The Turkish capital Ankara on Monday banned all public gatherings and demonstrations until the end of November after receiving information about potential terror attacks, the governor's office said. The Ankara governorate said in a statement that all such meetings had been prohibited until...

Saudi Arabia is prepared to agree to a ceasefire in Yemen if the Iran-allied Houthis agree, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Monday, adding that he was skeptical about efforts for peace after previous ceasefire attempts had failed. The Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen has...

(The Daily Star)- Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Monday that Riyadh had urged the Iraqi government not to let Shiite militias enter Mosul, fearing "mass atrocities." As Iraqi forces launched an offensive aimed at retaking the country's second city from ISIS, Jubeir warned against...

(The Daily Star)- A suicide driver detonated a car packed with explosives at a security check-point south of Baghdad Monday, killing ten people and wounding 25, police and medical sources said. The blast happened as a convoy of Shi'ite paramilitary fighters drove past the check-point in...

(The Daily Star)- Iran has rejected remarks by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that its policies in Syria and Yemen are blocking efforts to encourage banks to do business with it. In an interview published Friday, Kerry told Foreign Affairs magazine that Iranian support for Syrian...

(Now)- A high-ranking Hezbollah commander has been killed in Aleppo, the latest casualty suffered by the Lebanese party fighting on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.   A pro-Hezbollah outlet which publicizes funerals of the party's fighters killed "in confrontation with the...

(The Daily Star)-  A 45-year-old Syrian was found stabbed to death at the entrance of his residence in south Lebanon, the National News Agency reported Monday. NNA said that the knife used in the murder was discovered inside the man's house, in the town of Doueir in the southern...

Daesh militants have been removed from nine towns and villages in northern Syria, including Dabiq and Sawran towns amid Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation in the area.  According to a statement by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), Daesh lost the towns of Dabiq, Sawran and Ihtaimlat, and...

Turkey-backed Syrian rebels seized control of nine areas, including the village of Dabiq, from Islamic State on Sunday, largely achieving border security between the Turkish towns of Kilis and Karkamis, the country's military said on Monday. Taking control of Dabiq had eliminated the threat...

Turkish-trained forces are participating in the military operation to recapture Iraq’s northern city of Mosul from Daesh terrorist organization, the former Mosul governor said Monday.  Atheel Nujaifi, who is also the commander of Nineveh Guards, which were trained by Turkey in Bashiqa...

A long-awaited offensive to seize back the Iraqi city of Mosul after two years of Isis control has begun, the country’s prime minister has announced. In an address on state television, Iraq’s Haider al-Abadi said: “We have been battling Isis for more than two years. We started fighting Isis in...

(AMN)- The leader of Iraq's Kurdistan Region's, Masoud Barzani, says time has come to retake Mosul from ISIS. "All preparations for the battle to liberate Mosul have been completed," said Barzani in a statement posted on the Kurdish regional presidency's website on Saturday. The...

 Lebanon's largest Christian party has rallied thousands of its supporters to push for the election of its leader, former Army Gen. Michel Aoun, as president. The supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement waved the party's trademark orange flags at a rally marking the 26th anniversary...

A suspected suicide bomber killed three police officers and wounded at least nine people in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep on Sunday during a police raid on an alleged Islamic State safehouse, a local official and security sources said. The bomber detonated explosives as police...

(theguardian)- The US navy on Sunday began investigating a possible overnight missile attack from Yemen on a group of American warships in the Red Sea, amid uncertainty about what transpired. The Red Sea and the nearby strategic Bab el-Mandeb strait, a crucial chokepoint for international...

The Iraqi army dropped tens of thousands of leaflets over Mosul before dawn on Sunday, warning residents an offensive to recapture the city from Islamic State was in its final stages of preparation, according to a military statement in Baghdad. The leaflets carried several messages, one of...

(Zaman al-Wasl)- Two Turkish security forces killed in clashes with 4 Syrian men affiliated ISIS in border city of Gaziantep, sources said Sunday. Turkish media sources told Zaman al-Wasl the clash happened on the background of information obtained by Turkish authorities related to an ISIS...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to bar national service volunteers from joining human rights group B'Tselem after the organization angered him with their testimony at the U.N. last week. Netanyahu said in a Facebook post on Saturday he planned to change the national...

(theguardian)- A US navy destroyer was targeted on Saturday in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, the third such incident in the past week, a US defence official said. Multiple missiles were fired at the USS Mason sailing in...

 Saudi Arabia says it has reassigned its ambassador to Iraq, months after he claimed that Iranian-backed Shiite militias were plotting to assassinate him. A royal decree issued early Sunday from King Salman announced Thamer al-Sabhan would be a minister of state for the Gulf region....