Rebels step up Aleppo offensive, clash with each other
November 3rd, 20160 DAMASCUS — Syrian insurgents stepped up a week-long offensive on government-held areas in the city of Aleppo on Thursday, detonating three car bombs and firing shells which killed at least a dozen civilians, state media and a monitor said. Rebel groups detonated three large car bombs near pro-government forces on the western edge of...ISIS leader says ‘no retreat’ from Mosul, as Iraqi troops close in
Iraq's flag is seen during a sand storm in Bartilla, east of Mosul, Iraq Nov. 1MOSUL — ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told his followers on Thursday there could be no retreat in a "total war" against the forces arrayed against them, as advancing soldiers battled the terrorists inside their northern Iraqi stronghold. Expressing...Protests at fishmonger’s death shake Moroccan monarchy
RABAT — Grainy video images and the screams of a young fishmonger who was crushed to death in a garbage truck while trying to stop police destroying his stock have shocked Moroccans and brought thousands on to the streets to protest. Five years after pro-democracy protests shook Morocco, this week's unrest is a reminder of pent-up...Lebanon’s Aoun elected president, ending 29-month vacuum
BEIRUT - The Lebanese parliament elected former army commander Michel Aoun as president on Monday, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum as part of a political deal that is expected to make Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri prime minister. Aoun, who is in his 80s, secured the presidency by winning the support of 83 MPs, well above...“Afghan girl” in 1985 National Geographic detained for fake identity cards
PAKISTAN- The Afghan woman, once a 12-year-old green-eyed girl celebrated on National Geographic magazine’s cover in 1985, has been arrested in Pakistan for fraudulent identity papers.Sharbat Gula could be fined and could possibly face up to 14 years in prison. Pakistani officials said she was detained by...U.N. vows to press on with securing Aleppo evacuation operation
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations vowed on Thursday to press ahead in securing medical evacuations of hundreds of sick and wounded from the Syrian city of Aleppo and demanded that the warring sides drop their conditions.The United Nations aborted plans at the weekend to evacuate patients from rebel-held east Aleppo, which...Erdogan says Turkish offensive will push on for Raqqa
ANKARA — Turkey's military operation in northern Syria will target the town of Manbij, recently liberated from ISIS by Kurdish-led forces, and the terrorists' stronghold of Raqqa, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish warplanes, tanks and artillery, launched an operation dubbed "Euphrates...U.N. peace plan for Yemen sidelines exiled president to symbolic role
UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. peace proposal to end a 19-month war in Yemen appears aimed at sidelining exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and setting up a government of less divisive figures, according to a copy seen by Reuters.Hadi fled the armed advance of the Houthi movement in March 2015 and has been in neighboring Saudi Arabia...Study: Iraqis are world’s most generous to strangers
LONDON — Although torn by civil war, Iraq is the world's most generous country towards strangers in need, according to a new global index of charitable giving.Eighty one percent of Iraqis reported helping someone they didn't know in the previous month, in a global poll commissioned by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).For the first...Violence flares in Turkey’s southeast after Kurdish mayors’ arrest
ANKARA — Five members of Turkey's security forces and five Kurdish militants were killed on Thursday in clashes in the southeast where unrest has flared since the arrest this week of two popular mayors.Two soldiers were killed in a clash near Hani, a town outside Diyarbakir, the region's biggest city, security sources said....Villagers forced to walk to Mosul as human shields for ISIS
ISIS fighters forced women, children and the elderly to walk alongside them for days as human shields to cover their retreat to Mosul, separating out older boys and fighting-aged men along the way for an unknown fate, villagers said.Reuters spoke to a woman and an elderly man inside the ISIS-held city, who were part of group of...Syria government says Aleppo ceasefire started, promises ‘safe exit’
DAMASCUS — The Syrian military said on Thursday a unilateral ceasefire backed by Russia had come into force to allow people to leave besieged eastern Aleppo, a move rejected by rebels who say they are preparing a counter-offensive to break the blockade.State media earlier said the army had opened exit corridors in two...Iraqi PM: Mosul offensive going faster than planned
The offensive to seize back Mosul from ISIS is going faster than planned, Iraq's prime minister said on Thursday, as Iraqi and Kurdish forces launched a new military operation to clear villages on the city's outskirts.A cloud of black smoke wreathed some frontline villages, probably caused by oil fires, a tactic the militants use...Turkey bombs Syrian Kurdish militia close to U.S.
Turkish air strikes pounded a group of Kurdish fighters allied to a U.S.-backed militia in northern Syria overnight, highlighting the conflicting agendas of NATO members Ankara and Washington in an increasingly complex battlefield.The jets targeted positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in three villages, northeast...Yemen missile launch, Saudi-led air strike strain truce
SANAA — A 72-hour truce in Yemen came under pressure on Thursday when missiles fired from Yemen injured civilians in southern Saudi Arabia, according to an Arab coalition which launched air strikes that Houthi fighter militants said killed three people.Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies have been embroiled in a conflict......
Hariri backs Aoun for president in Lebanon
BEIRUT — Lebanon's former prime minister Saad al-Hariri said on Thursday he would back Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun to become president, a step that may help resolve the country's political deadlock."This decision comes from the need to protect Lebanon and the state and the people ... but it is a decision that depends on...Libyan forces push into last ISIS area in Sirte
TRIPOLI — Libyan pro-government forces are advancing into the last area controlled by ISIS in the coastal city of Sirte, surrounding the militants after a five-month campaign backed by U.S. air strikes, military officials say.At least eight pro-government fighters were killed over the weekend as their forces pushed into the 600......
Saudi lobbyist calls for partnership with Israel
WASHINGTON — A U.S.-based Saudi lobbyist called for closer economic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia in an op-ed on The Hill, in possibly yet another sign of rapprochement between the ultra-conservative kingdom and the Zionist state.In his op-ed, Salman al-Ansari, the founder and president of the Washington-based Saudi Public...Germany Syrian bomb suspect kills himself in jail
BERLIN — Police and judicial officials in the German state of Saxony faced a blaze of criticism on Thursday after a Syrian man suspected of plotting to bomb a Berlin airport killed himself in a detention center where he had been deemed not at risk of suicide.Jaber Albakr, 22, who evaded police on Saturday and...U.S. military strikes Yemen after missile attacks on Navy ship
The U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on Thursday to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said.The strikes, authorized by President Obama, represent Washington's first direct...Syrian forces push for Aleppo ahead of Swiss talks
DAMASCUS — Syria's military backed by Russian warplanes have killed more than 150 people in eastern Aleppo this week say rescue workers, part of a renewed bombardment supporting an offensive to seize the city's shattered rebel-held sector.As air strikes and shelling of the city's east intensified since Tuesday after a brief period of......
Turkey warns assault on Mosul would trigger refugee wave
ANKARA — Any mistake in a planned U.S.-backed operation to drive ISIS from the Iraqi city of Mosul could result in hundreds of thousands of refugees, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Thursday.Turkey is locked in an escalating row with Iraq over who should take part in the Mosul assault and Kalin voiced...Over 140 killed from Saudi airstrikes in Yemen
YEMEN - Saudi-led warplanes struck a funeral at a community hall in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, the country's Houthi-run administration said on Saturday, but the coalition denied any role in the attack. More than 140 mourners were killed, according to local health officials cited by the United Nations, in an attack that prompted a strong......
New famine fears loom in Yemen
An eight-year-old malnourished boy at a hospital in Sanaa, Sept. 27.SANAA — Intensive care wards in Yemen's hospitals are filled with emaciated children hooked up to monitors and drips - victims of food shortages that could get even worse due to a reorganization of the central bank that is worrying importers. With food ships finding...Iraq requests U.N. emergency meeting on Turkish troops in north
BAGHDAD — Iraq has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the presence of Turkish troops on its territory as a dispute with Ankara escalates. Turkey's parliament voted last week to extend the deployment of an estimated 2,000 troops across northern Iraq by a year to combat "terrorist......