(Zaman Al Wasl)- Islamic State fighters launched surprise attack on regime forces and allied militias in the northwestern Hama province overnight, killing and wounding 28 troops, pro-regime news feeds said Friday. The attack took place north of Salamiyya city near a highway links...

More than 1,200 people including rebels left two opposition-held districts of Damascus on Friday under an agreement that will bring Syria's government closer to exerting full control over the capital. For more than two years, the government of President Bashar Assad has touted such...

A U.S.-backed alliance of Arabs and Kurds will launch their final assault on ISIS' Syrian bastion Raqqa in early summer, two commanders from the force said Friday. "The attack on Raqqa will take place in the beginning of the summer," Syrian Democratic Forces commander Rojda Felat told AFP....

An Iraqi official says the country's Shiite-led militia force has launched an operation to retake a small village held by ISIS west of the embattled city of Mosul. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who heads the government-sanctioned militia forces known as the Popular Mobilization Units, says the push...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian air force has used most of its military and even civil airports to bomb the areas that revolted against the regime. The pilots in the southern airbases in the rural areas of Damascus and Sweida participated in the crimes against the Syrian people...

North Korea demanded Friday the extradition of South Korea's spy chief, accusing him of being a mastermind of a plot to assassinate its leader, Kim Jong Un, with a biochemical weapon. The North's KCNA state news agency last week accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea's...

( The Guardian )- The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has taken a combative tone in campaigning as conservative rivals pull out all the stops to prevent him from being re-elected.  The favourite among reformists of the six candidates running for president on 19 May, Rouhani has...

Turkey Friday detained 57 people in an operation against the Istanbul stock exchange as part of the investigation into the failed July 15 coup, state media said. The 57 people were detained in six different provinces, with over 100 arrest warrants issued, the state-run Anadolu news agency...

Centrist French President elect Emmanuel Macron is open to talks with the main conservative grouping, a top aide said Friday, a day after his start-up party included a group of Socialists among his candidates for the coming parliamentary election. Macron, until last year economy minister in...

 Top finance officials from seven advanced economies have gathered to hear more about U.S. President Donald Trump's economic policies on taxation and trade as well as to look for ways to promote growth, combat terrorist financing and stop tax avoidance by major corporations. The meeting...

Turkey has agreed to a request from the Australian government to extradite a citizen it believes to be a top recruiter for ISIS, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Friday. Melbourne-born Neil Prakash has been linked to several Australia-based attack plans and has appeared in ISIS videos...

By Josh Rogin ( Washington Post )- President Trump’s Wednesday meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the White House was not primarily about sanctions or Crimea or even Russian interference in the 2016 election. According to Trump, the U.S. government now looks favorably on...

Al Qaeda has started reaching out for recruits in Yemen by handing out quiz sheets, with an AK-47 assault rifle as top prize, residents and media said on Thursday. Militants have been touring the southwestern city of Taiz in the build-up to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, putting up...

President Donald Trump blasted ousted FBI chief James Comey as a "showboat" and "grandstander" on Thursday even as the agency's acting leader contradicted the president's account that the FBI had been in turmoil before he fired Comey. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee,...

Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an interview with Belarusian TV Channel ONT aired on Thursday, said he will not back down from fighting his enemies. He pledged to defend de-escalation zones, brokered by Russia, and crush, with the support of Iran and Hezbollah, those who will try to breach...

Donald Trump's administration was left red-faced Thursday after the Kremlin surprised them by releasing pictures of a closed-door meeting between the US president and Russia's top diplomat. The images -- issued by the Russian state news agency TASS, and subsequently published by much of the...

( The Guardian )- Doctors in Syria have turned to crowdfunding in a desperate attempt to keep makeshift hospitals running in caves and underground. Rules governing how aid budgets are spent have tied up funding, forcing medics to seek alternative means of building and reinforcing the...

The capture of a key Syrian town and a nearby dam from ISIS militants by Syrian Kurdish-led forces undermines the ISIS's ability to defend its de facto capital, Raqqa and disrupts its ability to plan attacks in Western countries, the U.S.-led international coalition said Thursday. Tabqa and...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Islamic State said it had killed 104 militants fighting under the banner of Syrian Democratic forces less than a day since the radical group lost strategic Tabqa city and Euphrates dam to the  US-backed   forces, the group's news agency said...

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces were moving to surround Mosul's Old City on Thursday, a week after launching a fresh push to drive ISIS militants from areas they still hold, according to an Iraqi officer overseeing the operation. Iraqi special forces Lt. Gen. Sami al-Arathi said battle plans had...