Iraq's armed forces opened a new front against ISIS in Mosul Thursday, advancing on the militants' enclave from the northwest, a military commander told Reuters. The army's 9th Armored Division and the Rapid Response units of the Interior Ministry were headed towards the city, he said....

Rescue workers recovered 21 bodies from a coal mine in northern Iran after an explosion caused a tunnel to collapse on Wednesday, news agencies reported. Reza Bahrami, a mining industry official in the province of Golestan where the accident occurred, said the 21 bodies were those of miners...

The International Committee of the Red Cross has urged Israel not to restrict family visits for hundreds of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. In a rare statement, the humanitarian organization criticized what it called a "systemic suspension" of visits by Israeli...

Yemen faces a "famine of Biblical proportions", veteran aid expert Jan Egeland warned on Wednesday during a visit to the war-battered nation, expressing fury over the failure of the "men with guns and power" to end the crisis. Yemen's two years of civil war have pitted the Iran-aligned...

The West Bank-based government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will stop paying for electricity in the power-starved Gaza Strip and "dry up" the flow of funds to the territory's Hamas rulers, a senior official said Wednesday. Hamas accused the Abbas government of irresponsible...

Mosul's wrecked roads, bridges and broader economy will take at least five years to repair and need billions of dollars of development that Iraq's government will struggle to afford, officials returning to the battle-scarred city said. The airport, railway station and university were all...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Wednesday that Israel would cut $1 million from its United Nations funding over a UNESCO resolution he says denies Jews' historical connection with Jerusalem. The resolution, passed Tuesday at the U.N. organisation's Paris headquarters 22 votes to...

An American company that was paid nearly $700 million to secure an Iraqi base for F-16 fighter jets turned a blind eye to alcohol smuggling, theft, security violations, and allegations of sex trafficking - then terminated investigators who uncovered wrongdoing, an Associated Press investigation...

( The Guardian )- Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince has said there is no space for dialogue with the Iran due to its ambitions “to control the Islamic world”. The rare and wide-ranging interview, which aired on multiple Saudi TV channels, offered a glimpse into how Mohammed bin Salman...

Iran will provide military advisers to Syria for as long as necessary in support of President Bashar al Assad's forces, a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was quoted on Tuesday as saying. Iran has provided military support to Assad's forces since at least 2012, but...

Two Israeli air strikes against Hezbollah targets in Syria in recent weeks seem to mark a more openly assertive stance toward the group after years of shadow boxing, requiring careful calibration to avoid escalation into a war that neither wants. For most of the six-year-long conflict in...

Around 900 Jordanians are currently fighting for ISIS and al-Qaeda inspired groups in Syria and Iraq but recruitment numbers have fallen sharply to their lowest ever levels, a senior Jordanian official told Reuters on Tuesday. Those now fighting in Iraq and Syria had mostly left Jordan, a...

The head of the Anglican Church met with Iraqi Christian refugees during a visit to Jordan in which he called on the region's embattled Christians to remain in the Middle East, the cradle of their faith. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said Tuesday that Christians "are the past in the...

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he would discuss possible operations in Syria's Manbij and Raqqa with Russian President Vladimir Putin during an official visit to Russia Wednesday, and with U.S. President Donald Trump later this month. Speaking at a ceremony to celebrate his return to...

An Islamic State attack in an area held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria killed at least 38 people on Tuesday including 23 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The attack on Rajm al-Salibi, the location of a checkpoint and refugee camp...

Extremist fighters killed at least 10 soldiers in the western Iraqi province of Anbar Tuesday in their latest deadly attack on security forces in the area, officers said. The latest attack near the remote outpost of Rutba brought to at least 26 the number of members of the Iraqi security...

Iran will maintain its support for the Syrian government despite the deaths of hundreds of its advisers and volunteers in the six-year civil war, a commander said in comments published Tuesday. Shiite Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah are the Syrian regime's most important military...

Gunmen shot dead a senior official of Iraq's state-run North Gas Company (NGC) Tuesday as he was heading to his office in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police and company sources said. Deputy NGC manager Mohammed Younis, an Iraqi Kurd, and his driver were killed instantly when assailants...

Accounts from witnesses and survivors cast doubt on American suggestions that ISIS was to blame for the deaths of more than 100 people taking refuge in a house hit by a U.S. airstrike earlier this year in Mosul, the deadliest single incident of the months-long campaign to retake the Iraqi city....

Turkish airstrikes on PKK targets have forced the group to close some camps and seek cover, a Peshmerga commander in Iraq has told Anadolu Agency. Kasim Seso, a senior Peshmerga figure in Mosul’s Sinjar district, said on Monday the PKK had suffered “big losses and financial damage” in the...