Damascus (AFP) - Islamic State fighters have seized a Syrian army base in the northern province of Raqa, killing scores of troops and beheading some of them, a monitoring group said Saturday. The takeover of Division 17 base came as the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said...

(Reuters) - The growing power of the ultra-hardline Islamic State means the Syrian army is now having to confront a group it has until now been reluctant to attack for political reasons. The emergence of the al Qaeda offshoot, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and...

(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed regional leaders to nail down a Gaza ceasefire on Friday as the civilian death toll soared, and further violence loomed between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. With Israel and...

John Kerry, US secretary of state, is in Cairo for the second time in 48 hours to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as the Israeli military presses on with its offensive against the Gaza Strip. A family of six, including a five-year-old girl and a boy of three,...