Bashar al-Assad’s forces are helping Daesh and PKK/PYD in opposing the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a commander said Tuesday. Abu Ramadan said Daesh and the PKK/PYD were acting together along the Marea-Jarabulus line in northern Aleppo province. “Daesh came into action four years ago when...

The emaciated frame of 18-year-old Saida Ahmad Baghili lies on a hospital bed in the red sea port city of Hodaida, her suffering stark evidence of the malnutrition spread by Yemen's 19-month civil war. Baghili arrived at the Al Thawra hospital on Saturday. She is bed-ridden and unable to...

(The Daily Star)- The line of cars flying white flags kept on coming Tuesday as Iraqi forces began to evacuate residents of the last villages near ISIS bastion of Mosul. And it was not just people. Some vehicles had animals perched on piles of blankets amid foam mattresses and plastic...

The United States expects the campaigns against Islamic State in Mosul and Raqqa to overlap, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday, signaling that a push to start isolating the group's de facto capital in Syria may not be very far off. Iraqi forces are already nine days into...

(Middle East Eye)- Big fashion brands are failing to protect Syrian refugees from "endemic" abuse in Turkish clothing factories supplying European retailers, a monitoring group said on Tuesday. Child labour, pitiful pay and dangerous conditions are among the risks facing undocumented Syrian...

An elite unit of the Iraqi army paused its week-long advance on Mosul as it approached the city's eastern edge on Tuesday, waiting for other U.S.-backed forces to close in on Islamic State's last major urban stronghold in Iraq. Seeking to relieve pressure on their forces controlling the...

Iraqi counter-terrorism forces have recaptured two more villages east of Mosul from the Daesh terrorist group, military sources said Tuesday. "Iraq’s Anti-Terrorism Agency has managed to restore the villages of Khazna and Tob Zawa," Saad al-Lehebi, a major in the Iraqi army’s Nineveh...

 (The Daily Star)- A Syrian Kurd leader in France on Tuesday accused Turkey of "massively attacking" Kurdish forces trying to recapture Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in Syria. "With its artillery and aircraft, the Turkish army is taking advantage of the media and international community's...

(The Daily Star)- Iraqi security forces on Tuesday regained full control of a western town that was attacked by ISIS militants two days earlier, officials said. Seeking to draw attention away from an offensive to retake the city of Mosul, ISIS struck the town of Rutba in the country's west...

(theguardian)- Few Israeli citizens have gone to fight with Islamic State, perhaps a total of 50 in four years. Far fewer still have made it back to Israel to tell their tale. Among that handful is Sabareen Zbeidt, aged 30, and her husband, Wissam, aged 42, who flew back into Tel Aviv’s Ben...

(The Daily Star)- Moscow said Tuesday that Russian and Syrian planes have not conducted any air strikes on Aleppo for the last seven days despite a three-day truce ending at the weekend. "Over the last seven days all flights by Russian and Syrian air forces have been completely halted. The...

Daesh is recruiting fighters from outside the Mosul, Iraq, to reinforce its defense in the city that is currently under siege, the Pentagon said Monday. “We see them taking administrative and support personnel, people who are not normally under arms. But they are now arming them. We also see...

More than 3,800 people have been displaced in areas around Mosul since a major offensive was launched last week to oust Daesh from the northern Iraqi city, according to the ministry of migration and displacement Monday. Some 904 people were transferred Sunday from Bashiqa and Gayara fronts...

The woman said that her husband was an Islamic State fighter but that she left him after trying, in vain, to persuade to him to defect. Last week, she took their six children and fled across the battle lines toward ground controlled by the Iraqi army, she said. But as the woman spoke in a...

Oil prices fell on Monday as Iraq said it wanted to be exempt from an OPEC deal to cut production, though losses were capped by Iran saying it would encourage other members to join an output freeze. Brent crude futures LCOc1 were down 45 cents at $51.33 a barrel by 1340 GMT. U.S. West Texas...

A Hamas militant was killed on Monday when a tunnel collapsed in the Gaza Strip, the group's military wing said in a statement. The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades named the man as Amir Jaber Abu Taimeh and said the accident occurred in the town of Khan Yunes. It gave no further details....

Kurdish Peshmerga forces on Monday repelled a Daesh attack near Sinjar town in northern Iraq, according to a local commander.  Daesh militants mounted a surprise attack at dawn on Peshmerga forces stationed west of Sinjar using car-bombs, Lukman Ibrahim, a Peshmerga commander in Sinjar,...

(The Daily Star)- Turkey's military struck dozens of ISIS and Kurdish YPG militia targets in Syria over the last 24 hours, depriving both groups of the ability to move around, the army said Monday, as its operation there entered a third month. Backed by Turkish tanks, special forces and...

Iraq's joint operations command Monday denied Turkey was participating in military operations to retake the northern city of Mosul from ISIS. "The spokesman of the Joint Operations Command denies Turkish participation of any kind in operations for the liberation of Nineveh," a statement...

Two PKK terrorists were killed in Turkey’s eastern province of Tunceli on Sunday, local officials said. In a statement, the governor’s office said they were killed in airstrikes by F-16 jets and Cobra attack helicopters after being spotted in Ovacik district by aerial drones. “Two male...