Turks began voting in a hotly contested referendum Sunday that could place sweeping new powers in the hands of President Tayyip Erdogan and herald the most radical change to the country's political system in its modern history. Opinion polls have given a narrow lead for a "Yes" vote, which...

At least 25 soldiers and rebels have died in clashes around a key military base near Yemen's west coast, military and medical sources said Saturday. Loyalist forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition launched an assault to seize the Khaled Ibn Al-Walid base from Shiite Houthi rebels and their...

Iran will ask "no one's permission" to build up its missile capability, President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday, in what appeared to be a defiant response to U.S. efforts to hamper the Iranian military. Facing an election in May where he hopes to secure a second four-year term, Rouhani has...

An Iraqi military officer says ISIS militants have launched a gas attack in a newly-liberated area in western Mosul. The officer with the anti-terrorism forces said Saturday that the attack occurred the night before in the al-Abar neighborhood, when ISIS fired a rocked loaded with chlorine....

Recep Tugcu is convinced: ever since "Tayyip" has been in power, Turkey is living through "its golden age." So he has no hesitation in voting "Yes" in Sunday's referendum on expanding the president's powers. The head of state's detractors accuse President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of showing...

A British woman was stabbed and killed in Jerusalem on Friday and her attacker arrested, an Israeli police spokeswoman said. The attack took place on the light railway close to the Old City, where Christian commemorations were under way for Good Friday as Jews marked the week-long Passover...

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi recently spoke of his aim to "normalise Saudi-Iraqi relations not only politically, but on economic and social levels too". "This is important to us," he told the Rudaw news network. "Saudi Arabia is our neighbour and we cannot continue to live without...

With Islamic State expelled, Iraqi Christians are trickling back to the ransacked town of Qaraqosh, beset by anxiety for their security and yet hopeful they can live in friendship with Muslims of all persuasions. The town, about 20 km (12 miles) from the battlefront with Islamic State in the...

Police in Istanbul have detained five ISIS suspects, some of whom were believed to be planning an attack in Turkey ahead of Sunday's referendum, the state-run Anadolu news agency said Friday. Anadolu said three of the detained people were suspected of planning an attack in the name of ISIS....

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State on Thursday denied a Syrian army report it had carried out an air strike that had hit poison gas supplies belonging to IS and caused the deaths of hundreds of people. A statement by the Syrian army, circulated by state media, said the alleged...

( Daily Mail )- Born in one of the most dangerous places in the world, the stories of three babies whose mothers gave birth while fleeing ISIS have been revealed in an astonishing testament to the perils facing civilians. All were born in western Mosul, where the terror group has been...

German prosecutors issued an arrest warrant against a 26-year-old Iraqi man detained following an attack on a bus carrying players of a top soccer team, saying on Thursday they believed he was a member of Islamic State. The Federal Prosecutor's Office added there was no evidence that the...

A team of experts from the global chemical weapons watchdog has been sent to Turkey to collect samples as part of an investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria last week that killed 87 people. The fact finding mission was sent from the Organisation for the Prohibition of...

A Yemeni court in the rebel-held capital has sentenced a veteran journalist to death on charges of spying for neighboring Saudi Arabia, the press union and rebel media said Thursday. Since March 2015, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has been leading a deadly military intervention against the rebels...

( The New Arab )- Iran's former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the surprise move on Wednesday of registering for next month's presidential election.  Ahmadinejad had previously said he would not stand after being advised not to by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying...

Five Sudanese soldiers have been killed while fighting for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition against Houthi forces in Yemen, a spokesman for Sudan's armed forces said on Wednesday. The statement was a rare acknowledgement of casualties suffered by Sudan since the east African nation sent...

( The Guardian )- Traces of sarin gas have been detected in blood and urine samples from victims wounded in the town of Khan Sheikhun in Syria, giving “concrete evidence” of its use in the attack, Turkey’s health minister has said. Doctors and aid workers who had examined the wounded of...

Any new US action in Syria "will not go unanswered", Iran's Defense Minister Hossein Dehgan warned Tuesday after America threatened to follow up a strike last week with more attacks. The United States last week fired a volley of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to an alleged...

Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr Tuesday warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that he risked suffering the same fate as slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi if he did not step down. The maverick cleric had last week condemned the suspected deadly use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces against...

( The New Arab )- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday that Ankara's findings showed the Syrian government still possessed chemical weapons capacity and urged for measures to prevent its potential usage. Speaking to state-run broadcaster TRT Haber in Italy, Cavusoglu...