( Foreign Policy )- In 2012, President Barack Obama warned that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that would “change [the] calculus” of U.S. policy toward the Syrian civil war. A year later, faced with evidence that Assad had used sarin gas against his...

A cargo vessel with 12 crew members aboard sank Wednesday morning off Russia's Black Sea coast, authorities said as they searched for some of the seamen who are still missing. The cargo ship -- which was transporting grain from Russia's southern Rostov region to Turkey -- went missing from...

Turkey's High Electoral Board (YSK) will Wednesday evaluate complaints and appeals for annulment of Sunday's referendum on boosting powers of the presidency, broadcaster NTV cited the head of the board as saying. The main opposition began a battle Tuesday to annul the referendum which handed...

The evacuation of civilians and fighters from besieged Syrian towns resumed Wednesday after a weekend bombing at a transit point killed 126 people, 68 of them children, an AFP correspondent reported. Dozens of buses from the government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya, which have been...

( The Guardian )- The Trump administration has notified Congress that Iran is complying with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by former president Barack Obama, and says the US has extended the sanctions relief given to the Islamic republic in exchange for curbs on its atomic...

Russia must end “blind support” for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and help find a political solution to the six-year Syrian civil war, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Tuesday. In an address to parliament, Johnson told MPs that the U.K. could join the U.S. in airstrikes...

When U.S. President Donald Trump boasted early last week that he had sent an "armada" as a warning to North Korea, the aircraft carrier strike group he spoke of was still far from the Korean peninsula, and headed in the opposite direction. It was even farther away over the weekend, moving...

Mothers Noha, a Shi'ite, and Samira, a Sunni, were besieged for nearly two years on each side of Syria's civil war. At the weekend they finally escaped the suffocating blockades under an evacuation agreement - but their ordeal was not over. As they waited at two transit points miles apart...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- Two Russian officers and several regime troops were killed Tuesday when Free Syrian Army struck a military barrack with anti-tank missile in the northern countryside of Hama province, according to statement posted online. The missile attack hit Rahbat Khattab, a...

By Abdulsalm Haj Bakri (Zaman Al Wasl)- rebels of coastal city of Latakia who joined the Syrian revolution in first months or eruption and went out for demonstrations demanding for democracy and dignity, are now either fighters in the countryside of the city, or suppressed in the city, or...

 British Prime Minister Theresa May called U.S. President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders after she asked parliament to agree to an early election on June 8, a spokesman said on Tuesday. "The PM made separate calls to President Trump, Chancellor...

( The New Arab )- Though still evolving, President Donald Trump's plans for Syria have come into clearer view since he ordered cruise missiles fired on a Syrian air base to punish Assad for a chemical weapons attack. The strategy breaks down into three basic phases: defeating the Islamic State...

(The Guardian)- Unaccompanied child refugees in Greece desperate to reach the UK and other parts of northern Europe are being forced to sell their bodies in order to pay smugglers to help them with their journeys, according to a new report from Harvard University. The report, from Dr...

Fatima Rashid was recovering in a Syrian hospital after a deadly suicide blast when she glanced at a teenager with a bloody, disfigured face. She did not recognise her daughter. The wounded teenager was later taken across the border to Turkey for treatment and now Rashid, like many parents...

Iraqi's army has built a new pontoon bridge over the Tigris river south of Mosul, after flooding had blocked all crossing points, opening an escape route for families fleeing fighting between government forces and ISIS. On Friday, the army dismantled makeshift bridges linking the two parts...

A political solution through U.N.-brokered negotiations is needed to resolve the conflict in Yemen, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday as he made his first trip in the role to Saudi Arabia. At the same time, officials have said the United States is considering deepening its role...

The fighting in the ISIS-held Old City of Mosul, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are trapped, could turn into the worst humanitarian "catastrophe" in the war against the militants, the United Nations warned Tuesday. "If there is a siege and hundreds of thousands of people...

U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on his referendum campaign in a phone call Monday and vowed close cooperation on Syria, Iraq and the fight against Kurdish militants, Turkish presidential sources said. "I value our friendship, we have many important...

 U.S.-allied militias in northern Syria announced Tuesday the formation of a civilian council to govern Raqqa after their planned capture of the city from ISIS militants. The Syrian Democratic Forces, which include a large contingent from the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, has...

The U.S. military failed to take "necessary precautions" to prevent civilians deaths in a strike on a Syrian mosque last month that killed dozens of people, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The March 16 strike in the village of opposition-held Al-Jineh in northern Aleppo province killed 49...