Ali al-Ahmed and his family fled on foot through the fields when the bombs began raining down on their house in northwestern Syria, escaping a major offensive by the Syrian army and its Russian allies. “In the early hours of the morning, the artillery stopped. Then the warplanes and...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected talks with the United States on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump said Iran would call and ask for negotiations “if and when they are ever ready”. Tehran and Washington have escalated rhetoric against each other in recent weeks as the United...

A Syrian government offensive to capture the northern province of Idlib has killed dozens of civilians and forced more than 200,000 people to flee over the past month, leading to fears of a major humanitarian crisis in the last rebel-held bastion. The Syrian army, backed by its ally Russia,...

Sudanese prosecutors ordered the arrest of former intelligence chief for questioning over a bank account but his guards blocked his arrest, the prosecutor's office said Tuesday. Salah Abdallah Mohamed Salah, known as Salah Gosh, was to be questioned over an account containing 46 billion...

Dutch police Tuesday arrested a Syrian asylum seeker suspected of committing war crimes as a commander of Nusra Front (now Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham), prosecutors said. The 47-year-old man, identified only by his nom de guerre Abu Khuder, was detained in Kapelle in the southwestern Netherlands,...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday it was "quite possible" Iran was responsible for sabotage of Gulf oil interests as he prepared to brief lawmakers on rising tensions. Pompeo cautioned that the United States has not made "a definitive conclusion" that can be presented publicly...

Bahrain said Tuesday a peace conference it is co-hosting next month with the US is aimed at helping the Palestinians, who have criticised the Gulf kingdom for failing to consult them about the event. The conference "serves no other purpose" than to help the Palestinian people "through...

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned the United States of "painful consequences for everybody" if there is an escalation in tensions with the Islamic republic. Zarif also accused the US of "playing a very, very dangerous game" in an interview with CNN aired on Tuesday....

The UN envoy for Libya warned Tuesday the battle for Tripoli was "just the start of a long and bloody war" and called for immediate steps to cut off arms flows fueling the fighting. Addressing the Security Council, Ghassan Salame said many countries were supplying weapons to the...

British Prime Minister Theresa May said her government will include in her Withdrawal Agreement Bill a requirement for lawmakers to vote on whether to hold another Brexit referendum. "I recognise the genuine and sincere strength of feeling across the House on this important issue," May...

Iraq will send delegations to Washington and Tehran to help "halt tension" amid fears of a confrontation between the United States and Iran in the Middle East, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Tuesday. He said there were no Iraqi groups that wanted to push towards a war, two days after...

Google's decision to partially cut off Huawei devices from its Android operating system has presented the Chinese tech titan with one of its most dramatic challenges yet: how to keep up with the competition if it cannot use the platform that powers nearly every other smartphone in the world?...

Israel announced Tuesday it had eased fishing restrictions off the blockaded Gaza Strip after a ceasefire with Hamas ended a deadly escalation earlier this month. Israel extended the fishing limit to up to 15 nautical miles, said COGAT, the defence ministry unit that oversees such...

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned of an "existential risk" to the EU just days ahead of elections for the European Parliament, while playing down the political risks of being personally involved in the high-stakes campaign. "I cannot be a spectator, but a participant in what is...

Washington has warned that Chinese-made drones could be giving spy agencies in Beijing "unfettered access" to stolen data, according to a report in American media. The Department of Homeland Security sent out an alert on Monday flagging drones built in China as a "potential risk to an...

Abu Anas al-Hijazi scanned the stalls in the Syrian capital's Bab Srija market but bought nothing. For the cash-strapped 45-year-old wedding singer, this Ramadan is a frugal one. "We used to lay out a large spread and invite relatives and friends for a feast around six or seven times at...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he favors talks and diplomacy but not under current conditions, state news agency IRNA said late on Monday. “Today’s situation is not suitable for talks and our choice is resistance only” IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying. U.S. President Donald Trump...

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement targeted an arms depot at Najran airport in Saudi Arabia which caused a fire to break out in the facility, the group’s Al Masirah TV said on Tuesday. Earlier the Saudi-led military coalition said a civilian facility in Saudi Arabia’s province of Najran...

Sudanese army rulers and protesters failed Tuesday to reach an agreement yet again on the make-up of a new ruling body as negotiations also became deadlocked over who should lead it - a civilian or soldier. The two sides launched a round of new talks late Sunday over the sovereign council...

Concerns about the worsening Huawei row and the broader China-US trade war put pressure on Asia equities on Tuesday, with analysts warning the crisis could rumble on for some time. Regional investors were spooked by a sharp drop in New York's tech-rich Nasdaq after Google said it was...