Daesh (ISIS) is building up its defenses in a pocket of territory on the Syrian-Iraqi frontier, the U.S.-led coalition said Friday, in an anticipation of assaults by Syrian and Iraqi forces aiming to snuff out the extremists' last stronghold. Iraq launched an offensive on Thursday to...

Spain's Senate Friday voted to grant Madrid powers to impose direct rule on Catalonia, shortly after the semi-autonomous region's parliament approved a motion declaring independence. The measures allowing Madrid to take control of Catalonia and deposing regional president Carles...

The U.N.'s top human rights official is calling the Syrian government's siege of the capital's suburbs "an outrage" and says food and medical supplies must be allowed to reach civilians inside. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said Friday in a statement that residents of the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of...

DUBAI (Reuters) - A group of 13 human rights organizations urged the British government to call for the release of three Bahrainis detained in the Gulf State, saying they were being punished because they were relatives of a London-based activist and his wife. In a letter sent to Foreign...

Iraqi forces set a tight deadline Friday for Kurdish fighters to withdraw from an area on the Turkish border that is critical for oil exports, a government source told AFP. The senior security source, asking not to be named, said Kurdish peshmerga fighters were being given "a few hours" to...

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Results of Kenya’s presidential election re-run started to trickle in on Friday, with early estimates of the turnout at below 35 percent, dealing a blow to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s hopes for a decisive second-term mandate. With nearly all followers of opposition leader...

MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Spain prepared to impose direct rule in Catalonia on Friday, an unprecedented step that risks sparking unrest with secessionists calling on the Catalan parliament to make a defiant declaration of independence. The upper house of Spain’s parliament - the Senate -...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke on Thursday with Myanmar’s army chief and expressed concern over reported atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, the U.S. State Department said in a statement. Tillerson urged the army chief, Senior...

A new round of UN-led talks aimed at ending Syria's six-year war will take place in Geneva from November 28, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said Thursday. The talks will follow up on a meeting next week in the Kazakh capital of Astana between Russia, Iran and Turkey that is also aimed at...

GENEVA (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad and his family have no role in the future of Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday ahead of peace talks aiming at a political transition scheduled to resume next month. Tillerson said that the Trump administration...

 (Reuters) - Iraqi forces launched an attack to drive Islamic State from the last territory it holds in Iraq on Thursday and the Syrian army and its allies said they planned to march on the jihadist’s last Syrian stronghold. The separate assaults across the Iraqi-Syrian frontier...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkey’s decision to release a German human rights activist is a sign of improving relations between the two NATO allies, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday, adding that Germany wanted all its citizens detained in Turkish prisons freed. Peter Steudtner,...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 15 regime forces killed in an ambush set up by Faylaq al-Rahman group in the embattled Eastern Ghouta Suburbs near Damascus, spokesman said on Thursday. Wael Alwan said Faylaq al-Rahman fighters have foiled regime attempt to advance into Ein Tarma and Jobar...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces are responsible for a deadly sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun that killed scores of people, a UN investigative panel said Thursday. The joint UN-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) panel said in a...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 6 people have been killed in regime artillery shelling on Douma city, northeastern the capital, local activists said on Thursday.  The ground bombardment extended to Saqba and Jobar neighborhood in the embattled Eastern Ghouta suburbs. More than...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Israel is willing to resort to military action to ensure Iran never acquires nuclear weapons, the intelligence minister said on Thursday in Japan where he is seeking backing for U.S. President Donald Trump’s tougher line on Tehran. Trump said on Oct. 13 he would not...

BAGHDAD/LONDON (Reuters) - When the Iraqi army and Iranian-backed Shi‘ite militia entered a key oil processing facility in Iraq’s north to retake it from Kurdish Peshmerga forces last week, the installation was deserted and its alarm bells ringing. Engineers and workers on the facility,...

 Iraqi forces launched on Thursday an offensive to recapture the last patch of Iraqi territory still in the hands of Islamic State, on the border area with Syria, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said. “Daesh members have to choose between death and surrender,” he said in a statement...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 90,000 Syrian militants have been operating in Iran-backed Shiite militias in Syria, according to a leaked document issued by the Syrian Defense Ministry early 2017. The document that obtained by Zaman al-Wasl includes list of the Iranian militias fighting...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The three parties exploring a possible coalition in Germany face an early test of their willingness to compromise on Thursday when they try to hammer out a common stance on deeply divisive immigration and asylum policy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is trying to...