Syrian government forces killed 23 rebels near Idlib province yesterday, the deadliest clash to rock a buffer zone where a Russian-Turkish truce is to be enforced.

President Donald Trump's strategy to contain Iranian power in the Middle East by forging Arab allies into a US-backed security alliance is in trouble even before the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Now, three US sources said, the plan faces fresh complications.

A Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire during clashes along the border of the Gaza Strip yesterday. Israel's military said soldiers opened

Dozens of combatants were killed as pro-government forces closed in on rebel forces in the heart of the Yemeni port city of Hodeida yesterday, hospital sources said.

Saudi King Salman embarked on an unprecedented domestic tour on Tuesday as the country grapples with an international crisis over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

More than 200 mass graves containing up to 12,000 victims have been found so far in Iraq that could hold vital evidence of war crimes by the IS, the UN said yesterday. The UNAMI said they documented the mass graves in parts of western and northern Iraq held by IS between 2014 and 2017.

A defiant Iran said it will "proudly bypass" sanctions by the United States that took effect yesterday targeting the Islamic republic's vital oil and financial sectors.

Battles raged near a Yemeni port crucial for humanitarian aid yesterday, but Saudi Arabia and its allies said they were committed to de-escalating hostilities with rebels as calls for a ceasefire mount.

Saudi Arabia sends a two-man "clean-up team" to erase evidence of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killing a week after he disappears at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a Turkish official says, calling it a sign top Saudi officials knew of the crime.

The sons of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi issues an appeal for the return of their father's body and said they want to return to Saudi Arabia to bury him.

Seventy-year-old Heidar Fekri has been selling industrial equipment from his small store in a Tehran bazaar since before the revolution, but for the first time he is not sure he can survive.

Conflict-ravaged Yemen has become a "living hell" for children with thousands dying every year from malnutrition and easily preventable

Nineteen suspected jihadists linked to a deadly attack on Coptic Christians in central Egypt have been killed in a shootout with police,

The lights are going back on in the Gaza Strip, in a rare piece of positive news from the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

Bahrain sentenced the head of the country's Shia opposition movement to life in prison yesterday for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar in a

One US soldier was killed and another wounded in an "apparent insider attack" in Kabul yesterday, Nato said. The attacker was killed by

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will seek re-election in 2019, his office said yesterday, as potential rivals begin jockeying for the country's

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for a halt to violence in Yemen to pull the country back from a "precipice" and

Turkey has lifted sanctions on two top United States officials, in a move that came minutes after Washington removed two Turkish

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday said that President Donald Trump has "disgraced" US prestige and would be