Middle Orient

Turkey appears reluctant to back down from its military posture in Libya, even as its normalization bid with Egypt depends greatly on whether the two sides find common ground in the Libyan conflict. Turkey and Egypt held their first high-level meeting in eight years last week, but Ankara has shown …

Opposition group says the person who was wounded worked for the Hezbollah terror group on the Syrian Golan An Israeli helicopter bombed an alleged Hezbollah site on the Syrian Golan Heights, injuring one person, in a rare daytime strike on Monday, according to Syrian sources. The Israel Defense Forces refused …

Tel Aviv Municipality opened bomb shelters amid concern that Hamas and Islamic Jihad will try to launch rockets toward the center of the country on Tuesday. Two women were killed and more than 90 people were injured on Tuesday after rockets, fired from the Gaza Strip, slammed into a number …

Registration kicked off in Iran on Tuesday for candidates to run in the Islamic Republic’s upcoming presidential election, scheduled for June. The field is wide open as the incumbent, President Hassan Rouhani, is not allowed to run due to term limits for the job. There has been little public interest …

A US Coast Guard ship fired some 30 warning shots in the Strat of Hormuz after 13 ships belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Navy sailed menacingly close to it and other US ships in the strait. The incident reported on Monday is the third time that Iranian vessels have …

Rockets continued to rain down in Israel on Tuesday, with hundreds fired into Israeli territory since Monday evening, including seven fired at Jerusalem as tens of thousands of Israeli Jews gathered in the city to celebrate. At least 100 rockets reportedly fell short of the mark and landed in Gaza …

Saudi Arabia’s civil defense said on Twitter early on Tuesday that a Houthi projectile had fallen in a border village in Jazan in the south of the kingdom, resulting in some damage to a house and cars but causing no injuries. On Monday, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi forces in …

Qatar’s ruling emir visited Saudi Arabia on Monday for the first time since signing a declaration with the kingdom and other Arab Gulf states to ease a years-long rift and end an embargo that had frayed ties among important U.S. allies and security partners. Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al …

A rocket attack on a Turkish military supply convoy in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province has killed one soldier and wounded four others, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. Turkish forces retaliated to the attack by firing on targets they identified in the region, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. It …

The German birth rate is considerably below what’s needed to replace the population. German seniors, meanwhile, are living longer and drawing more on state resources for their pensions and health care. There are basically two ways out of this demographic crisis. First of all, Germany could boost its birth rate. …