The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said its troops opened fire on Wednesday at a checkpoint in northeast Syria after they came under small arms fire. The coalition said in a statement the situation was calmed down and the patrol returned to the base. Earlier, Syrian and...

In northeastern Syria, prisons and detention camps hold thousands of men, women and children whose lives are in limbo nearly a year after the final defeat of Islamic State to which they once belonged. The area around Qamishli city is mainly controlled by Kurdish fighters who helped defeat...

Lebanon will ask the International Monetary Fund for technical assistance to draw up a stabilization plan in the face of a financial and economic crisis, including how to restructure its public debt, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday. “There has been contact with the IMF but...

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Turkey was not upholding agreements it made with Moscow to “neutralize” militants in the Syrian province of Idlib and that militant attacks on Syrian and Russian forces were continuing in the region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow remained...

: Britain, the United States and Turkey were Wednesday formally asked to arrest senior officials from the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of carrying out war crimes and torture in Yemen, three sources told Reuters. British law firm Stoke White filed the complaints to Britain's...

 A U.S.-Taliban peace deal could be signed this month if the Taliban significantly reduces violence, and that deal could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, two Afghan government sources and a Western diplomat said on Wednesday. The timeline shared by sources came a...

The fate of the Chinese Grand Prix is expected to be announced on Thursday as reports said it will not take place as planned on April 19 because of the new coronavirus. Several British media outlets ran unsourced reports on Wednesday saying the Shanghai race, the fourth of the new season,...

Iran's government on Wednesday rejected US allegations that the Islamic republic's satellite programme has a military dimension, days after the failed launch of its latest satellite. "The subject of satellite launch vehicles and satellites is a civilian matter," Defence Minister Amir Hatami...

The United States will grant Iraq a brief 45-day extension to a waiver allowing Baghdad to continue importing Iranian gas despite American sanctions, an Iraqi official told AFP on Wednesday. The US slapped tough sanctions on the Iranian energy sector in late 2018 and initially granted Iraq...

Syrian regime forces Wednesday pushed on with their offensive in the country's northwest, securing areas along a key national highway they seized, as tensions spiralled with Turkey which supports rebel groups. After a series of tit-for-tat attacks, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan...

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- A photo exhibition for Syria’s mass torture photos was held for a week in the French city of Limoges due to an initiative by Syrian lawyers and advocates. The photo selection was of 53,275 torture photographs smuggled out of Syria in August 2013 by a military...

Turkey's military will strike Syrian regime forces by air or ground anywhere in Syria if another Turkish soldier is hurt, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. Erdogan said Turkey is determined to push Syrian government forces beyond Turkish observation posts in the...

The Taliban have issued an ultimatum to Washington after weeks of talks with a U.S. peace envoy, demanding a reply on their offer of a seven-day reduction of violence in Afghanistan, or they would walk away from the negotiating table, two Taliban officials said Wednesday. The development...

The death toll from China's new coronavirus epidemic climbed past 1,100 on Wednesday but the number of new cases fell for a second straight day, as the World Health Organization urged global unity to combat the "grave threat". As Beijing scrambles to contain the virus, the number of people...

For tens of thousands of years, Australia's Aboriginal people have used fire to manage the landscape, and after a summer of raging bushfires the practice is increasingly being seen as a way to help stem future disasters. The unprecedented scale of the latest bushfire season -- made worse by...

Italian senators will decide Wednesday whether far-right leader Matteo Salvini should face trial on charges of illegally detaining migrants at sea last year, for which he could be jailed for 15 years. A court in Sicily has recommended that former interior minister Salvini stand trial for...

Opposition leader Juan Guaido returned to Venezuela on Tuesday after an international support-building tour and called on the people in the crisis-wracked nation to keep pushing back against President Nicolas Maduro. Guaido -- who had defied a travel ban to visit Colombia, the United...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- A photo exhibition for Syrian journalist Firas Abdullah took place in Paris last Thursday, delivering a powerful testimony of the Syrian horror during the nine-year-old war. The exhibition includes a selection of photos taken in Ghouta suburbs, the eastern enclave of...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Russia's air power is not the only reason behind Bashar al-Assad's gains in northern Syria but the favor returns to the Russian-backed The 25th Special Missions Division, military experts say. The special task group, which was known as the Tiger Force led by Brigadier...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, appearing before the United Nations Security Council, angrily rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace proposal on Tuesday as a gift to Israel and unacceptable to Palestinians. Waving a copy of a map that the U.S. plan envisions for a...