The United Nations Security Council has unanimously backed attempts to restart talks between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement over the Western Sahara conflict and has extended its peacekeeping mission for another year. The resolution late Friday came after the U.N. mission...

Pope Francis is set to lead a mass for Egypt's small Catholic community Saturday as he visits the country in support of its Christians following a series of deadly church bombings. The spiritual leader of the world's almost 1.3 billion Catholics will lead mass for some 30,000 believers in a...

As tension spikes on the Korean peninsula, a French amphibious assault carrier sailed into Japan's naval base of Sasebo Saturday ahead of drills that risk upsetting China, which faces U.S. pressure to rein in North Korea's arms programs. The Mistral will lead exercises next month near Guam,...

U.S. Marines returned to Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province Saturday, the first to be deployed in the war-torn country since NATO forces ended their combat role in 2014. Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan General John Nicholson attended a handover ceremony marking the...

A commander of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Friday U.S. forces would begin monitoring the situation along the Syria-Turkey frontier after cross-border fire between the Turkish military and YPG this week. The monitoring had not yet begun, but the forces would report to senior U.S....

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Jaish al-Islam accused Jabhat Fateh al-Sham of kidnapping its reinforcements while it were heading to Qaboun district northeast of Damascus, such allegation sparked fierce fighting left at least 55 fighters on Friday. Yaser  Quwatli, head of the Islam Army’s Political...

By Abdullah Ghadawi (Zaman Al Wasl)- Dr. Imad Barq, the Minister of Education in the opposition's interim government, reveals in an interview with Zaman al-Wasl how the education proccess is rolling on in rebel-held areas and gives more highlights over the accreditation of certificates,...

An attorney for a Syrian man living in Wisconsin who sued over President Donald Trump's travel ban says the man has been reunited with his wife and young daughter after three years. Attorney Vincent Levy told The Associated Press exclusively on Friday that his client's wife and daughter...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 6 people have been killed in regime and Russian air strikes on northern Idlib province, local activists said Friday. Three people were killed in Sarmeen town east of Idlib when regime forces fired Ballistic missiles on the eastern neighborhood of the town. A woman was...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Powerful Ahrar al-Sham movement condemned the infighting between key rebel groups in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, urging for an immediate ‘ceasefire’ as clashes left 40 fighters dead. Ahrar al-Sham said in statement Jaish al-Islam group stood behind the ongoing fighting...

( Al-Monitor )- Turkey appears to be hoping that its bombing this week of Sinjar in Iraq and Rojava in northern Syria will enable it to intervene in those countries on a larger scale. Since Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria in August 2016, attacks against organizations...

( The Washington Post )- U.S. armored vehicles are deploying in areas in northern Syria along the tense border with Turkey, a few days after a Turkish airstrike that killed 20 U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, a Syrian war monitor and Kurdish activists said Friday. Footage posted by Syrian...

 Defeated first-round French presidential candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan called on his voters on Friday to support the far-right Marine Le Pen in the May 7 runoff. Dupont-Aignan, who had scored 4.7 percent of votes in the first round, said he had signed an agreement on the future...

( The Daily Mail )- A British woman who fled Syria after spending two years in Islamic State-held territory must face justice on her return to the UK, her father said yesterday. Kolsoma Begum, 22, and her Muslim convert husband Stefan Aristidou, 23, were arrested after surrendering to...

Leaping over bombed roofs and jumping through damaged window frames, a group of teenagers run and swing their way through buildings left dilapidated by six years of war in the southern Syrian town of Inkhil. The young men practise Parkour across rebel-held Inkhil, saying they find escape in...

Fierce clashes between extremists and Islamist rebels near Damascus left at least 40 dead and 70 wounded on Friday, activists said. The opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes pitted the Saudi-backed rebel faction Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) against...

(Eqtsad)- The city of Menbij is witnessing an economic recovery and rebuilding activities, in addition to activating the commercial activities in the city, because it is a connection point linking Eastern and Northern parts of the country, amid accusations of monopolising by many traders in...

French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane Friday warned against voting for Marine Le Pen's National Front in the run-off in France's presidential election on May 7, repeating his 2002 stand against the far-right party. "It is the same as in 2002, that I am far away from those ideas, from the...

 German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this weekend with a message that they should do more to help refugees. Germany has taken in hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, straining the...

Israel intends to build 15,000 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem, the Housing Ministry said on Friday despite U.S. President Donald Trump's request to "hold back" on settlements as part of a possible new push for Israeli-Palestinian peace. A formal announcement of the settlement plan,...