A group of 17 Indonesians who had joined the Islamic State group in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa have been handed over to representatives of their country and have left Syria, a local Kurdish official and a spokeswoman said on Wednesday. According to the official, Omar Alloush, the...

By Abdullah Ghadawi (Zaman Al Wasl)- George Sabra, member of the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee, said rifts and discords are now emerging more than ever about accepting Bashar al-Assad stay in the transitional period, pointing out that the current stage...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime forces have intensified bombing on Jobar neighborhood on Wednesday seeking to take last rebel stronghold in Damascus, local activists and rebel spokesman said. Wael Alwan, spokesman for Faylaq al-Rahman, key rebel group fighting regime forces in...

France's parliament overwhelmingly backed a new law Wednesday to clean up politics, a campaign promise of President Emmanuel Macron following a string of scandals. A total of 412 lawmakers backed the bill, against 74 with 62 abstentions. The law, which follows a string of scandals in...

Women fighters danced to Kurdish songs in a village in northern Syria on Wednesday after completing their military training to join the battle against Daesh (ISIS). The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of local militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition, had given the 210 women a...

  (Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime forces have made limited withdrawal from al-Sukhna town east of central Homs city, due to a series of car bomb attacks carried out by ISIS after three days of taking control of the town, local reporter said Wednesday. The radical group launched...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 5 people have been killed in Eastern Ghouta suburbs as Syrian regime forces and allied militias intensified their bombardment on rebel-held region near the capital, two days after rebels frustrated a regime attempt to advance, activists said Wednesday. The...

In a humid room in the besieged Syrian town of Douma, Abu Nabil inspects the pearly white mushrooms sprouting from white sacks hanging from a ceiling. The oyster mushrooms poking out from holes in the bags are now a substitute for meat in the rebel stronghold, where a government blockade has...

( The New Arab )- It could be the lure of Bethlehem's Banksy hotel offering "the worst view in the world" that is attracting tourists in their thousands to the West Bank, but whatever has propelled Palestine to the top of the list of 2017's fastest-growing tourist destinations is helping bring...

Yemen's spiralling health crisis has forced organisations treating war-wounded to shift their focus to diseases "nobody should die of," the International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday. In an interview with AFP in Beirut, the head of the ICRC's Yemen delegation, Alexandre Faite,...

Three rebels and one civilian were killed in violence in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday, police said, two days after soldiers killed five fighters along the de-facto border with Pakistan. Inspector general of police Muneer Ahmed Khan said soldiers and police cordoned off a residential area...

A Spanish ship with three Libyan migrants onboard was finally allowed Wednesday to dock in Sicily after a diplomatic spat between Italy and Malta left it in limbo. The Golfo Azzurro, chartered by Spain's Proactiva Open Arms NGO, had rescued the migrants on Sunday in an operation normally...

Syrian opposition activists are reporting that airstrikes on parts of the northern city of Raqqa that are controlled by Daesh (ISIS) have intensified, killing at least 29 people in the past two days. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have been trying to capture the city since...

German prosecutors say they've arrested a 29-year-old Syrian man on allegations he committed war crimes as a member of Daesh (ISIS) in his home country. The federal prosecutor's office said Wednesday that Fares A. B., whose last name wasn't released in line with privacy laws, is also accused...

Egypt is curtailing access to ration cards used by three-quarters of the country's 93 million people to buy subsidized food items, the latest move in the government's ambitious economic reform plan. A government decree going into effect on Wednesday denies access to the cards to people...

Tunisian security forces have killed two suspected extremists during an operation in a mountainous area near the Algerian border, the national guard said on Wednesday. A third suspect was critically wounded in the operation launched on Tuesday evening on Mount Birinou in the Kasserine...

Palestinian security forces have arrested five journalists from local media outlets, including one affiliated with Hamas, a journalists' union and official media said Wednesday. Security forces arrested the five journalists from different Palestinian media in the West Bank in recent days,...

French police launched a manhunt on Wednesday after a car rammed into soldiers near their barracks outside Paris, injuring six people, two of them seriously. Police were scrambling to track down the vehicle, which took off after the incident described by local mayor Patrick Balkany as...

Ratcheting political tensions between the United States and North Korea sent European shares south on Wednesday, with all major benchmarks and sectors in the red and investors rushing to gold, while strong results from Scout24 and Novo Nordisk shone. The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.5...

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck a remote, mountainous part of China's southwestern province of Sichuan, killing 19 people, including six tourists, and injuring 247, the provincial government and official media said on Wednesday. The quake hit a sparsely populated area 200 km (120 miles)...