BEIRUT: Turkish troops and US-backed Kurdish fighters exchanged heavy shellfire on Tuesday in the northern Syrian border town of Kobani, leaving one civilian dead as the conflict between the warring parties escalated. The artillery fire hit within the town and around its edges, starting...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Massive explosions and fires hit a military depot in Russia-annexed Crimea on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people, the second time in recent days that the Ukraine war’s focus has turned to the peninsula. Russia blamed the blasts at an ammunition...

The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a wartime deal appears to have ended up in Syria - even as Damascus remains a close ally of Moscow, satellite images analyzed Tuesday by The Associated Press show. The arrival of the cargo ship Razoni in Syria comes after the government in...

On a small island in the middle of the Evros river separating the Greek and Turkish lands, dozens of Syrian refugees, including women, children and the elderly, have been living in harsh and inhumane conditions for more than a month. Activists reported that the stranded refugees are trapped...

A Syrian Cabinet minister said Monday that Syrian refugees in neighboring Lebanon can start returning home, where he said they will get all the help they need from authorities. Tiny Lebanon is home to 1 million Syrian refugees who fled war in their country after the conflict began in March...

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — Anastasiia Aleksandrova doesn’t even look up from her phone when the thunder of nearby artillery booms through the modest home the 12-year-old shares with her grandparents on the outskirts of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine. With no one her age left in her neighborhood...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian government official denied on Monday that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie, though he justified the stabbing in remarks that represented the Islamic Republic's first public comments on the attack. The comments by Nasser...

MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Salman Rushdie is “on the road to recovery,” his agent confirmed Sunday, two days after the author of “The Satanic Verses” suffered serious injuries in a stabbing at a lecture in New York. The announcement followed news that the lauded writer was removed from a...

 Israel launched a missile attack on western and central Syria Sunday night, killing three soldiers and wounding three others, the Syrian military said in a statement. The Syrian army said Israel’s military targeted several positions in the coastal province of Tartus and suburbs of the...

CAIRO (AP) — A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt’s capital on Sunday, quickly filling it with thick black smoke and killing 41 worshippers, including at least 10 children. Several trapped congregants jumped from upper floors of the Martyr...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Weeks after followers of an influential cleric stormed parliament, Iraq’s political crisis shows no signs of abating, despite rising public anger over a debilitating gridlock that has further weakened the country's caretaker government and its ability to provide basic services....

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi energy company Aramco said Sunday its profits jumped 90% in the second quarter compared to the same time last year, helping its half-year earnings reach nearly $88 billion. The increase is a boon for the kingdom and the crown prince's spending power as...

Syria's autonomous Kurdish region transferred to the Iraqi government more than 600 relatives of ISIS group members who were detained at the notorious Al-Hol camp, a monitor said Friday. It is the fourth operation of its kind this year from the camp, which lies less than 10 kilometers...

Ankara will not leave Syria to the regime or to Kurdish-led forces, Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu said Friday after a suggestion by his colleague that Damascus and the Syrian opposition should reconcile sparked outrage. Comments Thursday from Turkish foreign minister Mevlut...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia's military pounded residential areas across Ukraine overnight, claiming gains, as Ukrainian forces pressed a counteroffensive to try to take back an occupied southern region, striking the last working bridge over a river in the Russian-occupied Kherson region,...

 The U.S. forces sent 89 oil tankers to carry stolen oil from Syria to U.S. bases in Iraq on Saturday, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported. The latest oil convoy went into Iraq through the al-Mahmoudieh crossing, which has been used by the United States to send stolen Syrian oil...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians reacted with praise and worry Saturday over the attack on novelist Salman Rushdie, the target of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death. It remains unclear why Rushdie's attacker, identified by police as...

Israeli shelling wounded two civilians in southern Syria’s Quneitra province near the occupied Golan Heights on Friday, state media in the war-torn country said. “Two civilians were wounded when a tank belonging to the Israeli occupation forces fired two shells near the village of Hamidiya,”...

Thousands of Syrians in rebel-held areas took to the streets on Friday to protest against a proposal from Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu for reconciliation between the Syrian government and opposition. Turkey has fervently opposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backing rebels...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A search and rescue operation was conducted on Friday for a third day for migrants reported missing after their boat capsized south of the Greek island of Rhodes, the coast guard said Friday. A Greek frigate and three merchant ships were searching the area roughly 40...