Three years after Bahraini security forces subdued a popular uprising, the ruling family has launched a new dialogue with opponents to tackle simmering discontent; but a breakthrough remains elusive. Bahrain's fellow conservative Gulf Arab states and the West have a stake in the...

   Syria   has relinquished only 11 percent of its chemical weapons in three shipments and is on track to miss a politically-loaded midyear deadline to completely destroy the toxic stockpile, sources told Reuters on Friday. Syria  should already have handed...

Russia  and NATO are drawing up plans for a rare joint naval operation in the Mediterranean to protect the U.S. ship that will destroy Syria's deadliest chemical weapons, officials and other sources said. The operation would be a symbolic breakthrough at a time when...

Waiting among a group of evacuees from Homs for questioning by Syrian security forces, Hodwan al-Masri knew he could not hide his identity. "I am a known brigade commander, with my face all over social media," he said. Masri left the besieged city during a week-old...