With its decades-old US alliance strained over the Syria war and a nuclear deal with Iran, Saudi Arabia is calling on the Gulf monarchies to unite for their own self-defence. US Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel has assured Gulf states that the agreement struck between major powers and...

The road needed to ship chemical weapons out of Syria has been seized by troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. The Damascus-Homs highway had been blocked for around 20 days, preventing the delivery of fuel to the capital, as troops battled with rebel fighters to secure control of...

Amid news of Assad’s advances in al-Nabk, one of the last rebel-held areas in Qalamoun, activists reported a mounting presence of Iraqi Shi’ite militias for the first time in battlefields far away from the Shiite shrines. Thu al-Faqar...