(Zaman Al Wasl)- Well-informed sources said Ammar Saati, senior aide of Bashar al-Assad and the close friend of his brother Maher , is the founder of al-Ba'ath Brigades, key unit in the Fifth legion, paramilitary group affiliated to the regime army. Alwyat al-Ba'ath militia was formed in...

Preparations are under way to bring senior North Korean officials to the United States for talks with former U.S. officials, the first such meeting in more than five years, The Washington Post reported on Sunday. The talks would be the clearest indication yet that North Korean leader Kim...

Yemeni rebels have abducted a dozen local staff working for the Norwegian Refugee Council in the Red Sea district of Hodeida, a minister and local sources said Monday. Local sources told AFP the employees, all Yemeni citizens, were taken in a Thursday raid over accusations they had accepted...

(Al-Monitor)- All Palestinians have been focused on Hamas’ internal elections, which started Feb. 3 in Gaza and ended with Yahya Sanwar at the head of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza. Sanwar succeeds Ismail Haniyeh, who is competing to replace Khaled Meshaal as the political bureau head at...

Monks and police scuffled on Monday at a Buddhist temple in Thailand where security forces are trying to arrest an influential former abbot on money-laundering charges. The standoff at the scandal-hit Dhammakaya Temple represents one of the biggest challenges to the authority of Thailand's...

(The Hill)- Retired Gen. Jim Jones, President Obama’s first national security adviser, on Sunday blasted the former president's decisions on Syria, saying “it was a colossal mistake to draw a red line.”  Jones told CNN's Jim Sciutto on "State of the Union" that the administration...

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was the latest in a trio of high-ranking Trump emissaries to tell European allies in person that the United States will steadfastly support NATO and demand that Russia honor its commitments to end fighting in Ukraine. Some European leaders, however, remain...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime and allied militias blocked the entry of a UN-aid convoy delivering food rations and medicine to the besieged al-Waer neighborhood in central Homs city, residents said Sunday. Abu Faisal, one of 60,000 people live in al-Waer, told Zaman al-Wasl that the regime...

At least seven protestors were detained as clashes erupted Sunday between Ukrainian police and ultra-nationalists backing a rail blockade in Kiev, an AFP correspondent said. The violence broke out after more than 1,000 demonstrators gathered to back the blockade between the coal-producing...

A top American Jewish leader is urging President Donald Trump to speak out against anti-Semitism amid a surge in harassment of Jews in the U.S. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, says: "I think that the president...

Syrian rebel groups who have participated in peace talks said on Sunday that an upsurge in Syrian army shelling and bombing was wrecking the prospects of maintaining a Russian-Turkish-brokered ceasefire. The rebel groups, mostly backed by Turkey, who attended two rounds of talks in the...

  (Zaman Al Wasl)- New document obtained by Zaman al-Wasl reveals Islamic State's warfare projects, including its remote-control car bombs and mine fields and how to use the advanced technology to enhance the caliphate pillars. The six-page document that issued by the group's...

At least 22 people, including government soldiers were killed and over 20 others wounded when a truck bomb blast ripped through a busy market in Somali capital of Mogadishu on Sunday, officials said.  The attack targeted Kawo-godey market in Wadajir district, according to Abdullahi...

Kuwait's supreme court on Sunday sentenced a top bureaucrat to 10 years in jail for joining and fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The court also fined the unnamed Kuwaiti national, who was a top official at the Kuwait municipality, $30,000 and convicted him of calling other people to...

The United Nations and other parties to Syrian peace efforts on Sunday softened any expectations of a major breakthrough at U.N.-led talks in Geneva next week, with U.S. policy on the crisis in disarray and its ties with Russia unclear. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura told the Munich Security...

Saudi Arabia and Israel both called on Sunday for a new push against Iran, signalling a growing alignment in their interests, while U.S. lawmakers promised to seek new sanctions on the Shiite Muslim power. Turkey also joined the de facto united front against Tehran as Saudi and Israeli...

Germany deported a record 80,000 migrants denied asylum last year and that figure will rise again in 2017, a top official said, as Chancellor Angela Merkel seeks to win back conservative voters before elections in September. Peter Altmaier, Merkel's chief of staff, told Bild am Sonntag...

 Israel and the US will set up a joint team to discuss Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, days after talks with President Donald Trump. During their talks on Wednesday in Washington, Netanyahu and Trump had "agreed to create...

The United Nations said Sunday as Iraqi forces launched their offensive to retake west Mosul that it was rushing to build more shelters ahead of an expected wave of displacement. "We are racing against the clock to prepare emergency sites south of Mosul to receive displaced families," the...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Hundreds of people have fled al-Qaboun neighborhood, northeast Damascus on Sunday as aerial and ground bombardment killed and wounded dozens of civilians in the past three days, local activists said Sunday. 17 people, including two women were killed on Saturday in al-Qaboun...