(Reuters) - Iraqi forces launched an airborne assault on rebel-held Tikrit on Thursday with commandos flown into a stadium in helicopters, at least one of which crashed after taking fire from insurgents who have seized northern cities. Eyewitnesses said battles were raging in...

When John Maguire was a CIA officer in Beirut in the late 1980s during that country’s bloody civil war, he spent weeks living in safe houses far from the U.S. Embassy, dodging militants who wanted to kidnap and kill Americans. In Iraq in 2014, by contrast, CIA officers have been...

DUBAI (Reuters) - The al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades had urged Lebanese Sunni Muslims to attack the Iranian-backed Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah a day before Wednesday's suicide bombing in central Beirut. No claims of responsibility have been made for the attack...

BEIRUT, June 25 (Reuters) - A Lebanese army intelligence unit has arrested five men suspected of planning to assassinate senior security officials in the north of the country, the army said on Wednesday, after two deadly bombings struck Lebanon in three days. It said the five...

The first of 300 US military advisers are setting up in Baghdad to help the Iraqi army tackle a expanding Sunni rebellion that has swept the country's north and west. The special forces troops landed in the Iraqi capital on Tuesday and were beginning evaluations on Wednesday,...

At least 1,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed and roughly the same number injured in fighting and other violence in Iraq in June as Sunni militants swept through the north, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Victims include a number of confirmed summary executions...

Sunni rebels led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have taken control of an important oil refinery and have offered Iraqi troops safe passage if they give up their weapons and leave, according to Al Jazeera sources.  Sources in Salheddin province on Tuesday said...

A car bomb, an apparent suicide attack, exploded in a southern suburb of Beirut populated mainly by Shiites, a security services source said early Tuesday. The explosion happened around midnight local time on Tuesday (2100 GMT on Monday) near an army checkpoint and a cafe where...

(AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL)- The conviction today of three Al Jazeera English journalists accused of “falsifying news” and belonging to or assisting the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt is a ferocious attack on media freedom, said Amnesty International.  The three...

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}   The judge who sentenced former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death has been captured and executed by ISIS...

(Reporting by Abdullah Raja; Translation by Dani Murad) TheIraqi Prime Minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has resisted all international and regional calls to work toward reconciling Sunni Arabs and Kurds, instead, he ruled the country according to...

BEIRUT (AP) — An al-Qaida breakaway group's seizure of territory in Iraq and Syria has sent tremors across the Middle East, jolting neighboring countries into action over fears that the Islamic militants may set their sights on them next. In Jordan, the army dispatched...

CAIRO (AP) — Arab countries should resist funding Sunni fighters in what is turning into a cross-border war between Iraq and Syria because that support eventually could help the fast-spreading insurgency in Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday. Kerry said the...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Sunday the "disgraceful" decision by the US Presbyterian Church to divest from three companies that provide supplies to Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank. On Friday, a group of church elders and ministers...

Russia and Saudi Arabia Saturday stressed the importance of preserving Syrian and Iraqi territorial integrity after talks in the Western city of Jeddah. Riyadh and Moscow have opposing positions on the conflict in Syria, with Russia backing President Bashar al-Assad and Saudi...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected in Saudi Arabia late on Friday for talks about the Syrian conflict, on which Moscow and Riyadh hold diverging views, a Saudi official said. Lavrov will meet Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on Saturday in the Red Sea...

Two people have been killed after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Lebanese security checkpoint in the eastern Bekaa Valley, according to officials. Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from area of the explosion said, that Lebanese security chief Abbas Ibrahim was the target...

* Inclusive government key to ending turmoil in Iraq * Solution needs to come from country's own leaders * "Takes two to tango" to restart Syria peace talks By Dasha Afanasieva ISTANBUL, June 20 (Reuters) - Iraq needs more inclusive governance across...

(Reuters) - President   Barack Obama   said on Thursday the United States would send up to 300 military advisers to support Iraqi forces confronting an al Qaeda-splinter group attacking the country and was prepared to take targeted military action if necessary. But the...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq asked the U.S. to launch airstrikes to beat back militants holding vast territories across its north, a decision Washington mulled over as insurgents pressed an assault on the country's largest oil refinery. U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday briefed...