An Israeli source confirmed on Tuesday night there had been indirect contacts between Israel and Hamas, hours after sources in the terrorist group said Israel and Hamas have been holding indirect contacts about ideas for cementing a long-term truce in Gaza. "There are contacts with Egypt and other elements over an easing of the
Turkey on Tuesday briefly detained four journalists covering the seizure by Kurdish forces of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, reportedly because they asked the local governor a tricky question on Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists. Hasan Akbas of the daily Evrensel, Cumhuriyet reporter Pinar Ogunc, Ozlem Topcu of German weekly Die Zeit and
An Egyptian court upheld the death sentence handed down to former President Mohammed Morsi on Tuesday. The sentence was originally given last month, but a final ruling on it had been postponed until June 16 pending consultations with Egypt's Grand Mufti, the country's highest religious authority. Five other leading Islamists from the Muslim
Libya's recognized government said on Sunday that Algerian terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar had been killed in a U.S. airstrike inside Libya as part of a counter-terrorism cooperation, Reuters reported. Earlier, the U.S. Department of Defense said the military conducted a counterterrorism strike against an Al-Qaeda-associated target in Libya on Saturday night, but were assessing results
The historic Christian Syrian town of Maalula celebrated Saturday as a new statue of Mary, worshiped in Christianity as the mother of Jesus, was erected in its center, replacing the figure destroyed in rebel attacks in 2013. Dozens of families gathered alongside government officials and religious dignitaries in the main square, which was adorned
Yet another senior Iranian general has been killed fighting in Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad's regime, Iranian news agencies revealed late on Friday. Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Maj. Gen. Hadi Kajbaf was killed in April around 60 miles south of Damascus, near the rebel-hold town Busr al-Harir, according to the IRGC-affiliated
At least 11 Iraqi security personnel were killed Saturday in a quadruple suicide car bombing near Baiji that the Islamic State (ISIS) group said four of its foreign fighters carried out. Police and army sources said the four car bombs were unleashed on security targets in Hajjaj, which lies on the road between Tikrit
A Syrian rebel alliance has pushed Islamic State (ISIS) group jihadists further away from one of its key supply routes from neighboring Turkey, a monitoring group said Saturday. The Islamist rebels ousted ISIS from the village of Al-Bal, which it captured on Tuesday, threatening the Bab al-Salama border crossing, just 10 kilometers (six miles)
UNESCO on Friday condemned the destruction of ancient houses described as a "jewel" of Islamic urban landscape in an alleged Saudi-led air strike on the Yemeni capital's old quarter that killed five people, AFP reports. The incident occurred before Yemen's warring factions are to meet Sunday for UN-sponsored talks in Geneva. The coalition
Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas inaugurated a Palestinian embassy in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on Thursday, the Ma’an news agency reported. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic as well as several Arab ambassadors and the PA ambassador to Serbia attended the opening. After the meeting, President Nikolic reportedly announced that Serbia "would like
