A general view shows Castello road in Aleppo, Syria September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail Moscow stepped up its war of words with Washington on Sunday, saying air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition on the Syrian army threatened the implementation of a U.S... More »
Suspected Kurdish militants detonated a car bomb near local government offices in Turkey’s southeastern city of Van on Monday, wounding scores of people, a day after two dozen mayors from Kurdish-run municipalities were stripped of office. More »
A fighter from the Free Syrian Army’s Al Rahman legion walks past damaged buildings in the rebel held Jobar, a suburb of Damascus, Syria September 6, 2016. Picture taken September 6, 2016. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh Government troops and insurgents fought in sever... More »
A riot police officer stands guard in front of Sur municipality office, following the removal of the local mayor from office after he was deemed to support Kurdish militants, in Diyarbakir, Turkey, September 11, 2016. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar Turkey appointed new ... More »
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov talks during a news conference at the Foreign Ministry in Beirut December 5, 2014. REUTERS/Aziz Taher (LEBANON – Tags: POLITICS) A new round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition may be held in ... More »
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attend a news conference after a meeting on Syria in Geneva, Switzerland, August 26, 2016. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister S... More »
At least four explosions hit government-held parts of Syria on Monday, in the cities of Tartous and Homs and in the countryside outside Damascus, state media and a monitor said. More »
Members of Libyan forces allied with the UN-backed government fire a weapon towards Islamic State militants in neighbourhood Number One in central Sirte, Libya August 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny At least 34 Libyan fighters were killed and more than 180 wo... More »
Turkish armoured personnel carriers drive towards the border in Karkamis on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern Gaziantep province, Turkey, August 27, 2016. REUTERS/Umit Bektas Turkey’s army and its allies thrust deeper into Syria on Sunday, seizing ... More »
Syrian-Kurdish YPG fighters appear to be reinforcing the Syrian city of Manbij, captured this month from Islamic State, with weapons and personnel, regional security sources told Reuters on Monday. More »
At least 15 bodies were transferred to a hospital run by Medicins Sans Frontieres in the southern Yemen city of Aden on Monday, a source at the hospital said, after an attack on a building used by local militias. More »
An Australian aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan four months ago was freed following a raid by Afghan special forces near the eastern city of Jalalabad, officials said on Monday. More »
Police are seen outside Saint Joseph catholic church after a suspected terror attack by a knife-wielding assailant on a priest during the Sunday service in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia August 28, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Antara Foto/Irsan Mu... More »
A bomb exploded at the Brussels Institute of Criminology in the north of the Belgian capital on Monday but the building was empty and no one was wounded, broadcaster RTL said. More »
BEIRUT A suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest on a bus in Syria near the Atmeh border crossing with Turkey late on Sunday, killing at least 32 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The bus was carrying fighters from foreign-backed rebel f... More »
BERLIN One person was wounded in an attack in Cologne city center in the early hours of Monday, a police spokeswoman said, adding that there were no signs of a terrorist motive. Local newspaper Express described it as a knife and gun attack. The police spokesw... More »
DUBAI U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned an air strike on a school in northern Yemen that killed 10 children and called for an investigation, while the Saudi-led coalition said the attack had targeted a training facility run by the Houthi group. Aid ... More »
NEW DELHI Two armed militants attacked a police station in Indian-ruled Kashmir on Monday, police said, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his annual Independence Day speech in the national capital, New Delhi. The gunmen were unable to take control of t... More »
BRUSSELS – No bombs were found on two SAS aircraft after threats were made against an SAS plane late on Wednesday, Belgian prosecutors said, adding that an investigation of a possible terrorist was continuing. The inspection took place after the prosecutor’s o... More »
ISTANBUL Turkish police detained 17 suspected militants in a sweep in Istanbul on Thursday that included a raid on offices of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), state media said, hours after twin bomb attacks hit the mainly Kurdish southeast. Sec... More »
LAHORE, Pakistan A Pakistani opposition lawmaker on Wednesday proposed banning 24-hour cartoon TV channels, specifically the popular Japanese series “Doraemon”, drawing ridicule on social media in a country fighting corruption, poverty and Islamist militants. ... More »
BEIRUT A Russian military helicopter carrying five people was shot down in the north of Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province on Monday, the Russian defence ministry said. Russian air forces are supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s five-year-old civil w... More »
BEIRUT Syrian rebel fighters have launched a major assault on government-held southwestern parts of Aleppo to try to reopen supply lines after the army and its allies tightened their siege of opposition-held parts of the city last week. The rebels are trying t... More »
KABUL The Taliban claimed responsibility for a truck bomb attack on a military and logistics services compound, mainly used by foreigners, in Kabul early on Monday after a powerful explosion was heard all around the city. However, casualties appear to have bee... More »
DUBAI Islamic State on Sunday condemned as an “apostate” a U.S. Muslim soldier killed in Iraq whose story has re-ignited debate in the 2016 presidential election on the role of Muslims in American life. Dabiq, the militant group’s online magazine, showed a pic... More »
KABUL Civilians are being killed and wounded in record numbers in Afghanistan, the United Nations reported on Monday, just days after one of the deadliest attacks ever in Kabul. Overall at least 1,601 civilians were killed and 3,565 wounded in the war in the f... More »
BERLIN/ANSBACH, Germany A 27-year-old Syrian man denied asylum in Germany a year ago died on Sunday when he set off a bomb outside a crowded music festival in Bavaria, the fourth violent attack in Germany in less than a week, a senior Bavarian state official s... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO The judge overseeing the probe that led to the arrest last week of suspected Islamist militants in Brazil said Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. co-operated with investigators by providing information about the suspects’ use of both social networks... More »
BERLIN A 27-year-old Syrian man who had been denied asylum in Germany a year ago died on Sunday when a bomb he was carrying exploded outside a music festival in Ansbach, Germany, a Bavarian state official told a news conference, according to a website. Interio... More »
ISTANBUL/ANKARA Turkey widened a crackdown on suspected supporters of a failed military coup on Sunday, taking the number of people rounded up in the armed forces and judiciary to 6,000, and the government said it was in control of the country and economy. Pre... More »
PARIS A five-day jazz festival in Nice has been canceled following the killing of at least 84 people in the city by a truck driver, organizers said. The festival, which had lined up acts such as Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour and British trip hop act Massive... More »
BEIRUT/AMMAN Rebel areas of Aleppo have stockpiled enough basic supplies to survive months of siege by Syrian pro-government forces that cut off their half of the city last week, even though some goods are running out, an opposition official said. Government f... More »
FALLUJA, Iraq Iraqi forces recaptured the last district held by Islamic State militants in the city of Falluja on Sunday and the general commanding the operation declared the battle complete after nearly five weeks of fighting. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi c... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday said the United States remains committed to bringing home Americans held captive overseas and helping their families, a year after the administration promised to overhaul its handling of hostage situations. “We ... More »
BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq About 40,000 residents of Falluja, Islamic State’s besieged stronghold near Baghdad, have fled in the last three weeks, but a similar number are trapped despite the Iraqi army’s attempts to secure escape routes for them, officials said on T... More »
PARIS/LES MUREAUX A Frenchman who pledged allegiance to Islamic State stabbed a police commander to death outside his home and killed his partner, who also worked for the police, in an attack the government denounced as “an abject act of terrorism”. Larossi Ab... More »
ORLANDO, Fla. Orlando nightclub killer Omar Mateen had expressed sympathy for a variety of Islamist extremists, including groups in the Middle East that are sworn enemies, the FBI said on Monday, as a picture began to emerge of the angry, violent man who carri... More »
FORT PIERCE, Fla. The photo from Omar Mateen’s high school yearbook is hardly remarkable – a toothy, dimpled smile with a peach-fuzz mustache below a mop of black hair. His transformation from high school football player to perpetrator of America’s worst mass ... More »
WASHINGTON Accustomed to generating controversy in their native Middle East with lyrics tackling love, sex and political apathy, members of Lebanese alt-rock band Mashrou’ Leila thought a summer U.S. tour would bring them a welcome respite. Instead, as news sp... More »
BEIJING China hopes to establish counter-terrorism intelligence sharing with France as the Asian giant seeks greater international support for its anti-terror fight, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported citing an exchange between officials of the two ... More »
AMMAN The Syrian army pushed into Raqqa province, home to the de facto capital of Islamic State, after a major Russian-backed offensive against the militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. The offensive is the third big assault on t... More »
KABUL Thousands of demonstrators from Afghanistan’s Hazara minority marched in protest through Kabul on Monday saying that they are missing out on a multi-million dollar power transmission line, posing a major challenge to the government of President Ashraf Gh... More »
ISTANBUL Turkish and U.S.-led coalition forces struck Islamic State targets north of the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, killing 27 fighters, state-run Anadolu Agency and other media reported. Turkish artillery and rocket launchers fired into Syria while warp... More »
MUNICH A German national stabbed four passengers at a train station near Munich early on Tuesday, killing one man and injuring three, in an attack police said appeared to have an Islamist motive. Witnesses said the assailant, a 27-year-old man, shouted “Allahu... More »
ISTANBUL Long-running efforts to fully restore Israeli-Turkish ties strained after an Israeli raid of a Turkish boat in 2010 must now await the formation of a new government in Ankara, Israel’s top diplomat in Turkey said. Turkey downgraded diplomatic relation... More »
MOSCOW Russia and the United States have agreed to extend the “regime of calm” in Syria’s city of Aleppo for another 48 hours starting from May 10, RIA news agency on Tuesday quoted Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying. (Reporting by Lidia Kelly- Editing by Dmi... More »
HANOVER, Germany/WASHINGTON President Barack Obama will announce on Monday he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. offici... More »
MAKHMOUR, Iraq Towering over his Kurdish partner at a checkpoint in northern Iraq, U.S. volunteer John Cole cuts an unusual figure on the road to the newest front in the war against Islamic State. Seven feet (2.1 meters) tall and holding his assault rifle upsi... More »
DUBAI Yemeni government forces and their allies killed more than 800 al Qaeda fighters when they advanced into the port city of Mukalla, the Saudi-led pro-government coalition said. Yemeni and Emirati soldiers seized the seaport on Sunday, depriving the group ... More »
LONDON A meticulous recreation of the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, destroyed by Islamic State militants last year, has been erected in Trafalgar Square in what London Mayor Boris Johnson called an act of defiance. The 5.5-metre (20ft) mode... More »
KUWAIT Peace talks in Kuwait aimed at ending over a year of civil war and a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen will not begin on Monday as planned, officials from the warring sides said, amid objections over continued fighting despite an announced ceasefire. Dele... More »
BEIRUT Syrian rebel groups announced a new battle against government forces on Monday, a sign of escalating violence that has undermined a ceasefire deal and threatens to derail U.N.-led peace talks. The groups, which included factions fighting under the banne... More »
BAGHDAD U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter flew into Iraq on Monday to discuss offering more help in the fight against Islamic State, possibly including sending in more U.S. troops, officials said. Carter would meet Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defe... More »
ADEN A shaky truce took hold in Yemen on Monday under a U.N.-backed effort to end a war that has made the country a front in Saudi Arabia’s region wide rivalry with Iran and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The war-damaged capital Sanaa spe... More »
BRAZZAVILLE Police in Congo’s capital Brazzaville exchanged heavy fire with unidentified gunmen on Monday, witnesses said, in the first significant outbreak of violence since President Denis Sassou Nguesso won re-election last month in a disputed poll. Young o... More »
BAKU Three Azeri servicemen were killed in fresh fighting with Armenian-backed separatists over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region on Monday, Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry said. Azerbaijan had halted its attacks but Armenia was still “aggravating the situat... More »
DUBAI A Saudi-led military coalition on Monday said it had completed a prisoner swap in Yemen, exchanging nine Saudi prisoners for 109 Yemeni nationals ahead of a planned truce and peace talks aimed at ending the year-long war with Houthi rebels. The statement... More »
DUBAI The secretary of the Iranian National Security Council has congratulated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on regaining the city of Palmyra, Tasnim news agency reported on Monday. “The determination of the Syrian nation, government and army to eliminate t... More »
LAHORE, Pakistan Pakistani authorities hunted on Monday for breakaway Taliban militants who once declared loyalty to Islamic State after the group claimed responsibility for an Easter suicide bomb targeting Christians, that killed at least 70 people. The attac... More »
BEIRUT Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support drove Islamic State out of Palmyra on Sunday, inflicting what the army called a mortal blow to militants who seized the city last year and dynamited its ancient temples. The loss of Palmyra re... More »
BRUSSELS Belgian police briefly used water cannon to control several hundred rowdy protesters in central Brussels on Sunday after they ignored an official call for marches to be postponed following Tuesday’s bombings. Amid fears of further attacks, officials w... More »
Facebook Inc apologized to users on the other side of the world from Sunday’s suicide bombing in Pakistan who received computer-addressed notices asking if they were safe. Facebook users as far away as New York and Virginia showed notifications they received o... More »
ISLAMABAD Pakistan and Iran aim to increase annual trade volumes between the two countries to $5 billion by 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday. Sharif spoke at a business conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who arrived i... More »
BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq Iraq’s armed forces started an offensive against Islamic State in the northerly Nineveh province on Thursday in what a military statement described as the first stage of an operation aimed at liberating the city of Mosul. The assault was la... More »
WASHINGTON Shortly after last November’s attacks on Paris by a Brussels-based Islamic State cell, a top U.S. counter-terrorism official traveling in Europe wanted to visit Brussels to learn more about the investigation. When the official tried to arrange meeti... More »
BRUSSELS Belgian police were hunting on Thursday for a “third man” filmed with two Islamic State suicide bombers at Brussels Airport as investigators accumulated evidence that the same jihadist network was involved in the deadly Paris attacks last November. As... More »
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the attack in Brussels that killed more than 30 people is the “latest brutal reminder” that more must be done to defeat Islamic State militants, including by European Union member countries... More »
ANKARA The death toll in a car bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara has risen to 37 people, Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said on Monday, adding that 71 people were still being treated in hospital. Of those in hospital, 15 were in serious condition, ... More »
MOSCOW Russia is ready to coordinate its actions with the U.S.-led coalition in Syria to push the Islamic State group out of Raqqa, Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. “We are ready to coordinate our actions with the ... More »
TUNIS/ALGIERS The signal to attack came from the mosque, sending dozens of Islamist fighters storming through the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdan to hit army and police posts in street battles that lit the dawn sky with tracer bullets. Militants used a megaphone ... More »
MOGADISHU Islamist militants in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, set off a vehicle packed with explosives next to a cafe near a police building on Wednesday, killing at least three police officers. The Islamist al Shabaab group, which wants to topple the Western... More »
BEIJING China is taking a “distinctly Chinese approach” to national security with a raft of new laws, including one on counterterrorism, the third-ranked leader said on Wednesday, offering a strong rebuttal to Western criticism. The U.S., Canadian, German and ... More »
Amid Yemen’s misery, two young women living in the war-damaged cities of Aden and Sanaa know they are among the relatively fortunate. They are not starving, their homes have not been destroyed and they have survived bombs and bullets unscathed. But both long t... More »
MOSCOW Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on the phone on Sunday about closer cooperation between their countries’ militaries on the Syria ceasefire plan, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday. The conversati... More »
BENGHAZI, Libya Military forces loyal to Libya’s eastern government said on Tuesday they had taken control of two key neighbourhoods in Benghazi, building on gains made against Islamist fighters over the previous three days. The military said it had full contr... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama launched a final push on Tuesday to persuade Congress to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, despite strong opposition from lawmakers who do not want detainees transferred to the United States. The presiden... More »
BEIRUT The Syrian army advanced toward the Turkish border on Monday in a major offensive backed by Russia and Iran that rebels say now threatens the future of their nearly five-year-old insurrection against President Bashar al-Assad. Iranian backed-militias pl... More »
WASHINGTON Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) has shut down more than 125,000 terrorism-related accounts since the middle of 2015, most of them linked to the Islamic State group, the company said in a blog post on Friday. Twitter has said it only takes down accounts when th... More »
JERUSALEM Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian who tried to stab them in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the military said, the latest in a months-long wave of Palestinian attacks that shows little sign of abating. The Palestinian had infiltrated a secur... More »
BEIRUT The death toll from a suicide attack in Damascus on Sunday that was claimed by the Islamic State militant group has risen to more than 70, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A car bomb and two suicide bombers attacked the Sayeda Zeinab distri... More »
GENEVA Syria’s main opposition group is considering a proposal by U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura that could pave the way to the delegation pressing ahead with talks after holding their first meeting with him on Sunday, a Western diplomatic source said. ... More »
ISLAMABAD A Pakistani man has been arrested for hoisting the flag of arch rival India on his roof, an act police described as “anti-state” but which the accused says was a tribute to Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli, officials said on Wednesday. Umar Draz, f... More »
PARIS Syrian Kurdish officials will not be invited to peace talks in Geneva, where negotiations for the opposition will be led by a Saudi-backed opposition group, France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. Laurent Fabius said United Nations special envoy Sta... More »
LAUSANNE, Switzerland The co-leader of the Syrian Democratic Council, Haytham Manna, on Wednesday he would not take part in peace talks in Geneva unless two Kurdish leaders, Saleh Muslim and Ilham Ahmed, were also invited to participate. “I’ll go with my frien... More »
ROME Italy evacuated 15 Libyans on Monday for medical treatment after they were wounded in last week’s truck bomb attack against a police training center, the Italian government said. At dawn, Italy sent a C-130 transport plane to the port city of Misrata to t... More »
ANKARA Turkey is unsettled by “anti-Islamic” messages in the U.S. presidential race, in which the Republican front runner called for a ban on foreign Muslims, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday. Donald Trump last month advocated banning all forei... More »
BEIRUT Aid convoys headed for a besieged Syrian town where thousands are trapped and the United Nations says people are reported to have died of starvation. Trucks headed for Madaya, near the Lebanese border, and two villages in the northwest of the country on... More »
BERLIN The fact that people of foreign descent were behind much of the violence in Cologne on New Year’s Eve should not be kept quiet but neither should it lead people to general suspicion toward all refugees and migrants, the German interior minister said on ... More »
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan Afghan police were holding out against Taliban forces who have surrounded their compound in Sangin, in the southern province of Helmand, on Monday as the militants closed in on another district capital. “Right now there is a heavy figh... More »
MANCHESTER, N.H. U.S. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton backed elements of President Barack Obama’s strategy to fight Islamic State militants in a debate on Saturday, drawing criticism from all sides for saying “we now finally are where we n... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump said separately on Sunday that the United States should not try to topple dictators such as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, highlighting a skepticism over foreign wars that transcends party lines... More »
BENGHAZI, Libya Libya’s Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who leads forces allied to the country’s recognized government, called for an end to an arms embargo to help fight Islamist militants after holding talks with the U.N. envoy on a peace agreement. Haftar, a former al... More »
DUBAI U.N.-sponsored Yemeni peace talks in Switzerland appeared to be struggling amid differences over government demands for the release of senior officials held by the Iran-allied Houthis, sources close to the talks said on Thursday. The dispute comes amid f... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. intelligence agencies can now reach almost all domestic phone records, far more than they collected under a now-scrapped program by the National Security Agency, according to Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. That estimate of the amou... More »
NEW DELHI Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj will hold talks with Pakistan on Wednesday, the first visit by India’s top diplomat to its rival in three years, part of efforts to restart a peace dialogue plagued by militant attacks and distrust.Swaraj will le... More »
MOSCOW Russia will consider Afghanistan’s request for arms supply in a careful manner, but that task belongs first of all to the United States, RIA news agency cited Kremlin’s special envoy to Afghanistan as saying on Monday. Zamir Kabulov told the agency that... More »
LONDON British detectives have charged a man with attempted murder after a knife attack at an east London metro station on Saturday night which was described by police as a terrorist incident. Police said 29-year-old Muhaydin Mire of east London would appear a... More »
ZURICH NATO has ruled out sending ground troops to fight against Islamic State militants in Syria, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg told a Swiss newspaper, stressing the need to bolster local forces in the conflict. “That is not on the agenda of the coa... More »
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Sunday laid out the most sweeping defense yet of his strategy to defeat Islamic State, but he offered no U.S. policy shift to confront what he called a “new phase” in the terrorist threat after a mass shooting in California... More »
BANGUI Pope Francis ventured into one of the world’s most dangerous neighbourhoods on Monday to beg Christians and Muslims to end a spiral of hate, vendetta and bloodshed that has killed thousands over the past three years. Under intense security, Francis pass... More »
