LONDON: Britain had planned to train and equip a 100,000-strong rebel army to defeat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before it was deemed to be too risky, BBC Newsnight reported on Thursday. The BBC said the secret "extract, equip, train" proposal, put forward two years ago, was the idea of Gene

LONDON: Iran has supplied Iraq with fighter jets to help it counter the belligerent offensive by ISIS who have taken over large swathes of territory, a media report said on Thursday. Russia supplied an initial delivery of the aircraft just a few days ago but analysts at the International Institut

Beijing: China has banned civil servants, students and teachers in its mainly Muslim Xinjiang region from taking part in Ramadan fasting, government websites said, prompting condemnation from an exile group on Wednesday. China’s ruling Communist party is officially atheist, and for years has re

BEIRUT: Rebel fighters held a parade in Syria's northern Raqqa province to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighbouring Iraq, a monitoring service said. The Islamic State, an al-Qaida offshoot previously known as Islamic State in Iraq an

BEIRUT: ISIS in Syria has publicly executed and crucified nine men, eight of them rebels fighting both President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the ISIS, a monitor said on Sunday. The report comes amid fierce clashes on the outskirts of Damascus between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is

Baghdad:  The Iraqi army on Saturday drove insurgents from the center of a major city in central Iraq, for the first time mounting a concerted assault against insurgents who had charged to within 50 miles of Baghdad. Independent sources, including local officials and witnesses, confirmed that an Ir

Baghdad: Iraqi insurgents executed at least 160 captives earlier this month in the northern city of Tikrit, Human Rights Watch said on Friday, citing an analysis of satellite imagery and grisly photos released by the militants. The US-based rights group said militants from the Islamic State of

SANAA, Yemen: Fierce clashes erupted between rebels and tribes backed by an army unit in a northern Yemeni city close to the capital on Friday, breaching a week-old ceasefire, a defense ministry official said, as the country's leaders said assailants were plotting to destabilize the country. The

BAGHDAD: ISIS took a town an hour from Baghdad that is home to four natural gasfields on Thursday, another gain by Sunni insurgents who have swiftly taken large areas to the north and west of the Iraqi capital. Iraq's presidency said a session of parliament would be held on July 1, the first step

WASHINGTON: The US military began deploying assessment teams in Baghdad on Tuesday to evaluate the state of Iraqi security forces and decide how to help them counter an Islamist insurgency that has overrun part of the country, the Pentagon said. Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secreta

Lahore: A populist Canada-based cleric returned to Pakistan on Monday to try to start what he has called a “peaceful revolution” against the government, as his supporters engaged in violent clashes with police. Tahir-ul-Qadri touched down in the eastern city of Lahore after his flight was diver

Baghdad:  Sunni militants advanced through west Iraq after seizing a strategic Syria border crossing, as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the region Sunday aiming to bridge widening rifts. The latest assaults saw the security forces making "tactical" withdrawals in the face of an insur

Ukraine's military waged new battles Saturday with pro-Moscow rebels who rejected Kiev's unilateral ceasefire, while the government raised alarm over the Kremlin's decision to put troops across Russia on combat alert. The resurgence of violence in the 11-week insurgency threatening to splinter th

BAGHDAD: When al-Qaida-style insurgents overran the northern city of Mosul, among the war booty they seized were what they claimed were five US-made helicopters. Noting that they were still nearly new, the group said in a posting on its Twitter feed, "We'll expect the Americans to honour the warr

GENEVA: More than 50 million people were forcibly uprooted worldwide at the end of last year, the highest level since after World War II, as people fled crises from Syria to South Sudan, the UN refugee agency said on Friday. Half are children, many of them caught up in conflicts or persecution th

CHENNAI/KOTTAYAM: Hours after sending an SOS to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure their safe return to India, 46 nurses from Kerala trapped in a hospital in the northern Iraq city of Tikrit on Wednesday evening said they had agreed to continue to work there after fighters from militant group, t

Tribal fighters hold up their weapons as they shout slogans in support of Iraqi security forces in Kerbala June 17, 2014.  BAGHDAD: Iraq's prime minister fired several top security commanders in a major shake-up Tuesday as fighting approached Baghdad in a militant onslaught that the UN warned ris

Alutgama, Sri Lanka: Clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in southern Sri Lanka have left three people dead and at least 78 others seriously wounded, the justice minister said on Monday. Police have imposed a curfew after rampaging Buddhist mobs late on Sunday razed a number of Muslim-owned home