Turkey hit 50 Daesh and 15 PKK/PYD targets as part of Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria, the military said on Saturday. The Turkish General Staff said in a statement that three Syrian opposition fighters were martyred and four others were wounded during Friday's clashes. ...

(The Daily Star)- Iraqi officials said Saturday that the security forces foiled an attack by ISIS extremists on the city of Ramadi, capital of the western province of Anbar. The reported thwarted attack led to 11 arrests and comes after a string of diversionary attacks by the extremists...

 Witnesses say a car bomb has exploded in the southern city of Aden at a checkpoint steps away from the central bank, which has been relocated recently from the rebel-held capital, Sanaa. The bomb injured three soldiers and caused panic in the busy commercial district of Crater, the...

Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitary groups said they started an offensive on Saturday against Islamic State positions west of Mosul, assisting in the campaign to take back the city. The militias, collectively known as Hashid Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Forces, started moving in the...

(The Daily Star)- Iraqi paramilitaries launched an operation Saturday to retake the town of Tal Afar from ISIS and cut extremist supply lines from Mosul to Syria, a spokesman said. Forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary umbrella organisation dominated by Iran-backed Shiite...

(The Daily Star)-  A Palestinian attacked Israeli troops with his car and then with a knife in the occupied West Bank before being shot and seriously wounded, the army said Saturday. The attack happened late Friday near the Jewish settlement of Ofra, northeast of the city of Ramallah,...

 The United States accused the Syrian government Friday of using "starvation as a weapon of war" -- a war crime under the Geneva Conventions -- stepping up the rhetoric against Bashar Assad and his Russian backers. Rejecting the Kremlin claims that attacks on Aleppo have stopped, a U.S....

Iraqi Shi'ite militias backed by Iran said on Friday they would soon join the fight against Islamic State on a new front west of Mosul, a move which could block any retreat by the jihadists into Syria but might alarm Turkey and the United States. The Shi'ite militias, with thousands of...

Turkey expects to take delivery of its first Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35A fighter jets in 2018 and has decided to order a second batch, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries said on Friday. It did not say how many more of the fighter jets it planned to order but two U.S....

Warships from the US Navy and allied nations have intercepted four weapons shipments from Iran to war-ravaged Yemen since April 2015, a US admiral said on Thursday. Yemen has been rocked by conflict since Houthi rebels overran the capital Sanaa and other parts of the country in late 2014,...

In the midst of war, political chaos and a regional refugee crisis, Iraq still managed to be the world's most generous country to strangers in 2016, according to an annual global survey of charitable giving. Eighty-one percent of Iraqi respondents reported helping someone they didn't know in...

(Rudaw)- Eight of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel fighters Turkey is supporting against ISIS in northwestern Syria were killed in clashes on Friday, the Turkish military announced.  Another 34 were also wounded during these clashes, according to a Turkish General Staff statement cited...

(The Guardian)- Lindsey Snell knew she was being hunted. A Syrian contact had told her that militants had already arrested her fixer Abdullah, but they were coming for her next. This was Jabhat al-Nusra territory. No armed group, certainly not the smaller and more moderate one she was with,...

Saudi Arabia is ready -- if asked -- to take part in a planned military operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from the Daesh terrorist group, a high-ranking Saudi military officer has said. Speaking to the Al-Arabiya television channel on Thursday evening, Brigadier-General Ahmed...

(Middle East Eye)- Yemeni rebels have launched one of their longest-range strikes against Saudi Arabia, firing a ballistic missile that was shot down near Mecca, the Saudi-led coalition fighting them said on Friday. The coalition has been carrying out a bombing campaign against the rebels...

(The Daily Star)- ISIS fighters slaughtered at least 232 people in and around Mosul last week as Iraqi troops advanced on the city, the U.N. rights office said Friday. "Last Wednesday 232 civilians were reportedly shot to death. Of these there were 190 former Iraqi Security Forces officers,"...

(The Guardian)- The UN has hired scores of friends and political associates of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, as part of its relief operation in the country, according to documents leaked to the Guardian. The staff lists show that relatives of high-ranking ministers have been on the...

 Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitary groups are about to launch an offensive on ISIS positions west of Mosul, assisting in the military campaign to take back the city, a spokesman said Friday. The militias, collectively known as Hashid Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Forces, have...

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised on Thursday to amend a law that human rights groups say has severely restricted protest rights and hinted at possible pardons for young people imprisoned without conviction. Speaking at a youth conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, the former general...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that he had informed President Obama of Turkey's intent to participate in an offensive in northern Syria. His remarks are a reminder of the strategic conundrum facing the United States, which is working to defeat the extremist Islamic State in...