Hundreds of families have been driven out of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk in apparent retaliation for a recent attack by ISIS, Amnesty International said Monday. Authorities in the Kurdish-controlled city demolished the homes of hundreds of Arab residents and ordered them to leave Kirkuk in the...

A U.S.-backed assault on Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria, is unlikely to pierce the city itself before President Barack Obama leaves office in January, denying him the chance to claim the end of the group's "caliphate" as part of his legacy. Although a U.S.-backed alliance of...

(New York Times)- A joint Kurdish-Arab militia has begun a new phase in the operation to dislodge the Islamic State from its stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, moving to isolate the city and largely cut off the resupply of arms, supplies and fighters, a United States military spokesman in Baghdad...

(The Daily Star)- The Palestinian Constitutional Court, a body set up months ago by President Mahmoud Abbas, ruled on Sunday that he can revoke the parliamentary immunity of lawmakers, a move that effectively allows him to sideline rivals. A verdict issued on Sunday which was swiftly...

Washington is in "close contact" with Ankara over the assault launched by American-backed Kurdish-Arab forces on the Islamic State group's bastion Raqa in Syria, a senior US official said Sunday. "We are in close close contact with our Turkish allies and that is why the chairman of joint...

(BBC)- A US-backed Kurdish and Arab force says it has begun an operation to capture Raqqa, so-called Islamic State's "capital" in Syria. The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) will be aided by US-led coalition air strikes. They have warned civilians to steer clear of areas where IS militants are...

(Independent)- President Bashar al-Assad laughed and said he sleeps fine when he was asked during an interview about all the children killed every day in Syria. Mr Assad also said the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians is “the fault of terrorists” and said “we are talking about...

Every shot sent shock waves all around and left ears ringing: the tanks of the Iraqi army's 9th armoured division were advancing through the streets of Mosul's Intisar neighbourhood. When Iraqi forces finally punched into the streets of Mosul in the past few day, the three-week-old offensive...

(The Daily Star)- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused Europe on Sunday of abetting terrorism by supporting Kurdish militants and said he did not care if it called him a dictator. Turkey drew international condemnation for the arrest on Friday of leaders and lawmakers from the...

(The Daily Star)- Police Sunday detained a man who threatened to kill his wife with a rifle after she fled with her children to her parents’ house in northern Lebanon. A statement issued by the Internal Security Force said that the Zgharta police station received information that J.M. was...

(Daily Sabah)- A 63-year old mother may face with a five-year-long prison sentence for throwing a plastic slipper at her 38-year-old son, who filed a complaint to the police even though she missed the target. During a heated argument in her home in Honaz district of southwestern Denizli...

(Zaman al-Wasl) Two people were killed and two others were injured following regime force shelling on the besieged al-Waer neighborhood the last of the revolutionary strongholds in Homs city.  The local coordination council reported that the regime forces shelled the neighborhood...

A Syrian opposition leader said opposition groups don’t need to recruit foreign fighters in their fight against the Bashar al-Assad regime in war-torn Syria. In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Osama Rifai, the head of the Syrian Islamic Council, called for providing all forms of...

Turkish-backed forces in northern Syria aim to push Islamic State militants further south from al-Bab and are currently 12 or 13 km (8 miles) from the town, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday. Turkey launched an incursion into Syria in August in support of largely Turkmen and...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- Zaman al-Wasl news site mourns its local reporter in Idlib province, Ammar Bakour, who lost his life on Sunday in regime air strikes on the town of al-Dana. Bakour passed away with 8 civilians when the regime warplanes rocked the the town with 4 vacuum missiles. The...

(Zaman al-Wasl) Regime forces targeted a children’s nursery in town of Harasta in Damascus countryside with mortar rockets. Reports from the area indicate that five children so far were killed and dozens injured in the attack including a Civil Defense volunteer who was rescuing the...

(Zaman al-Wasl) A group of factions in Hama’s northern countryside announced the establishment of a join operation room. They released a statement, “An operation room was formed including Hama’s northern countryside to counter the enemy.” The operation room includes Jaish al-Nasar, Jaish...

(Zaman al-Wasl) Electricity blackout continues in the city of Latakia and most of the cities and countryside of Latakia province since Friday evening, following the Syrian resistance targeting the Mahardah power station which provides the province with electricity.  The activist...

(Zaman al-Wasl) Document 25618 from the military intelligence documents was stamped with the phrase “highly confidential,” although most Syrians are familiar with the document’s content. On the date 29/09/2009, the military intelligence branch in Idlib (branch 271) directed this document to the...

(The Daily Star)- The death toll from an explosion and fire at a Pakistan shipbreaking yard last week has risen to 26, officials said Sunday. More than 50 others were wounded in the incident when a gas cylinder exploded and started a fire inside an oil tanker at the Gadani yard in the...