(Zaman Al Wasl)- Lebanon has officially appointed Saad Zakhia as its ambassador to Damascus, such a move welcomed by the Syrian regime and sparked outrage of Syrian activists. Last July, The Lebanese government recommended Zakhia to be its ambassador to Syria.  The step seemed as a...

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdistan’s veteran leader Masoud Barzani will not extend his presidential term beyond Nov. 1, a Kurdish government official said on Saturday. His decision came just weeks after a referendum on Kurdish independence backfired and triggered a crisis for...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appointed a new armed forces chief of staff on Saturday, and the interior ministry dismissed several high-ranking officials in an apparent reorganization of the country’s security command. No reason was given for the reshuffle,...

Somali security forces have ended a night-long siege by at a Mogadishu hotel by five extremist attackers who stormed the building after a suicide car bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the entrance gate Saturday afternoon. The attack killed 23 people. Troops regained...

MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Sacked Catalonian president Carles Puigdemont on Saturday called for peaceful “democratic opposition” to the central government’s takeover of the region following its unilateral declaration of independence from Spain. Puigdemont, whose regional government...

Turkey arrested 49 alleged members of Daesh (ISIS) Saturday, some of whom were suspected of planning an attack on Turkey's national holiday Sunday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The arrests in the capital Ankara came a day before celebrations across the country for the...

Iraqi and Kurdish commanders held talks Saturday on a withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from disputed areas after a truce was declared in clashes over a key border post, the premier's office said. "The main task of this joint technical committee is to allow the deployment without violence...

 It all began with a fish seized by the police. Morocco is marking one year since a fisherman's gruesome death spawned a social protest movement against police abuse - an event that has drawn comparisons to the 2010 death of a Tunisian vendor that sparked the Arab Spring democracy...

A bus carrying passengers returning from a Hindu festival to the Nepali capital of Kathmandu skidded off the main highway and plunged into a river Saturday, killing at least 31 people and leaving others trapped, officials said. The accident occurred around dawn, around 50 km west of the...

A Salafist imam was shot dead by gunmen early Saturday in Aden, southern Yemen, witnesses and local officials said, the third killing of a Salafist imam this month. Sheikh Adel Al Shehri, imam of a mosque in Inmaa district west of Aden, was shot while he was heading to the mosque for...

Britain Friday urged the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Syria after a U.N.-led investigation found that government forces were responsible for the sarin gas attack on Khan Sheikhun. A joint U.N.-Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) panel...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Across Libya’s capital residents have started drilling through pavements to access wells in a desperate search for water after the taps ran dry in a new low for living conditions. After years of neglect, workers turned off the water to do urgent maintenance earlier...

Syrian and Iraqi forces closing in on the last scraps of Islamic State’s caliphate straddling the remote border area between the two countries have already witnessed the jihadists’ likely response. While their comrades mounted last stands in their Syrian capital of Raqqa and the city of...

US President Donald Trump offered to host a meeting to end an ongoing diplomatic crisis in the Gulf but the Saudi-led bloc boycotting Qatar refused to take part, Qatar's emir has said. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani made the comments on proposed Camp David-like meet in an interview...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Despite the two-month-old hunger strike, the release date of 6 Free Syrian Army prisoners held by the US-backed militias in Raqqa since a year still unknown. Activist Abdulaziz al-Mutlaq told Zaman al-Wasl the detained fighters, five of them are family members, were...

Spain's allies in Europe and the United States rallied behind Madrid on Friday after Catalonia's regional parliament declared independence in an escalating standoff. Catalan MPs passed the motion by 70 votes to 10 -- in a ballot boycotted by the opposition -- in a move that threatens...

 The Syrian government rejected a report sent to the U.N. Security Council that blamed it for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in April in which dozens of people were killed, state media said on Friday. “Syria rejects in form and substance what was...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- U.S.-backed Kurdish militias on Friday have handed over the Meng military airport in northern Aleppo province to the Russian military, local sources said. The YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have withdrawn to Tel Rifaat town in the northern countryside of Aleppo...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - An official document seen by Reuters shows that at least 131 Russian citizens died in Syria in the first nine months of this year, a number that relatives, friends and local officials say included private military contractors.   The document, a death certificate...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Six rebel fighters were killed on Friday when two explosive devices stuck their cars in southern Daraa province, local activists said.  The improvised explosive devices have turned fatal weapon tracking moderate rebels in Daraa as clashes renewed with...