Iraqi army captures key town south of Mosul
BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces backed by air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition gained complete control of the northern district of Shirqat on Thursday, bringing the military a step closer to a main push on Mosul later this year. Brigadier-General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for the military's joint operations command, said in a statement...Syria ceasefire collapses
DAMASCUS — Warplanes mounted the heaviest air strikes in months against rebel-held districts of the city of Aleppo overnight, rebel officials and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military on the reports, or mention of Aleppo air strikes on state media. U.S....Dozens killed in Yemen airstrike
SANAA — The death toll from a Saudi-led air strike which hit a house in a residential area in western Yemen has risen to 26 people, medics and residents in the Houthi-held area said on Thursday, and the alliance said it was looking into the report. Warplanes of the Saudi-led alliance launched missiles on Wednesday at a residential...Boats carrying 600 migrants capsized near Egypt, scores dead
CAIRO — A boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday. At least 52 people died. Police arrested four members of the boat's crew. Security sources said it had been loaded with almost 600 migrants. The boat sank early on Wednesday off Burg Rashed, a village in Egypt's northern Beheira province...Syria ceasefire deal in balance
DAMASCUS — Russia and a war monitor said the Syrian army had begun to withdraw from a road into Aleppo on Thursday, a prerequisite for pressing ahead with international peacemaking efforts as the government and rebels accused each other of violating a truce.However, insurgent groups present in Aleppo said they still had not seen...Less than half of world’s refugee children are in school
UNITED NATIONS — The majority of the world's some six million refugee children are not in school, making them five times less likely to get an education than the global average, the U.N. warned Thursday.A full 3.7 million school-aged refugee children have no school to go to, the UN refugee agency said in a report."This...U.S., Israel sign $38 billion military aid package
WASHINGTON — The United States will give Israel $38 billion in military assistance over the next decade, the largest such aid package in U.S. history, under a landmark agreement signed on Wednesday.The deal, will allow Washington's chief Middle East ally to upgrade most of its fighter aircraft, improve its ground forces'...Houthis study U.S. truce proposal for Yemen
SANAA — A U.S. official has presented a proposal for a comprehensive ceasefire in Yemen to the country's dominant Houthis at a meeting in Oman, a member of the Houthi negotiating team said on Thursday.Negotiators will study the plan offered by U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon in talks in Muscat,...U.N. chief calls Netanyahu’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ video outrageous
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "ethnic cleansing" video as an "unacceptable and outrageous" portrayal of people who oppose Israeli settlements in the West Bank, home to more than 2.7 million Palestinians.Ban told the United Nations Security Council, "Let me...Record new U.S. military aid deal for Israel to be signed in days
Obama and Netanyahu during a meeting at the White House, Nov. 2015 (Reuters)WASHINGTON — The United States and Israel have reached final agreement on a record new package of at least $38 billion in U.S. military aid and the 10-year pact is expected to be signed this week, sources close to the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.The deal...Syrian army and allies regain key Aleppo district
DAMASCUS — Syria's army and its allies have regained an important Aleppo district lost to rebels last month, state media and a war monitor said on Thursday, and were pressing an offensive south of the city to further squeeze the insurgents. If sustained, the advance in Ramousah would reverse nearly all gains rebels made in a push...Saudi airstrike kills civilians north of Sanaa
SANAA — At least nine civilians, including four children, were killed on Thursday in an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition on a residential building north of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, residents said. At least five other people were injured in the attack, early on Thursday, on the apartment building in Amran city, north of Sanaa,...World’s largest cemetery grows bigger as war rages in Iraq
BAGHDAD — The world's largest cemetery, in Iraq's Shi'a holy city of Najaf, is expanding at double its usual rate as the nation's death rate increased with the war on ISIS. The Wadi al-Salam cemetery, Arabic for "Peace Valley", has a special place in the hearts of Shi'ite Muslims as it surrounds the Mausoleum of their first imam,...
Top Saudi cleric says Iran leaders not Muslims
September 7th, 20160 Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-SheikhMECCA — Saudi Arabia's top religious authority said Iran's leaders are not Muslims, drawing a rebuke from Tehran in an unusually harsh exchange between the regional rivals over the running of the annual Haj pilgrimage.Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message...Car bomb kills nine in central Baghdad
The aftermath of the Karrada bombing in JulyBAGHDAD — At least nine people were killed in Baghdad late on Monday in a car bomb attack claimed by ISIS near a hospital in a central district, police and hospital sources said.A suicide bomber had targeted a gathering in the Karrada district, according to a statement circulated online by......
Amnesty urges Bahrain to end ‘heightened crackdown’ on opposition
LONDON — Amnesty International urged Bahraini authorities Thursday to end a "heightened crackdown" on its opposition, after some 60 Shi'a clerics were summoned or arrested for participating in a protest. The clerics were among scores of other demonstrators detained after taking part in a sit-in protesting the stripping of top Shi'a...U.S. troops in Iraq increasingly active as Mosul battle nears
Defense Secretary Ash Carter talks to troops at the Baghdad International Airport, July 23.BAGHDAD — Kurdish Peshmerga forces retook a swath of northern Iraq late last month from ISIS and days later American forces appeared in the area, the latest sign of increasing U.S. military activity in the country. The U.S. troops, numbering...Egypt seeks tougher punishment for female genital mutilation
Cards used to educate women about FGM, Minia, 2006CAIRO — Women's rights activists hailed the Egyptian government on Monday for advocating increased prison sentences for perpetrators of female genital mutilation but warned that a new law could shroud the practice in greater secrecy. Egypt's cabinet on Sunday approved a bill, which...Air strike kills 16 members of Yemeni imam’s family
SANAA — At least 16 members of the extended family of a Yemeni mosque imam were killed on Wednesday in an air strike on their family home in northern Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, a Reuters witness, a medic and a resident said. The coalition has been giving air support to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in his fight against the......
Israel approves 284 new illegal West Bank housing units
JERUSALEM — Israel approved 284 new illegal housing units in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, drawing a U.S. accusation that its policies could expand settlements in a "potentially unlimited way." U.S. officials said the criticism from the U.S. State Department marked the first time it has suggested in...Austrian official ‘recommends’ Muslim kids don’t wear hijab to kindergarten
AUSTRALIA - An Austrian deputy mayor has urged parents to avoid sending their daughters to kindergarten wearing headscarves as the covering insinuates men look at them in a “lustful” way. She termed the comment a “recommendation” rather than an attempt to ban “something religious.” Parents should avoid covering their......
ISIS suicide bomber kills 54 in Yemen attack
The compound after the attack (Reuters)ADEN — A suicide bomber killed at least 54 people when he drove a car bomb into a militia compound in Aden on Monday, the health ministry said, in one of the deadliest attacks claimed by ISIS in the southern Yemeni port city.The director general of Yemen's health ministry in Aden, al-Khader...U.N. says 10,000 killed in Yemen war
UNITED NATIONS — At least 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen's 18-month-old civil war, the United Nations on Tuesday, approaching double the estimates of more than 6,000 cited by officials and aid workers for much of 2016.The war pits the Houthi group and supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against President......