Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Friday world powers must work with Damascus to create safe zones in Syria so refugees can return to their country. It was the first time the Beirut government had lent its support to such a plan. At least a million people have fled the Syrian civil war...

The United States has sent a Navy destroyer to patrol off the coast of Yemen to protect waterways from Houthi militia aligned with Iran, two U.S. officials told Reuters Friday, amid heightened tension between Washington and Tehran. The USS Cole arrived in the vicinity of the Bab al-Mandab...

The water supply to the Syrian city of Raqqa, a stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) group, has been reconnected after US airstrikes caused a temporary cut. The main pipeline was damaged when a bridge was hit, according to IS and anti-IS activists. Citizen journalist group Raqqa is Being...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Yazan, 10-year-old boy, lost his left eye in an ISIS landmine explosion in the northern city of Manbij weeks ago, such an accident that has been repeating in the ISIS-freed areas.  Despite ISIS withdrawal or retreat in the Syrian north, its danger still roaming by...

(Sky News)- Angelina Jolie has criticised the decision to stop refugees entering the US, arguing it will not make the country safer. The actress and UN special envoy spoke out against Donald Trump's decision to prevent refugees from entering the US in an editorial for the New York Times....

 Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted Friday that the Islamic Republic was unmoved by U.S. threats following its missile test launch and that Tehran would never initiate war. "Iran unmoved by threats as we derive security from our people. Will never initiate war, but we...

Representatives of the Syrian opposition arrived Friday in Turkish capital Ankara to discuss the upcoming negotiation talks in Geneva, according to a Turkish diplomatic source. The representatives of both the armed and the political opposition will attend a meeting at the Turkish Foreign...

A French soldier shot and wounded a man armed with a machete and carrying two bags on his back on Friday as he tried to enter the Paris Louvre museum in what the government said appeared to have been a terrorist attack. The man shouted Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) and rushed at police and...

(Middle East Eye)-When the highly contagious, crippling and potentially fatal polio virus reappeared in war-torn Syria in 2013, nearly two decades after it had been eradicated in the country, Khaled Almilaji was a key player in containing the outbreak that threatened millions inside and beyond...

 Apple is to start making iPhones in India this year, a local government official said Friday, as the company seeks to tap into a booming middle class while sales in China slow. Karnataka's IT minister said Apple had agreed to assemble its hugely popular phones in the southern state,...

(Daily Mail)- A British housewife who fled to Syria with her jihadi husband appears to have penned a hate-filled diary describing life as a housewife under ISIS's barbaric regime. Under the nom de guerre Umm Ibrahim al-Brit, she tells how the bodies of women and children lay piled on the dusty...

Turkey accused Greece Friday of breaching international law by carrying out a military exercise on an island in the Aegean Sea, in an escalating row between the two NATO allies. The Turkish foreign ministry said it was aware of Greek media reports that Greek special forces had parachuted...

Al-Qaeda in Yemen has taken over three southern towns just days after a deadly U.S. special operations raid targeting its commanders, a security official and tribal sources said Friday. The militant advance into the Abyan province towns of Loder, Shaqra and Ahwar came as the White House...

The new deputy director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran a CIA prison in Thailand where terror suspects were waterboarded - a harsh interrogation technique President Donald Trump has supported. CIA Director Mike Pompeo announced Thursday that he has selected Gina Haspel to be...

Water to the ISIS's Syrian bastion of Raqa has been cut after suspected coalition raids on the city's main pipeline, a monitor and activists told AFP on Friday. "After coalition air strikes, the main water line was ruptured and water was cut to all of Raqa city," said Hamoud al-Mousa of...

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday accused Ukrainian armed forces of violating the Geneva Convention by shelling civilian areas in eastern Ukraine and of using weapons systems banned under the terms of the Minsk peace deal. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told a news...

The U.S.-led coalition is planning for the day when Iraq will be free of ISIS, ramping up training of a future Mosul police force - even as the battle for the rest of the city is briefly on hold. Sometime during the lull, significant numbers of the security forces are expected to move into...

A brief video clip of Donald Trump's granddaughter singing in Chinese is circulating to strong approval on the internet in China, even while some criticized the U.S. president's failure to send greetings for the Lunar New Year. The clip posted by Trump's daughter Ivanka shows 5-year-old...

Any nuclear attack by North Korea would trigger an "effective and overwhelming" response, U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis said Friday as he sought to reassure Asian allies rattled by President Donald Trump's isolationist rhetoric. Mattis spoke in the South Korean capital of Seoul on the...

A Trump administration effort to exclude violent white supremacists from a government anti-terrorism program and focus efforts solely on Islamist extremism drew a sharp backlash Thursday, with New York state's top prosecutor denouncing the move and civil liberties advocates suggesting it is...