The Somali militant Islamist group al Shabaab attacked a Mogadishu hotel on Sunday, driving a car packed with explosives through the hotel gate and killing at least 13 people, a first responder and the rebel group said. A Reuters witness said blood and pieces of flesh were...

Turkey attacked Kurdish insurgent camps in Iraq for a second night on Sunday, security sources said, in a campaign that could end its peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Ankara, which called for a special NATO meeting on Tuesday to discuss its security...

 A huge fire broke out in natural forest of Syrian coastal area has destroyed more than 10,000 acres, locals said on Sunday as battles between rebels and regime army flare up again. Local activists said the blase was due to the regime's aerial bombardment on rebel-held Turkmen and al-Akrad...

Turkish tanks shelled a village held by Kurdish forces in northern Syria overnight, wounding at least four allied fighters, AFP said. “A number of shells fired by Turkish tanks fell on the village of Zur Maghar, which is controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG),” the Syrian...

Turkey has no plans to send ground troops into Syria but has agreed with the United States that air cover should be provided for moderate rebels fighting Islamic State forces there, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted on Monday as saying. Long a reluctant member of the...

Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for the release of an Italian Jesuit priest and two Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria two years ago, asking leaders to work for the freedom of all those abducted there. Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, a Jesuit priest who worked in Syria for more than 30...

The United States and its allies made 20 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq on Saturday, with targets near Ramadi bearing the brunt of the attacks, the military said on Sunday. Five strikes near Ramadi hit tactical units, tanks and an armored personnel carrier for the...

(Translation by Yusra Ahmed) A document obtained by Zaman al-Wasl shows a list of members of the National Defence forces who needed food, gave an approximate number of the National Defence militia (NDF) and their hierarchy in Latakia city at the coastal region of Syria. According to the...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday the army had been forced to give up areas in order to hold onto more important ones in its fight with insurgents, and the scale of the war meant the military faced a man power shortage. He also said groups fighting to topple him...

Yemeni forces allied with a Saudi-led coalition fought Houthi militia for control of the country's largest air base north of Aden on Sunday, local residents said, hours before a humanitarian truce declared by the coalition was meant to start. The al-Anad base, 50 km (30 miles)...

Iraqi security forces entered the University of Anbar in southern Ramadi on Sunday and clashed with Islamic State militants inside the compound, the joint operations command said in a statement broadcast on state television. Security forces and militia groups launched an...

 At least 60 Syrian army members and allied militants have been killed on Saturday in Southern Front’s major attack on their stronghold in the southern city of Daraa, field sources told Zaman al-Wasl. Rebels and al-Qaeda's Syria wing, the Nusra Front, announced Thursday a fierce offensive...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Islamic State news feeds on social media said the radical group on Saturday has seized control of T-4 military air base east of Homs. The ongoing clashes to seize the biggest air base in Syria has erupted weeks ago, a move comes after rapid advances by the ultra-hardline Sunni...

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants on Saturday detonated explosive laden trucks in two villages near the Kurdish-controlled Syrian border town of Tel Abyad, with reports of casualties, a monitor that tracks the war said. The UK-based Observatory for Human Rights said the attacks...

(Translation by Yusra Ahmed) More than 30,000 acres of natural forest have been destroyed in the western countryside of Homs province last Friday when a large fire broke out, eye-witnesses told Zaman al-Wasl. Eyewitnesses said in early hours of Friday a large fire had broken out in the...

Syrian regime President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree announcing a general amnesty for military deserters who violated the country's compulsory military conscription law, state television said on Saturday. The decree, which was announced on state television, said the law that...

The first cargo ships passed through Egypt's New Suez Canal on Saturday in a test-run before it opens next month, state media reported, 11 months after the army began constructing the $8 billion canal alongside the existing 145-year-old Suez Canal. The new waterway, which...

A Saudi-led airstrike on Yemen's Taiz killed at least 55 people and left tens injured, Houthi-controlled news agency Saba said on Saturday. A coalition of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, has been bombarding Iran-allied Houthi forces in Yemen since late March in a bid to...

Turkey said on Saturday that its fighter jets hit militant camps of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq overnight, and Turkish ground forces struck the PKK and Islamic State fighters in northern Syria. The strikes against PKK targets are likely to be a major blow to...

(Translation by Yusra Ahmed) A leaked document issued in 2012 by Syrian Interior Ministry revealed that ammunition depots were almost empty, as well the documents reflected the shortage that defense ministry has been facing. An official letter sent from Major General Hamid Asaad Mirie on...