Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping for Kremlin talks that reflected increasingly close ties between the two countries that were communist rivals during the Cold War.

Brig. Gen. Jamal al-Ahmad, one of a group of Syrian officers tasked with maintaining ties with Hezbollah and its Golan Heights commander, was gunned down by unknown assailants in the Sweida area in southwest Syria.

Karama operations media center of the Libyan National Army (LNA) has said ‘Turkish drones’ had targeted several regions in the south of the capital Tripoli. The center accused Turkey of making a “blatant intervention in support of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood and its militias despite a UN Security Council arms …