Mena Today

Syria has carried out nationwide pre-emptive operations targeting Islamic State cells, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

The United States seeks to take advantage of a "moment" in Lebanon in which it can cut Iranian funding to Hezbollah and press the group to disarm, the U.S. Treasury Department's top sanctions official said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been talking up the prospects of Saudi Arabia agreeing to normalise ties with Israel, but it is unlikely to happen when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits the White House this month.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plotted to assassinate Israel's ambassador to Mexico starting late last year, but the effort was contained and there is no current threat, a U.S. official said on Friday.

Jailed Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, 84, began a hunger strike, joining two prominent politicians who are protesting what they call “unjust imprisonment,” lawyers said on Saturday, marking the latest escalation in a standoff with President Kais Saied.

Turkey is preparing a law to let thousands of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters and civilians return home from hideouts in northern Iraq under negotiations to end generations of war.

Four people were arrested after protesters used flares to disrupt a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris on Thursday night, the latest in a wave of anti-Israel incidents linked to the Gaza conflict, French officials said on Friday.

Nearly 100 people have been recorded as abducted or disappeared in Syria since the start of the year, with reports of new enforced disappearances continuing, the U.N. human rights office said on Friday.

More than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, Kyiv's foreign minister said on Friday.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that Iran sought peace, but would not be coerced into abandoning its nuclear and missile programmes, state media reported.

Turkish prosecutors said on Friday they had ordered the detention of 21 people, including 17 referees and the chairman of an unnamed Super Lig club as part of an investigation into alleged betting on soccer matches.

Qais Al-Khazali, a militia leader who has been designated as a global terrorist by the United States and is an important ally of Iran, has sought to soften his image in a quest to become one of Iraq's top politicians.