BEIRUT (AP) — A Lebanese intelligence chief who has mediated the release of Westerners held in Syria and also acted as a mediator within Lebanon stepped down Wednesday after attempts to extend his term failed. Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim’s term as a head of the General Security Directorate...

The warning signs were there from the beginning, now she thinks about it. Rima* was 18 and studying at a Syrian university when her family arranged for her to marry a man several years older than she was. “From the moment we were married he controlled me,” she says. “I actually agreed...

BEIRUT (AP) — A Muslim cleric who went missing earlier this week was killed by people from his northern hometown with whom he had been at odds with for more than a decade, security officials said Saturday. Sheikh Ahmad Rifai, a Sunni cleric, was last seen in the northern city of Tripoli...

RBIL, IRAQI KURDISTAN: Barely two months in and 2023 has already proven an eventful year in the ongoing covert conflict between Israel and Iran. Early on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed five people and damaged several buildings in Syria’s capital Damascus. Two Western intelligence...