Fifty inmates and 12 police died in a prison escape organized by Islamic State, Iraqi officials said on Saturday, while supporters of the group acknowledged it staged the breakout but gave different details. After a riot erupted, dozens of prisoners escaped from the Al-Khalis...
Turkey on Friday denied it had struck a secret new pact with Saudi Arabia to back Islamist rebels in Syria in a drive to bring down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Reports have suggested that Riyadh and Ankara agreed a special pact to militarily and financially support...
(IANS/EFE) Nearly 25 percent of all violent deaths occur in countries that constitute only 4 percent of the world's total population, with countries such as Syria, Honduras and Venezuela suffering the worst rates, according to a UNDP report. The 2015 United Nations Development...
(AP) — Syrian rebels on Friday voiced deep reservations about a U.S. program to train moderate rebels that American and Jordanian officials say has kicked off in Jordan, dismissing it as a drop in the ocean that would not change realities on the ground. U.S. officials say the program...
The United States and its Gulf allies will try to agree on new security measures at a summit in Washington next week to guard against destabilizing actions by Iran in the region, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday. The West hopes to secure a nuclear deal with Tehran by an...
Italy's navy said on Thursday it believed it had found the wreck of a boat that sank last month killing up to 900 migrants off the coast of Libya, the Mediterranean's most deadly migrant tragedy in living memory. Only 24 bodies have been recovered since the April 18 disaster and the...
International inspectors have found traces of sarin and VX nerve agent at a military research site in Syria that had not been declared to the global chemical weapons watchdog, diplomatic sources said on Friday. Samples taken by experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition and Chemical...
The Syrian army, backed by Hezbollah fighters, has made advances in mountainous areas along Syria's border with Lebanon, a Hezbollah official said on Friday. The push in the Qalamoun mountain range appeared to be preparation for a wider offensive in the border region previously announced by...
Syria's coastal province of Tartus has mourned 9 military pilots were killed in Aleppo and Damascus in the last few days, according to pro-government social media pages. Activists of the predominantly Alawite province said 4 pilots, including two top officers, were killed in Blay military...
Syrian rebels have reportedly cut the international highway running through the embattled Qalamoun region south to Damascus. “Rebels seized control over [a section] of the international highway in Qalamoun between Qaldoun and Maalula,” Al-Arabiya reported Friday morning. The Saudi-owned...
(Al Jazeera) - A number of long metal arms swing over the city skyline in Beirut. In one open-air construction yard after another, Syrian labourers build sleek 25- and 30-floor towers, working without safety regulations, health insurance or union protection. According...
Iran rejected Friday allegations it was interfering in Yemen by backing Shiite rebels there, accusing Saudi Arabia of seeking to absolve itself of responsibility in the war-torn Arabian Peninsula country. Riyadh's new Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Thursday criticised what he called Iran's...
Top commander in Syrian air force has been killed with 13 officers in mysterious circumstances, pro-Assad media outlets said. Major General, Nadim Jawad Ghanem, Commander of Blay military airport, who buried in his hometown of Tartus on Friday, was killed with 13 others, news feeds said...
Commander of Failaq al-Rahman on Thursday has been wounded with 9 others in Eastern Ghouta district near Damascus when an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated himself near the rebel groups' headquarters, source Zaman al-Wasl. 10 fighters, including Failaq al-Rahman's commander Abdulnaser...
Saudi-led forces conducted several air strikes on Thursday against the Yemeni province of Saada, a stronghold of the Iranian-allied Houthi movement, Saudi Arabia's state news agency SPA said on Friday. The strikes targeted two Houthi control centers in Bani Maaz and destroyed a mine factory...
Prime Minister David Cameron won a shock election victory in Britain, overturning predictions that the vote would be the closest in decades to sweep into office for another five years, with his Labour opponents in tatters. The sterling currency, bonds and shares surged on a result that...
(By Mamoon Abu Mohamed; Translation by Yusra Ahmed) Pro-Syrian regime people in Homs started moving their dead relatives’ remains from the martyrs’ graveyard to their home villages. Sources mentioned that families refused to bury their killed sons in Fardous graveyard, the one...
The American military has started training "moderate" Syrian rebels in Jordan to prepare to fight the Islamic State group, US and Jordanian officials said Thursday, after months of delays. The training in basic military skills will eventually extend to sites in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,...
Iran is a destabilising force that must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, top US diplomat John Kerry said in Saudi Arabia Thursday, aiming to calm Riyadh's worries. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours fear Tehran might be able to develop an atomic bomb despite an international accord...
Saudi Arabia wants to bring together the many branches of the war-torn country's armed and political opposition to discuss what to do after the regime's downfall, opposition sources said Thursday. The Sunni-ruled kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a main backer of forces fighting to topple Syria's...
