Shared strategic interests, new regional alignments and reduced role of the U.S. in the Middle East are major factors behind the growing military cooperation between Pakistan and Russia, according to Pakistani analysts. Ikram Sehgal, a Karachi-based defense and security expert, said the two...

A government statement says Iraqi fighter jets have carried out airstrikes against ISIS outside Mosul, killing more than 100 militants. Saturday's statement says the strikes hit three IS targets in Baaj, a remote northwestern town near the Syrian border, and killed between 150-200 militants....

Their reputations at risk, a coterie of President Donald Trump's associates caught up in the swirling debate about Trump and Russia are turning to a similar if unusual playbook: volunteering to testify to Congress, before even being asked. They are eager to come forward despite not having...

Australia will conduct additional security checks on passengers flying directly from Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East to prevent security threats. The new rules follow similar measures introduced by Britain and the United States, but do not include the same bans on electronic...

 Daesh (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda-linked militants are quickly moving to drum up outrage over a sharp spike in civilian casualties said to have been caused by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, posting photos online of a destroyed medical center and homes reduced to rubble. “This is how Trump...

The Iraqi policemen went house to house, kicking in doors, searching through piles of belongings left behind. ISIS had been driven out of this neighborhood of western Mosul, and now they were going through the slow, tedious work of search for explosives or hidden fighters. The houses were...

After four years of tension with the United States, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi now has a fan in the White House and on Monday he meets President Donald Trump. The American former reality television star and tycoon has made no secret of his admiration for the ex-army chief who...

At the entrance of a rural town in Lebanon's Bekaa valley, a blue sign says "Welcome to Bar Elias, population 50,000" but in the past six years, that number has more than doubled with Syrians seeking shelter from the war across the border. "They are our guests," said Mayor Mawas Araji. "But...

By Ethar Abdulhaq (Zaman Al Wasl)- In a fancy apartment in the Adawi district of Damascus lives Abu Muhammad, one of the most vicious criminals of Bashar al-Assad's regime has shed a lot Syrian blood. Yet, to much irony, he is the shadow man of the Assad regime. To the extent that obtaining...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- 1450 people, including 358 women and 443 children, have been evacuated from Wear neighborhood on Saturday, in a third batch resuming an evacuation expected to be among the largest of its kind under a Russian-backed deal with the regime, local reporter said. The evacuation...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian regime has launched a campaign to acquire what remains of Syrians’ money. The People's Assembly agreed to raise the fees for issuing an expedited passport to the astronomical sum of 800 US Dollars and a regular passport for $400. The regime media outlets justified...

The White House said on Friday that the United States must accept the political reality that the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad is up to the Syrian people and the U.S. focus in the region must be on defeating ISIS. "With respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to...

(The Guardian)- The graves of the children are easy to discern, little bumps on the ground squeezed in along the edges of the cemetery. A rectangle of four small concrete blocks is enough to encompass one child’s entire body. No names are carved in marble, just overgrown, withered grass...

Negotiators from Syria's government and opposition traded insults on Friday, calling each other "terrorists" and "adolescents" after an eight-day round of peace talks in Geneva. The two sides do not meet but negotiate via U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura, saving their liveliest invective for...

German police are investigating a Syrian doctorate student in detention for having allegedly planned a bomb attack, local media reported Friday. The 36-year-old man was previously already probed over suspected ties to ISIS, said public broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk. Prosecutors have...

The U.N.'s Palestinian relief agency says Syria's Palestinian refugee population has fallen by one-fifth since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011. UNRWA Director Pierre Kraehenbuehl said Friday there are 440,000 refugees in Syria, compared to 560,000 in the country before the war....

Syria's opposition Friday said that the "terrorist regime" of President Bashar Assad had refused to discuss political transition during a round of U.N.-led talks, reiterating that he was a war criminal who must step down in the name of peace. "They are solely discussing their empty rhetoric...

More than 7,000 people have escaped ISIS control in the Tabqa area west of the Syrian city of Raqqa since last week, U.S.-backed local forces fighting the extremists said on Friday. The Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militia fighters, has been battling ISIS...

The Turkish military will continue its efforts to prevent any "unwanted formation" in Syria after the completion of its operation in northern Syria, the army said on Friday. "We are continuing our operations to protect our national security, prevent any unwanted formation, allow our...

Syria peace talks being hosted by the U.N. in Geneva have descended into bureaucratic wrangling since resuming this year, and even an optimist would struggle to conclude they are inching toward a settlement between the warring sides. But behind the scenes, the rumor mill has focused on one...