Turkey’s newly launched anti-terror operation in northern Syria liberated seven villages of Tal Abyad town and Ras al-Ayn city from terrorists on Thursday. The villages of al-Yabisah and Tal Fandar were the first ones cleared of terrorists as part of the Operation Peace Spring -- launched...

Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels have now encircled two border towns in northeast Syria held by the U.S.-backed SDF forces after a ground offensive that seized several villages around them, a spokesman for the rebels said Thursday. Major Youssef Hamoud said the two towns of Ras al...

Roger Federer said that his devoted band of Chinese supporters helped pull him through a tough first set and into the Shanghai Masters quarter-finals on Thursday. The Swiss defeated David Goffin 7-6 (9/7), 6-4 after the 13th seed from Belgium squandered five set points in the first set....

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday threatened to call off a summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin if all sides do not agree on plans to pull out troops from the east. The country's comedian-turned-politician is gearing up to hold talks with Putin in Paris in an effort to...

Waving flags and snapping selfies, thousands of Iranian women on Thursday attended a football match freely for the first time in decades, after FIFA threatened to suspend the country over its controversial stadium restrictions. Elated female fans wore the national green, white and red flag...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 17 militiants from the Palestinian Liwa al-Quds militia have been killed in a suprpise attack by Daesh (ISIS) in the Syrian desert, Jihadist news feeds reported Thursday. The attack took place east of the central Homs city when Daesh militants hit a military...

Turkish forces have killed more than 100 militants in an assault on Kurdish militia in northeast Syria, Turkey’s president said on Thursday, as heavy shelling and air strikes against targets in the region continued. According to a senior Turkish security official, armed forces struck...

Turkish ground forces seized at least one village from Kurdish fighters in northern Syria as they pressed ahead with their assault for a second day Thursday, pounding towns and villages along with border with airstrikes and artillery. Residents of border areas within Syria scrambled in...

Israel Thursday slammed Turkey's "invasion" of Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria and warned against "ethnic cleansing" of the Kurdish people, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. "Israel strongly condemns the Turkish invasion of the Kurdish areas in Syria and warns against...

Efforts to halt an Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo have made "significant progress", with the virus now contained to a far smaller and mainly rural area, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday. "We have put the virus in the corner," Michael Ryan, the executive...

Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk on Thursday won the 2018 Nobel Literature Prize, which was delayed over a sexual harassment scandal, while Austrian novelist and playwright Peter Handke took the 2019 award, the Swedish Academy said. Tokarczuk, 57, considered the most talented Polish novelist of...

Much like in the U.S., the public in Russia is also growing weary of ongoing conflicts and the prolonged involvement of their armed forces abroad. Russia launched its operations in Syria on Sept. 30, 2015. According to a recent survey conducted by Levada Centre, a Russian polling NGO,...

The Turkish lira weakened against the dollar Thursday as investors fretted about negative international reaction to a ground operation launched by Turkish troops against the Kurdish militia in northeast Syria overnight. The lira weakened to 5.88 against dollar from a close of 5.8740 a day...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Participants in the Refugees' Rights Defenders initiative called for stopping the procedures of forcible deportation of refugees to Syria due to its violation of Article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which...

Turkish commandos pushed deeper into Syrian territory east of the Euphrates river on the second day of a offensive against Kurdish militia, as a withdrawal by U.S. forces opened up a dangerous new phase in the region’s eight-year-old conflict. Ashamed of Washington’s role in making way for...

European Union finance ministers agreed to remove the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland from the bloc's lists of countries deemed to be acting as tax havens, according to a statement Thursday. At a meeting in Luxembourg, ministers decided to drop UAE from the EU blacklist that...

Either all Gulf countries enjoy security, "or they will all be deprived of it," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday in an opinion piece in the Kuwaiti Al Rai newspaper. Saudi Arabia, which is locked in several proxy wars in the region with arch foe Iran, has blamed...

 Saudi Arabia's deputy defense minister Prince Khalid bin Salman said Thursday he discussed regional security and military cooperation with senior U.S. government officials at a time of heightened tension with Iran following last month's attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Saudi Arabia...

Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday it will allow women in the ultra-conservative kingdom to serve in the armed forces as it embarks on a broad programme of economic and social reforms.  The move is the latest in a series of measures aimed at increasing the rights of women in the...

As social media firms ramp up their fight against misinformation, politicians have been largely left exempt. To some, that's a huge problem. Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have decided to allow politicians including President Donald Trump extra leeway to their rules,...