Two Iraqi Shi'ite groups backed by Iran are demanding all U.S. forces leave Iraq, opposing plans by Baghdad and Washington to retain some in training and advisory roles. But Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters U.S. forces were needed "to completely finish the job"...

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked eastern Taiwan on Tuesday, killing two people and injuring more than 100 others, according to Taiwan’s official Central News Agency (CNA).  According to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the quake’s epicenter was 22 kilometers (13 miles) northeast of...

Prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan was denied bail in France Tuesday, judicial sources said, four days after he was remanded in custody on charges of rape that have sown divisions in the Muslim community. Two Muslim women have accused Ramadan, a 55-year-old Oxford University...

 Russian and Syrian government forces launched a new wave of airstrikes and shelling Tuesday, plunging the besieged area just outside of Syria's capital of Damascus into a spiral of violence and despair. At least 55 civilians were killed in what activists described as one of...

Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) and Saudi Arabia's King Salman Foundation signed a grant agreement worth $3 million for helping Syria. Yavuz Dede, secretary general for IHH, and Abdullah Ruveyli, an official from King Salman Foundation, signed the deal in Turkey's...

Four civilians were killed on Tuesday when Russian fighter jets conducted a series of airstrikes in northern Syria, according to local civil-defense officials.  Both Russia and the Assad regime have continued to carry out fierce airstrikes, both in central Idlib and in rural...

Turkey and Russia do not have any disagreements over Ankara's incursion into northern Syria's Afrin region, Turkey's foreign minister said Tuesday, adding that the two countries were in close contact about the operation. Turkey launched an air and ground offensive dubbed...

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday called on the government to strip Turkey's main medical association of the adjective "Turkish" in its name after it vehemently opposed the military operation in Syria. Erdogan accused members of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) of...

Iranians have political, economic and social demands which must be heard, President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday, one of his clearest statements of the right to air grievances since demonstrations were put down violently in December and January. "People have criticism and...

Paris terror attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has refused to return to his trial in Belgium this week over a shootout with police in Brussels that led to his capture, the court said Tuesday. The fresh show of defiance comes after Abdeslam berated judges for being anti-Muslim,...

Unexploded landmines left by Daesh (ISIS) fighters cover every inch of their former Syrian capital of Raqqa, a U.N. official said Tuesday, advising civilians against returning to their homes there. About 60,000 Syrians have returned to the ruins of Raqqa since Daesh left, Panos...

The death toll from Syrian regime air strikes on the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus Tuesday  has risen to 104, local monitoring group and local activists said. Strikes on several locations in the besieged area east of the capital also wounded more than 100...

 Yemeni forces loyal to the country's internationally recognized government Tuesday recaptured a key crossroads town in the southwestern province of Hudaida in an effort to cut off supply lines to the Shiite rebels, officials said. The forces backed by airstrikes from an Arab-led...

Egypt's prosecutor general has launched an investigation into leading opposition figures who have called for a boycott of next month's presidential election, over accusations they are attempting to "overthrow the regime." Nabil Sadeq's office in a statement late Monday said it had...

The Russian defense ministry has criticized an independent news website for publishing the average salaries of military officers after a Russian pilot's plane was downed over Syria. Saint Petersburg's respected news website Fontanka revealed late Monday that with basic information...

The United Nations called Tuesday for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Syria of at least one month as heavy air strikes were reported to have killed at least 30 people in rebel-held areas near Damascus and in the northwest. Separately, U.N. war crimes experts said in Geneva that...

The death toll from Syrian regime air strikes on the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus Tuesday has risen to 33, a monitoring group said. Strikes on several locations in the besieged area east of the capital also wounded more than 100 people, the Syrian Observatory for...

(Eqtsad)- Goods, food and building materials enter through regime forces and militias-controlled crossings into the besieged areas of northern Homs and southern Hama countryside.  The goods are entered without being subject to any common customs laws between countries, but are...

 Germany’s Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control approved a license for a company to sell military applicable technology to Iranian companies that subsequently was used in Syrian regime chemical weapons attacks, reported the German publication Bild on Monday....

A Palestinian man wanted over the murder last month of a rabbi near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank has been killed, Israel's Shin Bet security service said Tuesday. Ahmad Jarrar was killed in the northern West Bank town of Yamoun where he had been hiding, the agency said,...