Middle Orient News

Proclaiming the Syrian people winners in a “dirty war” waged by outsiders, President Bashar Assad was sworn in on Wednesday, marking the start of his third seven-year term in office amid a bloody civil war that has ravaged the Arab country.

Iraqi forces launched an attack on Tuesday to retake the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, the second offensive since extremists took over several cities across the country in June. Army officials told DPA that military forces began their assault on the city from the northern and southern entrances of the city, and …

Israel, after eight days of cross-border attacks with Gaza, on Tuesday unilaterally accepted an Egyptian-proposed truce, despite earlier rejections by Palestinian armed groups. “The (security) Cabinet has decided to answer positively to the Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire starting today at 9 am (0600 GMT),” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office …

The United Nations Security Council called for “de-escalation” on Saturday evening, in the latest wave of the militarised conflict playing out in the Gaza Strip. The council “expressed serious concern regarding the crisis related to Gaza and the protection and welfare of civilians on both sides”. It called for a …

Egypt declared an emergency state on the border with Gaza on Wednesday following Israeli airstrikes on the strip, a security source told Aswat Masriya. The source added that army forces have stepped up caution in the Sinai Peninsula which falls on the border of Israel. Egypt’s presidential office said on …

Egyptian President Abdulfattah Al-Sisi directed his Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry on Thursday to head to the Iraqi capital and convey Egypt’s stance in support of Iraq. The current Iraqi crisis comes as the forefront of priorities for consultations on ways to restore national reconciliation between all parties involved in Iraq, …

Kurdish peshmerga forces took control of production facilities at two northern Iraqi oil fields Friday, replacing Arab workers with Kurdish personnel. The national oil ministry in Baghdad condemned the takeover at the Kirkuk and Bai Hassan fields and called on the Kurds to withdraw immediately to avoid “dire consequences.”

Syrian activists say rebels have attacked the village of the country’s defense minister and captured parts of it. Activists say the attack began Friday with a suicide bombing that targeted a checkpoint in the village of Rahjan in the central province of Hama.

Iraq’s new parliament postponed its next session for five weeks on Monday, extending the country’s political paralysis in the face of a Sunni Islamist insurgency which claimed the life of an army general on the northwestern outskirts of Baghdad. Citing the inability of political camps to reach “understanding and agreement” …

ISIS-led insurgents are creating an Islamic state out of the vast strips of land they control in Iraq and Syria, the militants have announced. Its territory will extend from Syria’s Aleppo, once the economic heart of the country, to the Diyala province in the east of Iraq. The Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which from now is to call itself simply “Islamic …