France has used cruise missiles for the first time against the Islamic State during strikes in Iraq on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said. SCALP long-range missiles were launched from French fighter jets based in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan as part of a bombing raid that...

The U.N. nuclear watchdog's 35-nation board decided on Tuesday to close its investigation into whether Iran once had a nuclear weapons program, opting to support Tehran's deal with major powers rather than dwell on its past activities. In a symbolic victory for Iran, the...

 In a village in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Syrians from Raqqa have been coming to harvest cannabis for almost a decade. Now, Raqqa is under Islamic State control and the border crossing is more difficult than ever. One woman recently risked her life for work in Lebanon. Like the...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he wanted to use a visit to Moscow on Tuesday to make "real progress" in narrowing differences with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over how to end the conflict in Syria. Kerry is seeking to prepare the ground for a third round of talks of...

Riyadh (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed rebels in Yemen said Tuesday that a ceasefire had begun at noon (0900 GMT) as scheduled. Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri confirmed that the truce had taken effect. The rebel forces have yet to say if they will...

Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad in western Syria denied receiving any support from the Russia n air force, saying that on the contrary it continued to bomb them and rejecting comments by a top Russian general on Monday. A separate, recently...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Well-informed sources said the opposition figures who worked with the Syrian regime and have large government experience will take the lead in the newly-Riyadh-formed negotiators team. Riyad Farid Hijab, former Syrian Prime Minster who fled Syria in August 2012, to be a...

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, according to a joint statement published on state news agency SPA. "The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Free Syrian Army fighters have repelled regime army attack on the southern neighborhoods of Daraa city, field source said Monday. Al-Tawhid brigade, an FSA unit, has thwarted the attack carried out by the regime army to recapture 'Old Customs' district south of the city. In...

Fierce fighting was underway between forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized government and the country's Shiite rebels just hours before an agreed-on truce was supposed to start at midnight Monday, officials said. The clashes, which were taking place in Yemen's southern, central...

Italian police have arrested a Syrian on suspicion of being a member of ISIS, clapping him in cuffs shortly after he arrived by boat along with hundreds of refugees, media reports said Monday. The man, reportedly in his 20s, was arrested by officers in Sicily after Italy's special operations...

Russia stepped up its criticism of U.S. policy on Syria on the eve of a visit to Moscow by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying the United States had not shown it was ready to cooperate fully in the struggle against Islamic State militants. Russia would continue to urge Washington to...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- About 12,000 Syrian refugees are still stranded at the Jordanian border in deteriorating humanitarian conditions amid hard entry restrictions by Jordan over security concerns, source told Zaman al Wasl Monday. The United Nations urged Jordan last week to allow the refugees...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Al Qaeda's Syria branch, the Nusra Front, has posted online photos for what it said corpses of 80 Syrian regime soldiers and allied militants who had been killed in the recent clashes in the southern countryside of Aleppo province. The powerful jihadi group that controls...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime helicopter gunships have struck a suburb of the capital, Damascus, a day after airstrikes on nearby areas killed at least 70 people.  Two activist groups - the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees -...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 9 rebel fighters have been killed in the northern countryside of Homs as Syrian regime forces backed by Shi'ite militia launched major attack on the rebel-held strongholds, activists said on Sunday. Rebels had thwarted the assault despite...

Gunmen shot dead a senior employee of Iraq's state-run North Oil Company (NOC) Monday, the third company official to be killed in the past four months, police and sources within the company said. Deputy inspector-general Hassan Salim and three other employees were driving to their office in...

Two senior army commanders from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were killed along with two Saudi soldiers in Yemen as fighting with a Houthi militia flared before Tuesday's expected peace talks, state media reported on Monday. Sultan Mohammed Ali al-Kitbi, an Emirati officer, was...

(Zaman Al Wasl- Special Report)- Reviewing the Syrian Intelligence archive that obtained by Zaman al Wasl is highly disclosing the regime's focus on Jihadist groups, leaders and fighters. A move started since the mid sixties of last century with the uprising of Syrian Muslim Brotherhood...

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday brushed off what a Germany magazine said was a request from the United States to provide more military help in the fight against Islamic State. "I believe Germany is fulfilling its part and we don't need to talk about new issues related to this...