• Pakistan and Iran vow to restore ties after cross-border strikes

    Tehran carried out strikes against an anti-Iran group in Pakistan on January 16, the same week the nation's military targeted Iraq and Syria. Two days later, Pakistan responded in kind with a pre-dawn raid on "militant targets" in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province, one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim regions in...
  • Firing by gunmen in Iran leaves nine foreign nationals dead

    Tehran, Iran - Gunmen in southeastern Iran near the Pakistan border killed nine foreign nationals on Saturday, Iranian media reported, more than a week after the neighbors exchanged deadly cross-border fire. "According to witnesses, this morning unknown armed men killed nine non-Iranians in a house in the Sirkan neighborhood of Saravan...
  • Rights group urges justice an year after Iran’s ‘Bloody Friday’

    Paris, France - Campaign groups on Saturday demanded the perpetrators of the killing of dozens of protesters in southeast Iran one year ago be brought to justice, accusing authorities of using force to quell the latest demonstration in the region. According to activists, Iranian security forces used live fire to suppress...
  • Iranian pilgrims at ease during hajj post Riyadh-Tehran detente

    MECCA, SAUDI ARABIA- If a landmark reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran has eased tensions in the Gulf, clouds have also lifted at the hajj pilgrimage, where Iranian visitors finally feel welcome again. Seven years of enmity between the Sunni and Shiite powers had made for a cool reception for Iranian...
  • Iran-Saudi reconciliation advances with high-level diplomatic visit

    In a significant step towards reconciliation, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan conducted a landmark visit to Iran to hold talks with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, focusing on regional security. This visit comes after both nations agreed to mend ties in a Chinese-brokered deal, following a diplomatic severance in...
  • Iraq to execute person for killing academic in 2020

    An Iraqi court sentenced to death a former policeman convicted of killing prominent academic Hisham al-Hashemi, whose murder in 2020 sparked condemnation in the country and abroad. The sentence against Ahmed Hamdawi Oueid for killing Hashemi, an expert on Sunni extremism and a government security adviser, was handed down by...
  • Bahrain forum: Pope calls for global unity, al-Tayeb for Sunni-Shia amity

    The pope said that "a few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs." The pope's visit comes with the Ukraine war in its ninth month, and as tensions grow on the Korean peninsula and in the...
  • Lebanon vote weakens Hezbollah bloc as reformists book gains

    Official results later Monday will show whether Hezbollah, a political and military movement seen as a state within a state, and its allies can keep an actionable majority in Lebanon's 128-seat parliament. Election turnout was just 41 percent -- eight points lower than in 2018.
  • Ramadan starts on Sunday for Shiite Muslims in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon

    Traditionally, many Muslim-majority countries have followed dates set by Saudi religious authorities, but in recent years many have used their own astronomic calculations.
  • Three Hezbollah among five dead in Lebanon funeral ambush

    Several people were wounded in the exchange of fire in the Khalde area between members of the Lebanese Shiite group and Sunni residents