DUBAI — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday blamed President Donald Trump for weeks of protests after rights groups said a violent crackdown by security forces had claimed thousands of lives. The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule in […]
A flotilla carrying aid to Gaza said dozens of its ships were still “sailing strong” towards the war-battered Palestinian territory on Thursday despite an interception by Israeli naval forces. The Global Sumud Flotilla — involving around 45 vessels carrying politicians and activists including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg — left Spain last month, aiming to […]
RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti and Head of the Council of Senior Scholars Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh passed away in Riyadh on Tuesday morning, the Royal Court announced in a statement. He was 82. Funeral prayer for him will be held at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh after the Asr prayer on […]
TEHRAN – Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday said US President Donald Trump “exaggerated” the impact of US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, in his first appearance since a ceasefire in the war with Israel took hold. In a statement and a televised speech carried by state media, he hailed his country’s “victory” over […]
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a senior US official told AFP Sunday. “We found out that the Israelis had plans to hit Iran’s supreme leader. President Trump was against it and we told the Israelis not to,” said the US official, speaking […]
BAGHDAD — Iraq on Saturday called on the United States to prevent Israeli aircraft from breaching Iraqi airspace to carry out attacks against Iran, citing bilateral agreements and international law. “The Iraqi government urges the United States to uphold its responsibilities under the agreements signed between the two countries and prevent aircraft belonging to the […]
CAIRO — Two Israeli missiles hit a building inside a main Gaza hospital on Sunday, destroying the emergency and reception department and damaging other structures, medics said. Health officials at the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital evacuated the patients from the building after one person said he received a call from someone who identified himself with […]
GAZA STRIP — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 100 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 27 or more sheltering at a school, according to Palestinian medical authorities, in a stepped-up offensive that Israel’s military said is intended to pressure Hamas and eventually expel the militant group. The bodies of 14 children and five […]
GAZA — Israeli strikes killed at least 58 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, according to three hospitals. The strikes hit multiple homes in the middle of the night, killing men, women and children as they slept. Israel resumed heavy strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, shattering a ceasefire that had halted the […]
BEIRUT — The death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, a war monitoring group said Saturday, making it one of the deadliest acts of violence since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago. The […]