Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that Israel "must be punished and will be punished", days after one of his advisers said Israeli embassies are "no longer safe". Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly replied on social media site X that "if Iran attacks from its territory, Israel...

Amir-Abdollahian is set to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad during the visit, while Syria's information ministry said he was to inaugurate a new Iranian consular section. Syria's pro-government newspaper Al-Watan said the officials' talks would be "mainly focused" on repercussions of last week's strike.

Damascus, Syria - Seven children were killed in southern Syria's Daraa province on Saturday when an "explosive device" detonated, state media reported. "Seven children" were killed "and two other people were injured, one of them a woman, when an explosive device planted by terrorists" went off in the city of Sanamayn,...

Tehran, Iran - Iran on Saturday again threatened retaliation for the deaths of seven Revolutionary Guards in a strike on Damascus, with the army chief saying his country's enemies will "regret" the killings. Tehran has vowed to avenge Monday's air strike on the Syrian capital it blamed on its arch-enemy Israel,...

Monday's strike in the Syrian capital levelled the five-storey consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals. Nasrallah, whose fighters have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since the Gaza war began in October, said the strike on the Iran consulate...

Tehran, Iran--Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mourned Thursday the seven Revolutionary Guards killed in a strike in Syria, which he has blamed on Israel and has vowed to "punish", state media reported. The Guards, including two generals, were killed in the air strike on Monday which levelled the Iranian...

Tehran, Iran - Iran has repatriated the bodies of seven Revolutionary Guard Corps members killed in a strike on the country's consular annex in Damascus, which Tehran blamed on Israel, local media reported. The Guards, including two generals, were killed in the air strike on Monday which levelled the Iranian embassy's...

Jerusalem - The Israeli army has suspended leave for its combat units, it said on Thursday, amid the Gaza war and as tensions with Iran grew after a strike on Tehran's consulate in Damascus. Israeli media reported that the military was also calling up more reservist soldiers "against the background...

The volunteers don their club's signature blue vest, the front and back embroidered with their emblem: a flaming motorbike and the Syrian flag.

The Supreme leader said in a speech to officials in Tehran that the defeat of "the Zionist regime in Gaza will continue and this regime will be close to decline and dissolution." He said "desperate efforts" like the one committed in Syria will not save them and they will be...

In a statement, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani "strongly condemned" the attack and said that Iran "reserves the right to carry out a reaction and will decide on the type of response and the punishment of the aggressor." Iran's ambassador in Damascus, Hossein Akbari, said, "the five-storey consulate building...

Beirut, Lebanon--Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbollah group warned Tuesday that Israel will pay for killing high-level Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in a strike on the country's consulate in Damascus, Syria, the day before. Hizbollah has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the Gaza war erupted in...

Beirut, Lebanon - The death toll in Israeli air strikes on Syria has risen to 52, including 38 government soldiers and seven members of Lebanon's Hizbollah movement, a war monitor said on Saturday. Friday's strikes fueled concerns of a wider regional conflagration. They targeted "a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon's Hizbollah"...

In Syria, "Israeli strikes" targeted a Hizbollah "rockets depot" in Aleppo province, killing 36 Syrian soldiers, seven Hezbollah members and another pro-Iran fighter, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said. It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

Beirut, Lebanon - A UN official on Friday appealed for about $4 billion in humanitarian assistance for Syria, warning funding was almost non-existent and that lack of support would push more Syrians to emigrate. Syria's war, which began 13 years ago with the repression of anti-government protests, has killed more than...

Beirut, Lebanon - Israeli raids hit warehouses storing weapons for the Lebanese Hizbollah group in Syria Tuesday, a war monitor said, as a Syrian military source said air defenses had intercepted several missiles. Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011, targeting Iran-backed...

Damascus, Syria -- Visiting United Nations special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen urged Damascus Sunday to rejoin talks to revise the country's constitution, warning that political dialogue was going "in the wrong direction". Syria's war, which began 13 years ago with the repression of pro-democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000...

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on targets in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011, mainly targeting Iran-backed forces including fighters from Lebanon's Hizbollah movement as well as Syrian army positions. The strikes have increased since Israel's war with Palestinian resistance group Hamas began on October 7.

Jerusalem--The Israeli army said Tuesday it hit about 4,500 Hizbollah targets in Lebanon and Syria over the past five months, killing 300 of the group's fighters and wounding more than 750. The targets were hit from the air and from the ground, the army said in a statement, and included...

Beirut, Lebanon - Gunmen thought to be linked to the Islamic State group in Syria killed 18 people searching for truffles in the desert Wednesday, a war monitor said. More than 50 people remained missing after the attack that saw heavy clashes with pro-government forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights...

According to Syria's defense ministry, Israeli fighter jets carried out strikes "from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan", targeting a number of sites in the Damascus countryside. The ministry added that the country's air defenses responded to the attack, shooting down most of the missiles.

Oil spills in Iraq -- a country ravaged by decades of conflict, corruption and decaying infrastructure -- have contaminated farmland in the northern province, especially during the winter rains.

Baalbek, Lebanon - Israeli strikes near the Hizbollah-dominated city of Baalbek killed two group members on Monday, two security sources told AFP, in the first strikes on Lebanon's east since clashes began after the Gaza war. "Two Hizbollah members were killed in the Israeli strikes near Baalbek," a security official told...

An Israeli strike on a residential area of Damascus killed at least two people, Syrian state media reported, the latest deaths from an escalating Israeli air campaign since the Gaza war erupted in October. Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011.

Tehran, Iran - Iran unveiled two new air defense systems on Saturday, state media reported, with tensions high in the Middle East amid the war in Gaza. "The Arman anti-ballistic missile system and the Azarakhsh low-altitude air defense system, built by the ministry of defense, were unveiled this morning," the official...

Doha, Qatar-- Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has affirmed that the ties between Qatar and Iran have never been closer. The emir stated this in a meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Doha. During the meeting, Amir-Abdollahian conveyed the greetings of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi...

Beirut, Lebanon - Israeli air strikes that targeted a building in an upscale area near the Syrian capital killed three people early on Saturday, a war monitor said. State media reported that Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli "air attack". Since Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has...

Four students and a woman and her son were among the dead along with an unidentified civilian, the Observatory said, while a Syrian working with Lebanon's Hizbollah group and an unidentified pro-Iran fighter were also killed. A source close to Hizbollah confirmed to AFP that two of the Iran-backed fighters...

"The presence of US forces in our region has no justification," Raisi said in a Tehran ceremony ahead of the 45th anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution on February 12.

"Ten people, including six civilians and two Hizbollah fighters, were killed in Israeli strikes on a building in the Hamra neighborhood of Homs," the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP. The strikes completely levelled the building in one of the city's most affluent...

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that five people have been killed including three civilians, and seven others were injured in Israeli strikes on a building in the Hamra neighbourhood of Homs city. The country's defence ministry reported that "the Israeli enemy launched air strikes targeting a number of...

The US forces targeted many positions in Syria and Iraq in retaliation for a drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three US soldiers. The strikes, which targeted elite Iranian units and pro-Iranian militant groups, have led to fears that the ongoing war in Gaza could spiral into...

ISTANBUL, TURKEY - Turkey on Tuesday holds pre-dawn vigils for the loss of more than 50,000 people -- and parts of entire cities -- in the earthquake-prone country's deadliest disaster of modern times. Grieving Turks are still coming to terms with how a 7.8-magnitude tremor could upturn the lives of millions...

Washington, US - American forces shot down eight drones near Yemen and destroyed four more on the ground, the US military said on Saturday, announcing a series of incidents that took place the previous day. The strikes and shootdowns in and around Yemen came as American forces launched a wave of air...

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on all parties to avoid further escalation in the Middle East after US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria and Iraq. "Everybody should try to avoid that the situation becomes explosive," Borrell said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

The United States has some 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in neighboring Iraq as part of an international coalition against the Islamic State group, a jihadist organization that once controlled swathes of both countries.

"The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond," US president Joe Biden said.

The targets included a site operated by Lebanese group Hezbollah on a road leading to the Sayyida Zeinab district and a site on the road to Damascus airport that had recently been vacated by pro-Iran groups, the Britain-based war monitor said.

Doha, Qatar - Iran are "following our dreams" in trying to win the Asian Cup for the first time in 48 years, winger Alireza Jahanbakhsh said on the eve of Wednesday's last-16 clash with Syria. Three-time champions Iran face Syria in Qatar with a quarter-final against Bahrain or pre-tournament favorites Japan...

Israel's relentless military offensive has since killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. The Gaza war has forced more than one million Palestinians to flee to the far-southern Rafah area near the Egyptian border, according to the UN,...

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...

US President Joe Biden said on Sunday that "radical Iran-backed fighters groups operating in Syria and Iraq" were behind the strike on the frontier base in Jordan's northeast. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated a call for Iran "to de-escalate in the region".

Baghdad, Iraq - Iraq and the United States on Saturday held a "first round" of talks on the future of American and other foreign troops in the country, with the Middle Eastern country expecting discussions to lead to a timeline for reducing their presence. The office of Prime Minister Mohamed Shia...

The US strikes come against an already explosive regional backdrop, fueled by the war in Gaza between Washington's ally Israel and the Iranian-backed Hamas. The US Central Command said the strikes targeted Ketaeb Hizbollah "headquarters, storage, and training locations for rocket, missile, and one-way attack UAV (drone) capabilities".

Raisi will meet Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the capital Ankara, making a visit that was postponed twice -- once in November and once earlier this month -- because of spiraling tensions across the Middle East.

Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed a near-daily exchange of fire between Israel's army and Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza-based Hamas. On Monday, HIzbollah announced that two of its fighters had been killed "on the road...

Abdelrahman Iyad, wounded in Gaza and now being treated aboard the French helicopter carrier Dixmude, docked in Egypt, said he did not have time to leave his house before it was hit. "I was with my parents, my brother, my sister, my second sister and her husband and their daughter....

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi vowed not to let the "cowardly assassination" go unanswered. Israel has been blamed for intensifying strikes targeting senior Iranian and allied figures in Syria and Lebanon -- backers of the Palestinian movement Hamas -- raising fears that fighting in the Gaza Strip could spread further.

Al-Asad airbase was targeted by 15 rockets" fired from Anbar province, which is home to the military base, an Iraqi police official from the region told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said 13 of the projectiles were shot down by anti-air defenses but that "two fell on the...

The mid-morning strike, which caused a large plume of smoke to billow into the sky, was also reported by Syrian state media. An AFP correspondent at the scene said the destroyed building was cordoned off with ambulances, firefighters and Syrian Arab Red Crescent rescue teams all present at the site.