US denounces failure to implement ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta during UN Security Council meeting. The United States has accused Russia and the Syrian government of violating the Eastern Ghouta ceasefire at a United Nations Security Council meeting. The 30-day ceasefire, enshrined in Resolution 2401, was voted for unanimously by members of the Security Council on […]

Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and several non-state actors, including the EU, promise to fund rebuilding in Iraq. International donors have pledged tens of billions of dollars to help Iraq rebuild after a four-year war against ISIL has left large swathes of the country in ruins. Iraq received $30bn in pledges to fund its reconstruction efforts, the […]

US-backed Syrian fighters are clearing Islamic State (IS) militants from the last two villages the jihadist group controls, military officials say. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance launched an assault at the weekend on Shajalah and Baghuz, near Syria’s border with Iraq. The last militants remaining there are reportedly retreating and hiding among the […]

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria provoked widespread fears over a future resurgence of the Islamic State. But it may yet have a silver lining: Other countries have signaled they are willing to take back their citizens who joined the terrorist group but are now detained in makeshift […]

WARSAW (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday (Feb 14) hailed as a breakthrough a conference in Warsaw where he is standing side-by-side with Arab powers to confront Iran, hoping their common front can pave the way to greater normalisation of relations. The United States initiated the two-day meeting in the Polish capital […]

[This is a developing story. We will keep updating it as we learn more.] TEHRAN — A suicide bomber killed 41 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on a bus in a restive region of southeast Iran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported. It was among the deadliest attacks in Iran in years. The Revolutionary […]

Germany says it has arrested two former Syrian intelligence officers alleged to have been involved in torturing critics of President Bashar al-Assad. Both men seem to have sought asylum in Germany after leaving Syria a few years before the migrant influx in 2015. One them, Anwar R, is suspected of committing crimes against humanity. He […]

“If there’s peace, we’ll protect it. And if not, we’re ready for orders to attack,” declares Mohammed Salman of the Yemeni army’s Third Brigade. An occasional crackle of gunfire pierces an eerie silence at the Red Sea Mills, a battle-scarred granary on the eastern edge of the strategic port city of Hudaydah. This vital warehouse […]

SANAA (AFP) – Food aid in a warehouse on the frontlines of the Yemen war is at risk of rotting, the UN said Monday (Feb 11), leaving millions of Yemenis without access to life-saving sustenance. The Red Sea Mills silos, located in the western port city of Hodeida, are believed to contain enough grain to […]

TEHERAN (AFP) – Thousands of Iranians gathered Monday (Feb 11) in central Teheran to mark 40 years since the Islamic revolution, a political earthquake that ended millenia of monarchy and still reverberates around the region. Traffic was diverted from roads leading up to Azadi (freedom) square ahead of a march to remember the day in […]