A British passenger jet came close to being hit by a rocket as it came in to land at Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh in August, British media reported on Saturday, although the U.K. government said it concluded the incident was not a deliberate attack. The pilot of the Thomson flight from...
Leaders of political rivals Taiwan and China met on Saturday for the first time in more than 60 years for talks that come amid rising anti-Beijing sentiment on the self-ruled democratic island and weeks ahead of elections there. The talks between China President Xi Jinping and Taiwan...
The Turkish Armed Forces has released details of a 40-day air and land operation on the terrorist PKK's mountainous bases in Turkey's southeastern Hakkari province. According to local army sources, the operation -- named after Staff Lt. Col. Ilker Celikcan -- was launched on Sep. 27....
(Zaman Al Wasl)- A Syrian teenage girl was kidnapped early Saturday by a Lebanese man from her refugee camp of in Bekaa Valley, activists said. Ali Abu Sweid, an armed militant, has kidnapped Fatema al Hamad, 14, from Ali Helal refugee camp in Zahle in front of her mother and brother,...
Giant posters of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in military uniform hang at security checkpoints leading to the Sinai, but the crash of a Russian airliner in the peninsula has shattered the image of control they seek to project. Western officials have raised the possibility that...
The White House said Friday it was "very concerned" with the initial findings of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons about the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. "We are continuing to investigate these allegations very closely and to be proactive about the threat...
The Obama administration is moving to increase and accelerate the number of Syrian refugees who might be admitted into the United States by opening new screening outposts in Iraq and Lebanon, administration officials told Reuters on Friday. The move comes after President Barack Obama...
By Eli Lake & Josh Rogin Since 2013, Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has kept a tight grip on his country. He has jailed, killed and exiled his Islamist opposition. Nonetheless, Israeli officials are said to worry whether he can hold on to power. Speaking Thursday to the...
(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian rebels pressed Friday more advances northeast Hama province, taking control of two villages and strategic hills, activists and local reporter said. Islamist fighters operating under the Army of Conquest banner took Atshan and Um Hartin villages from Syrian regime army...
The U.S. military says it has deployed six F-15C jets to Turkey's southern Incirlik air base to help defend Turkish airspace against potential intruders. The deployment of the air-to-air combat planes, announced Friday, comes after two Russian warplanes active in Syria strayed into...
A Vienna court sentenced a Romanian man to two years in jail Friday for human trafficking after he drove dozens of migrants across Austria in August in a van whose doors had been welded shut. Austrian police rescued 26 migrants from the van, including three young children aged 5 and 6...
Unknown assailants shot and wounded two Israelis at a flash-point holy site in the West Bank city of Hebron Friday, the army said, as sporadic violence again erupted in the Palestinian territories. "Two Israelis were shot at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron," a statement said, with...
(Zaman Al Wasl)- Abdul Basset al Sarout, an icon of the Syrian revolution and vocal supporter, was wounded with his two comrades in northeastern Homs when Nusra Front fighters opened fire on his car on Wednesday, source said. The source revealed that fighters of Nusra Front and Ahrar al...
John Herbst, a former U.S. diplomat, wasn’t trying to flatter his German hosts when he took a dig at Washington late last month — he was just describing a new reality. “Berlin is the critical capital in the West for settling a just solution to the crisis in Ukraine,” he said while...
(Reuters)- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart, Feridun Sinirlioglu, discussed the search for a political solution to the Syrian crisis on the phone, Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday.
Chemical weapons experts have determined that mustard gas was used in a Syrian town where Islamic State insurgents were battling another rebel group, according to a report by an international watchdog seen by Reuters. A confidential Oct. 29 report by the Organisation for the Prohibition...
France will deploy its aircraft carrier to support operations against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, President Francois Hollande said on Thursday, bolstering Paris' firepower in the region amid international efforts to launch Syrian peace talks. The carrier is usually accompanied by an...
In a refugee camp outside Myanmar's provincial capital Sittwe, Soe Hlaing was holding a pink card, the most coveted of the rainbow of documents indicating citizenship status, which gives him a vote in Sunday's historic election. But the 44-year-old Muslim said he will not be exercising...
(Zaman Al Wasl)- Al Qaeda's Syria branch, the Nusra Front, has accused Islamic State of carrying out a car bomb targeted an independent religious society made up of Syrian scholars in Arsal town northeast Lebanon Thursday that killed at least nine people, a source with close ties with Nusra...
One month has passed since the beginning of what some are calling a new Palestinian “Intifada” (uprising) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which has left scores of Palestinians dead and hundreds injured. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the total...
