Middle Orient

Turkey’s security forces have arrested 30 suspected ISIS terrorists, primarily foreigners, in different parts of the country as part of preemptive operations to prevent possible terrorist attacks during the New Year celebrations. The security units arrested 23 persons linked to ISIS in Ankara during a joint security operation carried out …

Iraqi security forces have launched an investigation into the deaths of 20 civilians during an operation to capture two terrorist suspects on Thursday. The tragedy occurred in Rashayed village in the central province of Babylon, just south of Baghdad, when special forces and intelligence officers prepared to raid the home …

The Islamist militants attacked the radio station for years, because it played music, because it hired women, because its liberal values posed a challenge to Syria’s zealous men with guns. Lately, though, the attacks on the station have stopped, and its tormentor — a militant group once affiliated with al-Qaeda …

A court certified October’s parliamentary vote that gave Muqtada al-Sadr’s party a plurality of seats, clearing a path for a government to be formed. Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court on Monday upheld the results of the country’s October parliamentary elections, resolving a dispute that had stalled the formation of a new …

With tensions ratcheting up between the Israelis and the leaders of the Palestinian groups in the West Bank and Gaza, yet another wave of violence appears imminent. Hamas officials have been vowing renewed violence for weeks as they have criticized Egyptian mediators who have been trying to hammer out a …

Hezbollah has not yet responded to statements that over the past three years, the Israeli army has attacked dozens of Hezbollah targets in Syria, a senior Israeli security official said on Saturday. This is surprising since the attacks severely hampered the organization’s logistical and operational efforts to establish itself in …

Offers of money by the Islamic State to join its ranks prove “irresistible” to those hit hard by Syria’s collapsed economy. A man being led by security guards shuffles into an interrogation cell in a military prison in the Kurdish-administered city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria. His hands are cuffed, …

Riyadh-led airstrikes came after Yemen’s Houthis launched a projectile into the southern Saudi province of Jizan, killing two people late last week. The Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels said it launched renewed airstrikes in response to a projectile attack that killed two people near the southern Saudi …

An apparent increase in drug trafficking into the country from both its eastern and western borders, with fallout from instability in Afghanistan and ‘mafia’ groups in Syria as well as use of illicit substances in Iraq, has raised concern. In early December, the directorate tasked with drug control in Iraq’s …

The longer runway at Khmeimim airbase in Syria gives nuclear-capable bombers a place to land, and is one more move in Russia’s plan to expand its capacities in new directions. The end of December is a special month for the Russian military. Every year at this time, practically all the …