Militias fighting alongside Iraqi troops against ISIS are committing war crimes using weapons provided to the Iraqi military by the United States, Europe, Russia and Iran, Amnesty International said Thursday. The rights group said that predominantly Shi'ite Muslim militias, known collective...

The United States has "much work to be done" to reform the criminal justice system and humanize the prison system, President Barack Obama said Thursday in a Harvard Law Review article. In the 56-page article, the president defends his government's actions during his eight-year term on a...

Syrian pro-regime forces clashed with rebels around the main water source for Damascus Thursday, activists said, threatening a fragile ceasefire as it entered its seventh day. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government troops backed by fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- ISIS arrested three members of Syria Democratic Forces on Wednesday after a suicide attack in Hasaka province as the White Fan group returned to target Kurdish politicians and activists in the northern countryside, local sources reported. The ISIS attack hit one of...

(The Daily Star)- Calling themselves “The Homsies,” a group of Syrian teenagers in north Lebanon’s Akkar are using their musical talents to send a message of peace – and at the same time to help improve the lives of refugees. “If there is one thing everyone does, it’s listen to music. So this...

The United States will transfer four detainees to Saudi Arabia from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in the next 24 hours, U.S. officials said Wednesday, in President Barack Obama's final push to shrink the inmate population there despite pressure from the president-elect to halt such...

Turkish warplanes and artillery have struck ISIS targets in Syria, 'neutralizing' 38 of the group's militants, Turkey's military said in a statement Thursday. In a round-up of its military operations over the last 24 hours in support of rebels in northern Syria, the army said airstrikes by...

The impeachment trial of South Korea's President Park Geun-Hye got under way Thursday, with her lawyers arguing there is no evidence to back the corruption allegations that threaten to force her from office. Parliament voted to impeach Park last month over an influence-peddling scandal that...

(Zaman Al Wasl- Anadolu)- At least 38 ISIS militants, including senior commander, have been killed in northern Aleppo province in the last 24 hours as part of the ongoing Operation Euphrates Shield to capture the group's stronghold of al-Bab city, Turkish army said Thursday. Free Syrian Army...

New United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, and the two had "a very positive discussion on U.S./U.N. relations," said a U.N. spokesman, a week after Trump slammed the world body on Twitter. Guterres, a former Portuguese...

French maestro Georges Pretre, who regularly conducted the renowned Vienna Symphony Orchestra, died Wednesday aged 92, the Austrian capital's Philharmonic society said. "The Vienna Philharmonic ... is mourning the passing of its honorary member, Georges Pretre," the world-famous musical...

The U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS is prepared to support Turkish forces battling the fighters in northern Syria, a U.S. military official said Wednesday. Turkey has asked for such assistance from the coalition but none has been forthcoming so far. Colonel John Dorrian, speaking via...

(The Telegraph)- Sitting in her family’s new apartment in Turkey, Fatemah al-Abed still cannot believe they made it out of Aleppo alive.  She had feared government forces would wreak revenge on her and her daughter Bana, the seven-year-old girl whose tweets provided a window for...

Thousands of people are starting to return to formerly rebel-held east Aleppo despite freezing weather and destruction "beyond imagination", a top U.N. official told Reuters from the Syrian city. In the last couple of days around 2,200 families have returned to the Hanano housing district,...

The U.S.-led coalition said Wednesday it has doubled to about 450 the number of military advisors assisting Iraqi troops engaged in the fight to retake Mosul from ISIS fighters. "We have increased the number of advise and assist forces that are there with the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces)...

(Sky News)- Leicester and England centre Manu Tuilagi is facing at least six months out with a serious knee injury. Tuilagi was hurt playing for his club against Saracens in the Aviva Premiership on New Year's Day and scans have revealed damage to his anterior cruciate ligament. The...

German prosecutors say an acquaintance of suspected Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri has been arrested in a separate case. Frauke Koehler, a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors, said that the 26-year-old Tunisian had known Amri since the end of 2015 and the pair ate together at a...

The United States carried out an airstrike in Syria that reportedly killed at least 25 members of former Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, including senior figures, a U.S. military official said Wednesday. "This was a U.S. strike," said Colonel John Dorrian, a U.S. military spokesman...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian opposition's main political body to hold meeting in Riyadh next week to discuss the ongoing nationwide ceasefire and the upcoming Astana peace talks, sources told Zaman al-Wasl. The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to convene next Tuesday amid discords...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The unspoken cooperation between powerful Kurdish PYD militia and regime forces led to retrieving of two regime officers’ bodies who were killed  three years and half ago in Aleppo province. Zaman al-Wasl local reporter said regime had retrieved two pilots’ bodies;...