A court in Paris has accepted a complaint against the Syrian regime, accusing it of war crimes, French media said Thursday. France-based television channel BFM TV reported citing judiciary sources that the court had ruled to open a criminal investigation into the complaint. The Paris...

(Middle East Eye)- The stench of battle hangs heavy in the air, armoured cars carrying heavy machine guns prowl the rubble-strewn streets where children used to play. At night, soldiers are close enough to be heard over the crack of gunfire and crump of mortar shells. One only has to look out of...

(Middle East Eye)- A US general told AFP on Thursday that between 800 and 900 Islamic State group fighters have been killed since the Iraqi-led operation to recapture Mosul from the militants began. "Just in the operations over the last week and a half associated with Mosul, we estimate...

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos suspended peace talks with the ELN rebels Thursday, hours before they were due to open, insisting the guerrillas first release an ex-lawmaker they are holding hostage. "The formal installation of the negotiating table with (the ELN) is postponed until...

(CNN)- A startling new photo shows an Indiana woman passed out behind the wheel of a car after an apparent heroin overdose with a syringe clutched in her fist. This is exactly how police found 25-year-old Erika Hurt in a parking lot Saturday in Hope, Indiana. What's more disturbing is the...

The Iraqi army was trying on Thursday to reach a town south of Mosul where Islamic State has reportedly executed dozens to deter the population against any attempt to support the U.S.-led offensive on the jihadists' last major city stronghold in Iraq. Eleven days into what is expected to be...

Korean carmakers Hyundai Motor Co and affiliate Kia Motors Corp will pay $41.2 million to resolve a long running investigation by 33 U.S. states over the automakers' 2012 mileage restatements, state attorney generals said Thursday. In 2014, the automakers were hit with $350 million in...

(Middle East Eye)- A new UN peace proposal to end a 19-month war in Yemen appears aimed at sidelining exiled president, Abd Rabbuh Hadi, and setting up a government of less divisive figures, according to a copy seen by Reuters. Hadi fled the armed advance of the Iranian-allied Houthi...

The White House said on Thursday that either the Syrian government or Russia was responsible for a deadly airstrike in Syria that hit a school and led to the deaths of 26 civilians. "We don't know yet that it was the Assad regime or the Russians that carried out the airstrike, but we know it...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Family of the former Islamic State’s Emir of al-Hajar al-Aswad, a southern suburb of Damascus, has left with his family to Raqqa city, the de facto ISIS capital,  sources said. The family of Abu Sayyah Frrameh with 30 women from his relatives have left al-Hajar al-Aswad...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime forces backed by heavy aerial bombing on Thursday launched major offensive on the town of Soran in Hama province,  activist said. The regime helicopters have droped more than 80 barrel bombs on the town that controlled by Jaish al-Izzah which claimed...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 8 civilians have been killed in regime's heavy artillery shelling on the city of Douma, northeast of Damascus; activists said Thursday. Dozens were also wounded since the beginning of  regime offensive late on Wednesday, that targeted the civil...

(CNN)- The small dorm room in Kirkuk, with gray-speckled terrazzo floors and wooden cots, was home to Monaly Najeeb and six other Christian women after ISIS took hold in Mosul and they were forced to abandon college. They restarted their studies in the Kurdish-controlled city, in that humble...

Fighting between Turkey and Kurdish militias in northern Syria is complicating plans to drive their mutual enemy Islamic State from its Syrian capital Raqqa, an operation U.S. officials have said may start within weeks. Turkish jets and armor, in support of Syrian rebels, have struck Kurdish...

There are more than two months left in 2016, but the number of people who have died this year trying to reach European shores via smuggling routes across the Mediterranean Sea surpassed last year's grim total. A spokesman for the United Nations' refugee agency said Wednesday that 3,800 had died...

(Middle East Eye)- Two Yazidi women who survived a nightmare ordeal of kidnapping, rape and slavery at the hands of Islamic State militants won the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize on Thursday. Nadia Murad and Lamia Haji Bashar have become figureheads for the...

Turkey is seeking an end to NATO's counter-migration mission in the Aegean Sea and it is telling the U.S.-led alliance that the sharp drop in refugees trying to get to Greece means there is no longer a need for warships to patrol its coast. Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik told other NATO...

(The Daily Star)- Russia said Thursday it had nothing to do with air strikes on a school in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province that killed 22 children. "The Russian Federation has nothing to do with this terrible tragedy, with this attack," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said,...

The Turkish army hit 94 Daesh and nine PKK/PYD targets in northern Syria early Thursday, the military said. Thursday's strikes were part of Turkey's Operation Euphrates Shield launched in late August to clear the northern Syrian border area of terrorists. It is now in its 65th day....

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime-held western neighborhoods of Aleppo has been empty of young men. Whoever visits the city can notice the phenomenon of women working in commercial stores, restaurants, and small workshops in contrary to what the city was like. The city which was known to be...