Pope Francis on Thursday said the Catholic Church will not accept a Middle East without Christians, who often find themselves forced to flee areas of conflict and unrest in the region. "We will not resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christians," he said after meeting...

Divisions in rebel ranks and more committed loyalist fighters are helping the Syrian regime notch up military victories that would give it the upper hand at peace talks, analysts and rebels say. The army's capture this week of the strategic town of Qara, north of Damascus, followed...

Fighting for a key military base outside Syria's main northern city of Aleppo killed at least 15 pro-regime militiamen on Thursday, a monitoring group said. "Fifteen members of the National Defence Forces were killed in fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,...

Saudi Arabia has asked its citizens to leave Lebanon due to the risk of political violence in the country, where twin suicide bombings near Iran's embassy in Beirut killed 25 people this week. Riyadh has issued several similar calls in the past two years as the...