Two separate explosions, possibly caused by missile attacks, have hit an Iranian oil tanker operated by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) near the Saudi port city of Jeddah, in what Tehran calls a “dangerous adventure”.

NATO is urging Turkey to exercise restraint in its incursion into northeastern Syria. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged Turkey’s legitimate security concerns about the Syrian Kurdish fighters, but warned that the offensive could “jeopardize” progress made against the Islamic State terror group.

U.S. troops at a military outpost in northeast Syria came under artillery fire from Turkish positions, as Ankara’s forces pressed on with their offensive against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Former US Defense Secretary James Mattis has said that Daesh “will resurge” in Syria, following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of troops from the region.

Syrian government forces will deploy along the Turkish border to help repel the Turkish military incursion against Syrian Kurds, Kurdish officials announced Sunday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says threats of sanctions and arms embargoes by Western powers will not halt his country’s cross-border military offensive against Kurdish militants in Syria’s northeast.

The U.S. is withdrawing all remaining troops from northern Syria, as President Donald Trump said Sunday it was “very smart… for a change” to not be involved in the fighting sparked by Turkey’s onslaught against the U.S.’s long-time battlefield ally, Kurdish fighters.

Tuesday night, two small Islamic State sleeper cells inside Syria’s Raqqa governorate, which is held by the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), targeted two separate SDF positions in region.

“We have more work to do to keep ISIS from coming back,” the spokesperson for the Kurdish-led forces said. “If America leaves, all will be erased.”

In an attempt to draw European support for Lebanon as it grapples with financial unease, Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raed threatened the bloc with the sensitive issue of Syrian refugees.

The United States is unhappy with the Lebanese government for tolerating Hezbollah, a western diplomatic source told Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday.

Germany on Wednesday urged Turkey to halt a military operation in northern Syria, saying the incursion would destabilise the country and risked helping a resurgence of the Islamic State militant group.

Fears are growing among American officials that thousands of ISIS fighters may escape from prisons in Syria as the Kurdish personnel guarding them gear up for a fight with Turkey, which launched a military offensive in northeastern Syria on Wednesday.

On Sunday evening, the Trump administration released a statement from the White House press secretary that signals a major shift in U.S. policy toward Syria.

The United States and Greece have signed an updated defense-cooperation pact, a move Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said was not aimed against any one nation in the region, including Turkey.

American troops have begun pulling back from positions in northern Syria in line with an order from the White House. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed the action hours after the White House said U.S. forces in northeast Syria would move aside and clear the path for an expected Turkish incursion.

A senior Israeli official recently said that Israel’s top priorities are to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon and to thwart Hezbollah’s precision missile project.

A resident of the southern Israeli town of Tel Sheva was indicted on Sunday for attempting to join the ISIS terrorist organization and produce explosives.

On Sept. 14, the news that Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities had been attacked and damaged came as a shock. While there had been a gradual escalation in Iranian-led hostilities following the U.S. dismantling of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran nuclear deal), the general expectation was that this standoff would still be […]

Since the beginning of 2018, the Syrian regime has expanded its control of territory across the country from approximately 52 percent to 62 percent. That 10 percent of territory gained was a crucially important 10 percent, encompassing opposition-held areas in Syria’s southwest, rural Homs, and eastern Ghouta, as well as a small pocket of northern […]

Relying on the legacy of his supremely connected late father, Prime Minister Saad Hariri used to repeatedly conjure solutions for Lebanon to survive economic trouble.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday issued further threats against Israel, saying the Lebanese terror organization’s “unprecedented levels of intelligence” would soon lead to its fighters “entering occupied Palestine.”

Syria’s foreign minister demanded on Saturday that American and Turkish forces evacuate the war-ravaged country immediately or face “any and all countermeasures authorized under international law.”

American counterterrorism officials are voicing increased alarm about a Qaeda affiliate in Syria that they say is plotting attacks against the West by exploiting the chaotic security situation in the country’s northwest and the protection inadvertently afforded by Russian air defenses shielding Syrian government forces allied with Moscow.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the United States the “supporter of terrorism” in the Middle East and downplayed Tehran’s role in the recent Saudi oil facility attacks in a Tuesday interview with Fox News.

Key point: The IRGC is a fanatical and elite unit. No other branch of the Iranian military can claim the notoriety that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has earned for itself over the last several decades.

Senior United States Treasury official Marshall Billingslea has delivered a stern message to Lebanese officials during a two-day visit to Beirut, warning that those who co-operate with Hezbollah will be targeted by sanctions.

An expanded “safe zone” in northern Syria could include as many as 3 million people and stretch for 50 miles as far as Raqqa, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, proposed at the UN general assembly as he pressed his case to speed up the resettlement of Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

A panel of former national security officials and other experts is calling for the White House and lawmakers to “halt the U.S. military withdrawal” from Syria or face potentially dire consequences.

A bipartisan report Tuesday urged the Trump administration to halt a planned troop drawdown from Syria and to step up diplomatic efforts to counter Iran’s influence and stave off a resurgence of the Islamic State militant group.

An explosives-laden drone captured by Syrian authorities was not Israeli and was likely Iranian, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman said Saturday.

Two months after Ankara threatened to launch an operation into northern Syria, where US forces are present, the US and Turkey seem to be working closely on a “security mechanism” that supposedly seeks to fulfill Turkey’s concerns about Syria.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the bombing of a minibus that killed 12 people near the entrance to a major Iraqi pilgrimage center.

The Israeli and British fighter jets conducted military exercise together over the eastern Mediterranean several months ago, and the drills also involved the US Air Force at the time.

Action targets major sources of funding for the regime’s proxies and terrorist arms, including the IRGC, the Qods Force, Hizballah and the Houthis