KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Kremlin-orchestrated referendum got underway Friday in occupied regions of Ukraine that sought to make them part of Russia, with some officials carrying ballots to apartment blocks accompanied by gun-toting police. Kyiv and the West condemned it as a rigged election whose...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The death toll from a boat carrying migrants from Lebanon that sank in Syrian waters has risen to at least 73, state TV quoted Syria's health minister as saying on Friday. Syrian authorities said some family members of the victims have started crossing into Syria from...

A boat carrying migrants from Lebanon capsized off Syria's coast Thursday afternoon leaving at least 34 people dead, Syrian state media reported. The incident is one of the deadliest since a surging number of Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians have tried to flee crisis-hit Lebanon by sea to...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine announced a high-profile prisoner swap early Thursday that was the culmination of months of efforts to free many of the Ukrainian fighters who defended a steel plant in Mariupol during a long Russian siege. In exchange, Ukraine gave up a prominent ally of Russian...

 ,   A decade into their experiment in self-rule, Syria's Kurds fear an apparent rapprochement between Damascus and their foe the Turkish government could cost them their hard-won way of life. Before Syria's conflict broke out, the country's roughly two million Kurds were not...

Security services for the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad have arrested a family which returned from Turkey to the city of Homs, in yet another case of betrayal of the promise of reconciliation for those who return to the war-torn country. According to the Syrian opposition news outlet,...

A Syrian medical student wants to serve as a doctor in Türkiye to show his gratitude to the country for welcoming his family, who was seeking refuge after the Syrian war erupted. Emin Bereket, 21, told Anadolu Agency that he fled Syria with his family after forces of the Bashar al-Assad...

Russia is at war not so much with the Ukrainian army as with the "collective West," the nation's defense minister said on Wednesday after a partial military mobilization was announced in Russia. The mobilization is being carried out to control "already liberated territories," Sergei Shoigu...

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim on Tuesday criticised the global failure to hold “war criminals” in Syria accountable for their crimes. At the 77th UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, he said: "The international community wasn't able to hold war criminals in Syria accountable. “What's even...

Turkey’s leader, overseeing a nation encircled by regional disputes, used his speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday to shine a spotlight on Turkish maneuvering in conflicts that span from Syria to Ukraine. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speech comes as Turkey is beset by...

Cyprus has assisted in rescue of a small wooden boat crammed with more than 300 migrants that was floating adrift 203 kilometers (126 miles) west of the island nation, a Cypriot official said Tuesday. Cyprus Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) Commander Andreas Charalambides told the...

Israeli forces crossed into Syria on Monday and fired at four individuals who had "hurled objects along the border fence", wounding one of them, the army said. Israel, which regularly carries out air strikes inside Syria's territory, rarely publicly acknowledges cross-border operations....

The Wagner Group, a Russian private military company, is trying to recruit over 1,500 convicted felons to take part in Russia's war in Ukraine, but many are refusing to join, a senior U.S. defense official said on Monday. "Our information indicates that Wagner has been suffering high losses...

A plane carrying medical supplies to deal with the spread of a deadly cholera outbreak in war-torn Syria landed in the capital of Damascus on Monday, the World Health Organization said, and another one will follow. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO's regional director, told The Associated Press in an...

LONDON (AP) — Britain and the world said a final goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II at a state funeral Monday that drew presidents and kings, princes and prime ministers — and crowds who massed along the streets of London to honor a monarch whose 70-year reign defined an age. In a country known...

The Spanish charity Open Arms has rescued 372 people seeking to cross the central Mediterranean to Europe in unseaworthy smugglers' boats and recovered the corpse of a man who had been shot by smugglers, officials said Sunday. The rescue ship Open Arms Uno remained at sea and is seeking a...

Day after day, signs of normalization of ties between Damascus and Ankara are building up. Day by day, Iran’s incursions into Syria are growing. Also, the range of Israeli raids on Iranian and military sites in Syria is expanding with more US involvement in these attacks. However, is there a...

 Russian shelling hit cities and towns across a wide stretch of Ukraine during the night, officials said Sunday, while the British Defense Ministry warned that Russia is likely to increase its attacks on civilian targets as it suffers battlefield defeats. “In the last seven days, Russia...

LONDON (AP) — Thousands of police, hundreds of troops and an army of officials made final preparations Sunday for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II — a spectacular display of national mourning that will also be the biggest gathering of world leaders for years. U.S. President Joe Biden...

The Syrian regime and Russia launched air strikes, artillery shelling and cluster bombs in the north western Syrian provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. The Syrian regime and Russia launched attacks on northwestern Syria on Saturday, according to The New Arab's Arabic-language service site...