AQABA, Jordan (AP) — Blinken says US has been in direct contact with Syrian group that ousted Assad and is designated terrorist organization.
The local rebel commander hands over a thin plastic shopping bag so full of live grenades it seems likely to split under the weight.
Powerful forces in Middle East and, now, in Washington working against truce lasting beyond its first phase.
Israeli soldiers have been filmed firing out of their vehicles at apparent improvised explosive devices as part of a security sweep in the West Bank.
A survivor of the 7 October Hamas attack has been chosen to represent Israel at Eurovision. Yuval Raphael was at the Nova music festival when Hamas led a cross-border attack from Gaza into southern Israel. The amateur singer was there with friends and later told Israel's parliament she hid under dead bodies for eight hours.
Final female Israeli civilian held in Gaza not on list of names supplied by Hamas for next exchange
Bangladesh let 178 former paramilitary troops walk free from jail Thursday, nearly 16 years after they were detained over a violent mutiny that massacred dozens of senior army officers.Rampaging troops from the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) murdered 74 people during the two-day revolt that began in Dhaka and spread across the country in 2009, destabilising the government of then-premier Sheikh Hasina weeks after she took office.
South Korea's military said on Friday that it suspects North Korea is preparing to send more troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces, even after suffering losses and seeing some of its soldiers captured. "As four months have passed for the dispatch of troops for the Russia-Ukraine war, and multiple casualties and captives have occurred, (North Korea) is suspected to be accelerating follow-up measures and preparation for an additional dispatch of troops," the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement. The JCS analysis did not specify what other follow-up measures Pyongyang might take.
A Palestinian official said hundreds of people began leaving their homes in a flashpoint area of the occupied West Bank on Thursday as Israeli forces pressed a deadly operation.Israeli forces have also detained several Palestinians from the Jenin area, with an AFP photographer seeing a row of blindfolded men in white jumpsuits being transported out of the West Bank.
Hamas on Friday said it would release the following day four Israeli women soldiers held hostage since October 7, 2023, in a second exchange under a ceasefire deal that has halted the Gaza war.The exchange is part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war, which took effect on Sunday and saw three women hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners freed.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday re-designated Yemen's Houthi movement, known formally as Ansar Allah, as a "foreign terrorist organization", the White House said. The move will impose harsher economic penalties than the Biden administration had applied to the Iran-aligned group in response to its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and against U.S. warships defending the critical maritime chokepoint. Proponents of the move say it is overdue, though some experts say it could have implications for anyone seen as aiding the Houthis, including some aid organizations.
Secluded in his stronghold in southern Afghanistan, reclusive Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is the cornerstone of the movement that has ruled the country unchallenged since reclaiming power in 2021, strictly enforcing Islamic law.After Kabul's fall in summer 2021, the "emir" gained another title, Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, which comes with new challenges, including transforming his movement into a governing force.
Gunmen killed two soldiers and wounded 12 others who were deployed to secure a U.N. livelihood project in the southern Philippines, military officials said Thursday. The attack Wednesday in Sumisip town in Basilan province sparked a clash in which two gunmen were also killed, they said. The military said the attackers included members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, an armed Muslim group that signed a 2014 peace deal with the government.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli forces will remain in southern Lebanon beyond a 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah because its terms have not been fully implemented, the Israeli prime minister's office said on Friday. Under the agreement, which took effect on Nov. 27, Hezbollah weapons and fighters must be removed from areas south of the Litani River and Israeli troops should withdraw as the Lebanese military deploys into the region, all within a 60-day timeframe, meaning by Sunday at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT). The deal, brokered by the United States and France, ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The Sudanese army and rival paramilitaries traded blame on Thursday over targeting a major oil refinery north of the capital Khartoum, where clashes between the warring sides have intensified.The RSF, however, blamed the military for the destruction, accusing it of targeting the refinery with barrel bombs during air strikes in the morning.
Yemen's Houthi rebels have released the crew of the Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier seized in November 2023 at the start of their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war. The move by the Iranian-backed Houthis marks their latest effort to de-escalate their attacks following a ceasefire in Gaza. The Houthis said they released the sailors after mediation by Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula that's long been an interlocutor with the Houthis.
PM says Lebanon has not fully met conditions for Israeli withdrawal under ceasefire deal
Life expectancy in the Gaza Strip was nearly cut in half in the first year of the war between Israel and Hamas, a new study has estimated.
Israel’s defense minister has announced a series of raids that he says are targeting “terrorism” in the occupied West Bank, as Palestinian officials warned of a “man-made disaster.”
Violent settlers descend on Sinjil and other West Bank towns to protest against release of Palestinian prisoners
Colombia called on neighboring Venezuela Thursday to help tackle guerrillas blamed for a week of bloody violence that has displaced 40,000 people in the lawless border region. Colombia is struggling to contain violence in the mountainous northeastern Catatumbo region, where a 5,800-strong leftist militia has targeted rival armed groups and their alleged sympathizers.
