Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing on Thursday to present his proposed government for the approval of parliament, where his coalition commands a razor-thin majority. Netanyahu's new administration marks a shift to the right by giving increased prominence to Naftali...

Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces fired warning shots at a Singapore-flagged commercial ship in the Gulf on Thursday, before vessels from the United Arab Emirates came to the ship's aid, US officials said. The Iranian patrol craft fired across the bow of the Alpine Eternity in international...

President Barack Obama will seek to convince Gulf allies including Saudi Arabia on Thursday that the United States is committed to their security despite deep concern among Arab leaders about U.S. efforts to broker a nuclear deal with Iran. During a rare, high-profile summit at...

The Iraqi government said Wednesday that several top jihadist leaders were targeted in a coalition air strike in the northwestern area of Tal Afar. "Based on accurate intelligence, an air strike was carried out by the international coalition targeting the number two in the Daesh...

A senior Israeli military intelligence official warned Wednesday of a heightened threat of conflict on Israel's borders in the next two years as a result of "escalation" in the region. In a briefing to foreign journalists at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv, the official also...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin with an eye on easing badly strained relations over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. Kerry was to lay a wreath at a World War II memorial in the Black Sea resort city before meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey...

Iran's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, who has played a major role in recent talks with world powers, has had emergency surgery for a perforated bowel, state media reported Tuesday. Doctors discovered the tear in the wall of his gut on Monday evening and operated on it successfully, state...

Egyptian newspapers are publishing what would have been unthinkable when then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013: suggestions that he is fallible. It is a sign that a man who enjoys cult-like support may be starting to lose some...

An Egyptian court sentenced former president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in jail without parole on Saturday in the retrial of a corruption case, although the trio is unlikely to go to jail again. Mubarak, who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years, and his...

Fifty inmates and 12 police died in a prison escape organized by Islamic State, Iraqi officials said on Saturday, while supporters of the group acknowledged it staged the breakout but gave different details. After a riot erupted, dozens of prisoners escaped from the Al-Khalis...

Iran rejected Friday allegations it was interfering in Yemen by backing Shiite rebels there, accusing Saudi Arabia of seeking to absolve itself of responsibility in the war-torn Arabian Peninsula country. Riyadh's new Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Thursday criticised what he called Iran's...

Iran is a destabilising force that must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, top US diplomat John Kerry said in Saudi Arabia Thursday, aiming to calm Riyadh's worries. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours fear Tehran might be able to develop an atomic bomb despite an international accord...

Turkey on Wednesday arrested four prosecutors and a gendarme officer for trying to carry out a search of Syria-bound trucks belonging to the state intelligence agency that they suspected of illegally carrying arms for rebels fighting Syria's government. Local media said the arrests were...

The Egyptian military Wednesday shot dead three Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated through a smuggling tunnel in the Sinai town of Rafah on the border with Gaza, security officials said. They said the "armed Palestinians" and the military clashed in a buffer zone established along the border....

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday accused the United States of supporting "immense crimes" in Yemen by Saudi Arabia, which is leading an air war against Tehran-backed rebels. "The Saudi government is killing innocent people, women and children in Yemen ... and Americans...

(Reuters) - France and Saudi Arabia believe that any future deal between Iran and six major powers must ensure not to destabilise the region further and threaten Iran's neighbours, the two countries said ahead of a summit in Riyadh on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia invited French...

An Israeli group that collects testimonies from combat soldiers has published accounts from last year's Gaza war alleging indiscriminate fire killed Palestinian civilians. Breaking The Silence said on Monday that its accounts, gathered from dozens of unnamed soldiers, show a "change in the...

(Reuters) - Police on horseback charged hundreds of ethnic Ethiopian citizens in central Tel Aviv on Sunday as an anti-racism protest descended into one of the most violent demonstrations in Israel's commercial capital in years. The protesters, Israeli Jews of Ethiopian...

The Islamic State group Sunday claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack outside a popular Baghdad restaurant that killed 15 people, including four policemen and a media figure. Saturday's attack, one of the deadliest in the Iraqi capital this year, took place in Karrada, a district packed...

Security forces on Sunday arrested a Lebanese man accused of being a cleric and recruiting agent for the extremist Islamic State jihadist group, a security source told AFP. "Ibrahim al-Barakat was arrested early on Sunday and is accused of being a religious jurist for Daesh in the northern...