( Washington Post )- The Islamic State’s headquarters in this city at the western gateway to Raqqa has been crushed like a sandcastle by American bombs. At a dam complex on the Euphrates River where the Islamic State was torturing prisoners and hurling alleged homosexuals from a giant concrete...

The threat posed by North Korea was a key topic in phone calls between U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of China and Japan, along with trade issues, the White House said on Sunday. Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ahead of...

( The Guardian )- Abdulmonem Kitouh was on top of the world. It was December 2015 and he had just married the love of his life. He and Rana Damien had met in Aleppo, often in secret, because he was a Muslim and she a Christian. When the war in Syria upended their lives, he moved to Istanbul...

A rescue helicopter crashed while heading to help evacuate residents near an active volcano on Indonesia's main island, killing all eight people on board, officials said Monday. The helicopter crashed about three minutes before arriving at Dieng Plateau, the popular tourist area where the...

Eight people including a girl were lightly wounded late Sunday in a shooting in front of a mosque in the southeast French city of Avignon, the prosecutor's office said, ruling out terrorism. According to initial accounts taken on the spot, at least two men got out of a car around 10:30 pm...

By Ethar Abdulhaq (Zaman Al  Wasl)- When Wael Jakesh, one of the most dangerous commanders of the National Defense militia in al-Salamiyah city east of Hama province or perhaps even all Syria, was killed on June 5, 2017, he was celebrated as “a martyr of the homeland who died fighting...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- A Syrian military helicopter has been destroyed and four soldiers have been killed by the Islamic State in eastern Deir Ezzor province, Russian Sputnik agency said Sunday.   The helicopter that landed in an army base to deliver food rations to regime forces was a...

A suicide bomber attacked a camp for displaced Iraqis in Anbar province on Sunday, killing 14 people, a police major and a doctor said. The blast at the 60 Kilo camp west of Anbar capital Ramadi also wounded 13 people. The doctor and the major both said that most of the victims were...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The villages of Kafarya and al-Fu’ah occasionally witness the pro-Assad militias burning the villages’ fruit trees and bulldozing agricultural land in the two towns or at the front lines. Villagers in nearby Binesh, also hear the sound of massive explosions coming from the two...

US-backed fighters pierced jihadist-held Raqqa from the south for the first time on Sunday, crossing the Euphrates River to enter a new part of the Syrian city, a monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces have spent months closing in on the Daesh (ISIS) bastion Raqqa and entered the city's...

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday threw his weight behind a planned Sahel force to fight jihadists on a lightning visit to Mali but told countries in the region their efforts had to bear fruit. Faced with a growing number of jihadist attacks in central Mali which have also hit...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 160 officers and soldiers from Homs, Latakia and Hama provinces were killed last June in clashes with the Islamic State and rebels, pro-regime media outlets said. The death toll included 39 officers who mostly killed by ISIS in the Syrian desert, also known as Badiya,...

An Egyptian court on Sunday upheld the death penalty for 20 men charged with killing policemen in the violence that followed the military's ousting of former-President Mohammad Morsi in 2013, while changing the sentence for many others to hefty prison terms. The verdicts can again be...

A 1948 Palestinian former lawmaker entered prison with "pride" Sunday as he began a two-year sentence for smuggling cellphones to Palestinian prisoners. Basel Ghattas said he was entering prison with his "head held high" and with "support from my people." Read More: Triple blast...

President Bashar al-Assad has appeared on the Syrian currency for the first time, his portrait printed on a new 2,000-pound banknote that went into circulation on Sunday. Central bank governor Duraid Durgham said the 2,000-pound note was one of several new notes printed years ago but the...

A drone strike likely to have been carried out by the United States killed two suspected Al-Qaeda members in southern Yemen, a security official said on Sunday. The attack took place on Saturday night in Wadhie, a region in the southern province of Abyan, the official said. One of the...

Taliban militants ambushed and killed 13 members of an anti-militant militia in a mosque in northern Afghanistan, officials confirmed on Sunday. The incident took place a day earlier in the remote village of Haji Nadir in the restive Chamtal district, in the Balkh province bordering...

France and its African partners must work together to wipe out Islamist militants in the volatile Sahel region, President Emmanuel Macron said at the opening of a summit in Mali's capital Bamako on Sunday. Leaders of the G5 Sahel bloc - Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad - were...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- A big fire tore through a camp for Syrian refugees in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Sunday, killing three refugees, a security offcials said. The camp is located near the town of Qab Elias, an hour's drive from Beirut. Meanwhile, Syrian refugees who endured to major...

French energy giant Total is to sign a $4.8 billion agreement to develop an Iranian offshore gas field, the oil ministry said Sunday, in the biggest foreign deal since sanctions were eased. "The international agreement for the development of phase 11 of South Pars will be signed on Monday in...