian neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem overnight and arrested 51 people accused of violent protests against security forces, authorities said Monday. The 51 Palestinian suspects from Issawiya were arrested for participating in recent “riots and...

SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (Reuters) - Vitalina Bordova received a good morning text message from her husband Sergei, a Russian marine major deployed in Syria. Half an hour later, he was hit by mortar fire that killed him. Since he died on April 18, Bordova has been in dispute with the...

DUBAI (Reuters) - The deputy head of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas vowed to keep close ties with Israel’s arch-enemy Iran and to maintain its weapons, Iranian media reported on Sunday, rejecting Israeli preconditions for any peace talks. Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist...

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in Riyadh Saturday in a visit aimed at upgrading strategic ties, amid warming relations between the Arab neighbors. The tour coincides with Saudi Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh's high profile visit to Baghdad where he called for the strengthening...

At least 52 Egyptian police officers have been killed in an ambush by Islamist fighters near the Bahariya oasis in the country's Western Desert, security and medical sources said Saturday, in a rare flare-up outside the Sinai Peninsula. The interior ministry said security forces hunting...