The army has shrunk by nearly half since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 but experts say the remaining military force is now both more flexible and capable. It has transformed itself from a traditional military built on the former Soviet model into an effective...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced 27 people to prison for planning a series of attacks against U.S. forces in Qatar and Kuwait, with more than half of the defendants charged on Wednesday with also trying to join forces with a group in Syria to smuggle...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad has replaced five provincial governors, including some overseeing regions that include major fronts in Syria's civil war, state media said on Wednesday. The state news agency said Assad had shuffled governors of...

Iraq's Kurdish regional parliament will hold a session on Wednesday to vote on deploying peshmerga security forces to aid Syrian Kurds battling jihadists from the Islamic State group, a senior lawmaker said. The planned vote raises the possibility that the three-province...