Jordan's King Abdullah II is to meet Monday with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on his first visit to Ramallah in five years, a Palestinian official said. Mohammed Shtayyeh, a top official in the Fatah party of Abbas, told AFP Saturday that the two leaders would discuss efforts to revive...

The Lebanese army will not coordinate with the Syrian army to fight against Islamic State in the Lebanese-Syrian border zone, a military source told Reuters on Saturday, rejecting a local media report of direct military cooperation between the two. The source said the Lebanese army had the...

Turkish news agencies say the country has increased its military presence along its southern border against threats from Kurdish militants in war-torn northern Syria. The official Anadolu news agency said Saturday that Turkey dispatched artillery to Kilis province to reinforce units there....

Influential Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday called on the Baghdad government to dismantle the paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi umbrella organisation dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias. Sadr was speaking to thousands of supporters in the Iraqi capital after a rare visit at...

Israeli police will conduct an "examination" into the fatal shooting of two Jordanian nationals by an embassy guard that led to ties between the two states worsening, officials said on Friday. On July 23, a security guard for the Israeli embassy in Amman shot dead a Jordanian worker who had...

Yemeni troops and armor have pushed Al-Qaeda militants out of main cities in Shabwa, residents said on Friday, regaining government control over the southern province for the first time in years. They said Al-Qaeda militants withdrew to the mountains without a fight as armored vehicles from...

A military appeals court in Jordan has upheld the life sentence of a Jordanian soldier in the shooting deaths of three U.S. military trainers last year. First Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha, was sentenced by a military court last month to life in prison with hard labor for killing the Americans at...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stopped an Israeli lawmaker from taking on a Jordanian counterpart in a fist-fight on Wednesday over a diplomatic crisis between the two neighbors. The July 23 shooting to death of two Jordanian nationals by an Israeli embassy guard who said he was acting in...

An Israeli lawmaker has been forced to call off a “non-violent” faceoff with a Jordanian challenger after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office ordered him to stand down. The showdown between Jordanian lawmaker Yehiya al-Saoud and Likud party politician Oren Hazan was due on Wednesday...

The transfer of thousands of Syrian militants and refugees from a Lebanese border region into rebel territory in Syria stalled for a second day on Tuesday because Beirut rejected demands made by the militants, a Lebanese official told Reuters. A security source said those demands included...

The main grouping of the world's Muslim nations Tuesday accused Israel of staging provocative actions and inflaming tensions with the Palestinians in a crisis over security measures at a key holy site in occupied Jerusalem. Turkey hosted an extraordinary meeting in Istanbul of foreign...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have started using a new route across the Gulf to funnel covert arms shipments to their Houthi allies in Yemen's civil war, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters. In March, regional and Western sources told Reuters that Iran was shipping weapons and...

Turkey on Tuesday lashed out at what it called "unacceptable" remarks by a senior U.S. official suggesting Ankara had encouraged the rise of Al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria's Idlib province. Brett McGurk, the senior U.S. envoy to the international coalition fighting Daesh (ISIS), said Idlib...

Dozens of activists have rallied outside Jordan's parliament, calling on legislators to repeal a provision that allows a rapist to escape punishment if he marries his victim. Parliament is to vote on the proposed change to the penal code on Tuesday. A royal reform committee has...

The transfer of thousands of Syrian militants and refugees from Lebanon's border region to northwestern Syria was delayed to Tuesday from Monday, a military media unit run by Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah said. It said the delay was to allow for "logistical measures", including the...

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government will not allow its Houthi foes to keep the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, the information minister said, underlining its intention to remove the vital aid delivery point from the control of the Iran-aligned group. The United Nations has proposed that Hodeidah,...

A senior Iraqi general predicted a relatively easy victory for his forces in the upcoming battle for the Daesh (ISIS) haven of Tal Afar as up 2,000 fighters and their families there are "worn out and demoralized." Less than one month after declaring victory in the city of Mosul, Iraqi forces...

A series of explosions and the sound of gunfire shook the Afghan capital on Monday, with a security source telling AFP that a suicide bomber had blown himself up in front of the Iraqi embassy. "Civilians are being evacuated" from the area as the attack is ongoing, said the official, who...

Preparations began on Monday for the transfer of militants and their relatives from Lebanon's border region to Syria in exchange for Hezbollah prisoners, a Hezbollah media unit said. As part of a local ceasefire between Hezbollah and Nusra Front jihadists that took effect last week, about...

Yemen is urging the U.S. government to take in dozens of Yemenis who traveled to Malaysia in recent months expecting to immigrate to the United States, only to find themselves stranded by President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban. The ban, which was blocked by lower courts before being...