Hundreds of people, including children, returned to the devastated Kurdish-dominated city of Sirnak in southeast Turkey on Monday after an eight-month curfew was relaxed, an AFP photographer said. Since March, Sirnak has been under curfew between 5am (0200 GMT) and 10pm (1900 GMT) as the...

(The Daily Star)- Lebanon's army said Monday it has referred a terror suspect to the judiciary for smuggling people and weapons. In a statement, the army accused Syrian national Ali Hussein al-Hasan of links to ISIS, saying he smuggled weapons and people on behalf of the group in Syria....

Yemen is at risk of a significant cholera outbreak with the number of suspected cases doubling within 12 days to over 4,000, the World Health Organization said. The outbreak in a country ravaged by a 20-month war that has killed thousands was declared by Yemen's Health Ministry on Oct. 6. By...

 A rare suicide attack in an oasis town south of Baghdad killed eight people and wounded at least six Monday, Iraqi officials said. The attack in Ain al-Tamer involved six suicide bombers, some of whom may have been killed by security forces before they could blow themselves up....

An Israeli committee on Sunday approved a bill that if adopted would legalize outposts built without government permission in the West Bank, territory Palestinians demand for their future state. It still needs to pass several stages before it can be adopted. A first reading is expected in...

Iraqi troops entered a town south of Mosul on Sunday where Islamic State militants destroyed artefacts at a nearby ancient Assyrian archaeological site, while special forces fended off suicide bombers during a cautious advance into the northern city. The push into Nimrud was the most...

Syria has agreed to open its borders to Lebanese banana imports for 24 hours, local media reported Sunday. NBN said that the decision came following efforts made by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri with Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim. This comes one day after the Lebanese...

(The Guardian)- The Iraqi military says its forces have retaken Nimrud, the site of an ancient Assyrian city overrun by Islamic State militants two years ago. The commander of the Mosul operation, Lt Gen Abdul-Amir Raheed Yar Allah, said troops retook the town after heavy fighting and...

(Ara News)- Turkey’s military forces launched on Saturday an offensive on a Kurdish district in Syria’s northwestern Aleppo Governorate, causing casualties among civilians. The Turkish army hit Afrin District with dozens of mortar and artillery shells. At least eight Kurdish civilians...

Iraqi soldiers fighting just north of Mosul, within sight of city neighborhoods, said on Sunday they were ready to tighten the noose around Islamic State militants waging a brutal defense of their Iraqi stronghold. Four weeks into the campaign to crush Islamic State in Mosul, the city is...

Iraqi forces battled waves of suicide car bombs Sunday as they attempt to advance deeper into Mosul in the face of heavy resistance from ISIS. Troops are converging from several fronts on the city, Iraq's second-largest and the extremists' last major holdout in the country. The special...

A reporter working for Iran's state television IRIB was killed Saturday in a mortar attack in the Syrian battlefront city of Aleppo, the broadcaster said. Mohsen Khazaei died in the village of Minyan outside the northern city, one of two areas which Syrian government forces had recaptured...

Elite Iraqi forces were engaged in "intense" fighting with jihadists in eastern Mosul on Saturday, an officer said, as civilians gathered on the city's outskirts to flee. Iraqi forces launched a massive operation to retake the country's second city from the Islamic State group on October 17,...

A flotilla of Russian warships is now in the eastern Mediterranean off the Syrian coast after being sent to reinforce Russia's military in the area, a naval commander said on state television. The commander of Russia's flagship Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier Sergei Artamonov said via...

About 6,000 pro-Kurdish demonstrators are holding a rally in the western German city of Cologne in protest against the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Police said Saturday that the rally in an industrial area along the Rhine River has been peaceful so far. Erdogan's...

(The Daily Star)- Turkey's military killed 18 ISIS militants in northern Syria over the last 24 hours, the army said Saturday, intensifying strikes against the militant group. Four buildings and one vehicle used by the ISIS fighters were destroyed in the strikes, an army statement said....

Yemen’s Shia Houthi militia claim to have seized several villages in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Jizan province, the Houthi-run SABA news agency has reported. SABA quoted a military source as saying late Thursday that Houthi militiamen had taken control of the villages of Al-Kars and...

Saudi Arabia's government has set aside 100 billion riyals ($26.7 billion) to pay debts that it owes to private sector companies after payment delays that have lasted months, an official document seen by Reuters shows. To help curb a huge budget deficit caused by low oil prices, the...

ISIS fighters have executed scores more people around Mosul this week and are reportedly stockpiling ammonia and sulfur in civilian areas, possibly for use as chemical weapons, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said Friday. A mass grave with over 100 bodies found in the town of...

Almost 1,600 square kilometers (617 square miles) of land in northern Syria has been cleared of Daesh terrorists as part of Operation Euphrates Shield. In the last three days, Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army forces (FSA), have reached within eight kilometers of the Al-Bab district, in the...