(Reuters) - Senior officials from Western powers and Iran started a one-day round of talks in Muscat on Tuesday, with a deadline for reaching a nuclear deal less than two weeks away and no imminent breakthrough in sight. Tuesday's discussions follow two days of meetings...

(Reuters) - An aide to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in an air strike near the city of Falluja, Iraqi state television reported on Monday. State television identified the man as Abu Huthaifa al-Yamani. It did not say when the strike took place or...

Interview by Abdullah Al Ghadawi; Translation by Yusra Ahmed (Zaman Al Wasl)- The head of Democratic Union Party (PYD), in brief interview with Zaman al-Wasl, promised to defeat the Islamic State group in the border town of Kobani within short...

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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said Monday that the U.N. envoy's proposal to implement a cease-fire in the embattled northern city of Aleppo was "worth studying." The envoy, Staffan de Mistura, first raised the idea of small-scale, localized and negotiated...

BAGHDAD (AP) — After Iraqi officials said an airstrike wounded Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, here are some questions and answers about what's known now about his status and the effect it could have on the extremist group that holds a third of both Iraq and Syria....

(Reuters) - Iraqi President Fouad Masoum will visit Riyadh on Tuesday, Saudi state media reported, raising hopes of a tentative thaw in long-chilly relations between the Arab neighbors. Real power in Iraq resides with the country's Shi'ite-led government and prime minister,...

(Reuters) - An oil field in southwest Libya has closed down, officials said on Sunday, becoming the third oil facility in the chaotic country to shut within a week. The El Feel field, operated by Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) and Italy's ENI, shut down due to a power...

(Reuters) - A landmark deal to give global investors easier access to China's $3.9 trillion stock market lifted world shares to their highest in over a month on Monday, as tensions in Libya and Ukraine pushed up oil prices. Chinese shares jumped 2.5 percent and Hong Kong's Hang...

(Reuters) - Bombs exploded in three cities in Afghanistan on Monday killing at least 10 policemen, officials said, a day after a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself in Kabul's police headquarters killing one person. The Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 by U.S.-led...

(Reuters) - Local ceasefires in Syria may be the best way to ease the suffering of civilians in the absence of a political solution to the three-and-a-half year conflict, researchers from the London School of Economics said on Monday. In a report that looked at more than 35...

(Reuters) - Gunmen killed five nuclear engineers, four of them Syrian and one Iranian, on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday, a monitoring group said on Monday. The engineers were shot dead as they were traveling in a small convoy to a research center near the northeastern...

(Reuters) - Egypt's most active militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, has sworn allegiance to Islamic State, the al Qaeda offshoot which has seized territory in Syria and Iraq , according to an audio clip posted on its Twitter account. If genuine, the declaration of...

ARSAL, Lebanon: The Lebanese Army Sunday arrested a Syrian rebel commander and his chauffeur near the northeastern border town of Arsal, a security source told The Daily Star. The Lebanese Army issued a statement later saying it had arrested in the Arsal region, Lebanese national...

By Al Hussein Al Shishakli (Zaman Al Wasl)- Zaman al-Wasl source disclosed that National Coalition’s Envoy to Qatar had accompanied   Moaz Alkhatib, the former head of key opposition group, in his visit to Russia where they had met...

Beirut (AFP) - Syrian rebels and Al-Qaeda seized the southern town of Nawa Sunday from troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad after months of intense fighting, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Both local rebel groups and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front claimed...

By Zeina Al Chofi; Translation by Yusra Ahmed SWEIDA (Zaman Al Wasl)-  Tension prevailed in Druze-dominated province of Sweida when senior officer in regime security threatened a prominent cleric of reprisal. In details, the issue started when a young man...

(Reuters) - At least 21 people were killed and around 100 wounded overnight when Syrian government war planes bombed a town in northern Syria controlled by Islamic State militants, a group monitoring the war said on Sunday. The attack came hours before a United Nations mediator...

(Reuters) - Some Egyptian human rights groups shredded documents on Sunday and instructed their staff to stay home as a government deadline approached for them to register under a Hosni Mubarak-era law they say seeks to eliminate them. Egypt's government says groups doing...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- People of Kafranbel city in the western countryside of Idlib province demanded on Sunday the National Coalition’s government to support the education process and to allocate needed fund to the schools as soon as possible. Activists said that people of...