BEIRUT: Lebanon plans to start sending back tens of thousands of Syrian refugees within months over objections by the UN and rights groups, a minister said in an interview on Wednesday. Lebanon has one of the world’s highest numbers of refugees per capita and currently hosts over 1...

A retired soldier, identified as I.D., had been reportedly raping children in the Al-Qaa area, in Baalbeck governorate, and committing other crimes such as drug trafficking, for more than three years. On Wednesday, June 29, a unit of the army intelligence raided his house and arrested him...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — More than two dozen children have died of hunger in the past two months in a single hospital in Somalia. Dr. Yahye Abdi Garun has watched their emaciated parents stumble in from rural areas gripped by the driest drought in decades. And yet no humanitarian aid arrives....

After more than four months of ferocious fighting, Russia claimed a key victory: full control over one of the two provinces in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland. But Moscow’s seizure of the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk province came at a steep price. The...

Beirut (AFP) – A closure of the last aid corridor from Turkey into northwest Syria's rebel-held areas would spell "catastrophe" for millions of people, a UN aid official has warned. "This is one of the most vulnerable populations anywhere in the world," said Mark Cutts, UN deputy regional...

PARIS (AP) — French authorities on Tuesday repatriated 51 women and children from the former Islamic State-controlled areas in Syria, according to a statement from the national antiterrorist prosecutor’s office. It’s the single largest return of women and children to France from camps in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Monday the bullet that killed veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was likely fired from an Israeli position. But they say it is too badly damaged to reach an absolute determination, and that there is “no reason to believe” she was deliberately...

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, one day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining bulwark of resistance in the province. Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin...

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who arrived in Syria on Saturday, held a series of meetings with high-ranking Syrian officials focusing on bilateral and regional issues. The discussions between Amir-Abdollahian, his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad and Bashar al-Assad...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia claimed control Sunday of the last major Ukrainian-held city in one of two eastern provinces that have been the focus of Moscow’s grinding war. A Ukrainian official, however, denied Moscow’s control was complete. If confirmed, Russia's claim that it seized the...

The Syrian regime forces launched since March 2011 arrest campaigns against thousands of Palestinian refugees in Syria, stressing that they focused primarily on targeting elite doctors, media professionals, political activists and opinion leaders who had a prominent and influential presence...

The EU condemned civilians deaths in the conflict in Syria on Friday. “The EU condemns in the strongest terms these crimes causing the deaths of so many civilians over more than a decade of conflict. These crimes were mostly perpetrated by the Syrian regime and its allies, including through...

The Israeli military on Saturday said it shot down three unmanned aircraft launched by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah heading toward an area where an Israeli gas platform was recently installed in the Mediterranean Sea. The launch of the aircraft appeared to be an attempt by Hezbollah...

For the second week in a row, the Syrian refugee camps in the Lebanese border town of Arsal are experiencing a shortage of bread resulting from the reduction of flour allocations. Zaman al-Wasl reporter said that the unprecedented bread crisis that the town’s bakeries are witnessing recently...

An Israeli strike on Syria's western coast wounded two civilians on Saturday, the Syrian defence ministry said. "The Israeli enemy carried out an air strike" at about 6:30 am near the town of Al-Hamidiyah, the ministry said in a statement, identifying the locations hit as poultry farms,...

Syrian regime forces blocked a US convoy in the northern province of Qamishli this week, the country's news agency has claimed, amid continued tensions between the two sides. Syrian forces intercepted US troops in the Tal Sateh area, eastern Qamishli, SANA said on Wednesday, which follows...

PRAGUE (AP) — The European Union’s executive arm on Friday pledged to draft an emergency plan this month aimed at helping member countries do without Russian energy in the wake of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the initiative would build...

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missile attacks on residential areas killed at least 21 people early Friday near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, authorities reported, a day after the withdrawal of Moscow's forces from an island in the Black Sea seemed to ease the threat to the city. Video of...

In January, a cargo ship flying the Honduran flag disappeared from international tracking systems off the coast of Cyprus. When it reappeared a week later, the Sea Navigator was heading north to Europe. But the ship had not got lost – it had slipped into a Russian-controlled port in Syria to...

BEIRUT (AP) — Qatar has donated $60 million to the Lebanese army, hard hit by the Mediterranean nation's unprecedented economic meltdown, Qatar News Agency reported Thursday. The announcement came shortly after Qatar's Foreign Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al Thani arrived in Beirut,...