Five children were among the 12 people killed after a plastic boat carrying 22 Syrians to Greece sunk off Turkey's Aegean coastal town of Kusadasi on Friday, the private Dogan news agency said. Dogan said of the 22 migrants on board, seven had been rescued while three were still being...

(BBC)- It was goalless after 90 minutes and Syria's dreams of qualifying for their first World Cup were fading fast. Then Omar Kharbin converted a bold, Panenka-style stoppage-time penalty to earn victory over Uzbekistan and make an appearance at Russia 2018 a realistic goal. Syria, in...

The international coalition battling the Islamic State group will begin a final push on the jihadists' Syrian stronghold Raqa in the coming days, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday. But on the ground, the US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance spearheading the battle for the...

A Spanish aid organization said Friday that it feared that hundreds of migrants may have died Libya's coast after five bodies were found near two capsized boats while the search for a third vessel reported missing has so far proved futile. Proactiva Open Arms spokeswoman Laura Lanuza said...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday she was concerned about Israel's building of settlements in the occupied West Bank, which she said was undermining progress towards a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel is building settlements in the occupied West...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Huge explosion rocked the village of Qomhana in the central Hama province as rebels and regime forces engage in fierce clashes early Friday. Local activists said the powerful Islamist alliance of Haya't Tahrir al-Sham, led by former al-Qaeda group Fatha al-Sham, has carried...

Prominent Iraqi Shia cleric and politician Muqtada al-Sadr told supporters Friday to continue protesting government corruption -- even in the event of his assassination. In an address delivered to tens of thousands of supporters in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, al-Sadr said he had received...

Candidates vying for the four available Asian Football Confederation (AFC) seats on the FIFA council have been cleared to stand for election by the world governing body, the AFC said Friday. The four successful candidates at May's AFC congress in Bahrain will represent Asia on the body along...

 Tunisia is drafting an "economic emergency" bill that will allow the government to bypass bureaucratic hurdles and speed up large-scale projects as it seeks to boost growth and create jobs, a senior official said. Administrative delays and bureaucracy are one of the biggest obstacles...

(The Atlantic)- The Islamic State is claiming responsibility for the London attack that left three people and the attacker dead on Wednesday. “It is believed that this attacker acted alone,” Prime Minister Theresa May said, adding that the British-born man, already known to authorities, was...

Oil prices edged up on Friday, supported by a fall in Saudi exports to the United States, but overall markets remained under pressure on the back of a world market awash with fuel. Benchmark Brent crude futures LCOc1 were at $50.69 per barrel at 0756 GMT, up 13 cents or 0.3 percent, from...

The world's biggest smartphone maker Samsung, assailed by a shambolic recall and embroiled in South Korea's wide-ranging corruption scandal, Friday backed away from a planned corporate restructuring. Following the embarrassing recall of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone and under pressure from...

Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has threatened to boycott the upcoming provincial elections, urging instead followers to join a "reform revolution." Al-Sadr spoke to thousands at an anti-government protest Friday in Baghdad, calling for continued peaceful rallies. He...

Russia said Friday that six of its soldiers had been killed while successfully repelling a militant assault on a military facility in Chechnya. The National Guard of Russia said in a statement that a group of what it called "armed bandits" had launched an attack under the cover of fog in the...

A battle against ISIS to recapture the Syrian city of Raqqa is likely to start in the coming days, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday. "France has always said that Raqqa was a major objective," Le Drian told CNews television station. "Today, one can say that Raqqa is...

(New York Times)- Abu Mohammed is bored. He estimates that two years ago he earned more than $800,000 from smuggling thousands of migrants into Turkey from Greece. He rented an office in Aksaray, an area of Istanbul popular with Syrians, to serve as his headquarters. At one point, he had more...

Before he killed at least four people in Britain's deadliest attack since the 2005 London bombings, Khalid Masood was considered by intelligence officers to be a criminal who posed little serious threat. A British-born former teacher and Muslim convert, Masood had shown up on the periphery...

China is not militarizing the South China Sea, Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday, although he acknowledged that defense equipment on islands in the disputed waterway had been placed there to maintain "freedom of navigation". China has drawn international criticism for large-scale building in...

 Islamic extremists killed 10 Egyptian soldiers in fighting in a central part of the restive Sinai Peninsula during an army raid on a militant hideout early Thursday, the military said, a toll that underscored its continuing challenges to rein in insurgents in the area. Army spokesman Tamer...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Head of the Tribes Army has rebuffed regime claims that his alliance of tribes based at the border with Jordan and Iraq is an affiliate to Jordan's intelligence, saying the coordination with Amman is strategic in fighting ISIS. Sheikh Rakan Khudhair, who with several Free...