Iran's top security body has approved the release of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest for seven years for leading mass protests in 2009, a family member told local media. Mousavi, 76, and Karroubi, 80, who were candidates of the 2013 polls, lead a mass protest claiming the vote was rigged.

An hours-long militant attack on a midwife training centre in eastern Afghanistan yesterday killed at least two people and wounded five,

A powerful commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that Donald Trump should address any threats against Tehran directly to him, and mocked the US president as using the language of "night clubs and gambling halls".

The top US envoy for South Asia has met with Taliban officials for peace talks in Qatar, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

Three Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip yesterday, the enclave's health ministry announced, as Israel's army said it was hitting Hamas after its soldiers came under fire.

US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Tuesday criticized Middle Eastern countries for not doing enough to help Palestinians and move the peace process forward, saying that they need to "step up."

Islamic State militants kills scores of people in a series of attacks on government-held parts of southwestern Syria, including multiple suicide blasts in Sweida city, official sources says.

Israel will partially reopen its only goods crossing with the blockaded Gaza Strip yesterday, a minister said, after closing it July 9 over

At least three people were wounded after five rockets were fired into Kabul yesterday, police said, but there was no immediate claim of

Israel said it shot down a Syrian warplane that crossed into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights yesterday, but Damascus said the jet was

The death toll from a suicide attack near Kabul international airport has risen to 23, the health ministry said yesterday, with an AFP driver

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager during a raid in the occupied West Bank overnight, the Palestinian health ministry said

Israel yesterday said its air defences fired at rockets that approached its territory from neighbouring Syria, where regime troops are advancing on opposition forces close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel will reopen its only goods crossing with the blockaded Gaza Strip if calm is maintained, a minister said yesterday, after having closed it July 9 partly over kites carrying firebombs.

Hundreds of members of Syria's "White Helmet" civil defence group and their families fled advancing government forces and slipped over the border into Jordan overnight with the help of Israeli soldiers and Western powers, officials said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday cautioned US President Donald Trump about pursuing hostile policies against Tehran, saying "America should know ... war with Iran is the mother of all wars," but he did not rule out peace between the two countries, either.

President Bashar al-Assad is set to recover control of the Syrian frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in a major victory over rebels who have agreed to surrender terms, sources on both sides said yesterday.

Israel yesterday passed a "nation-state" law declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country, stirring anger from members of the Arab minority who said it was racist and drawing an expression of concern from the EU.

Unidentified air strikes have killed 12 civilians in a rebel-held pocket of southern Syria as regime ally Russia presses talks for Damascus

Saudi Arabia yesterday intercepted a missile fired from rebel-held territory in neighbouring Yemen, where a Riyadh-led coalition is fighting the insurgents, state media said.