Syrian authorities have announced the arrest of a former paramilitary leader who is the main suspect in a massacre of nearly 250 civilians by Assad-allied forces during the country's civil war.

A Syrian security source told AFP that Ali Kayali was apprehended in Lebanon during an operation coordinated with Lebanese authorities. Lebanese media reports said Thursday that the man was “kidnapped” from his home in Lebanon's Mansourieh and that his wife and son were tied up by the culprits.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told President Joseph Aoun in a phone call that he should not return several hundred kilograms of explosives seized by Lebanese authorities from Hezbollah, a U.S. official said.

"He urged President Aoun to hold accountable all those who ordered, financed, and directed the shipment, and underscored that returning explosives to Hezbollah should be out of the question," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Lebanese authorities have released a famous TikTok content creator arrested for drug trafficking and smuggling, dropping the charges against him under a new amnesty law.

Georges Dib, better known as "Doctor Food" to his more than eight million followers, was arrested in August after being sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in March.

EU chief Antonio Costa said it was time to up pressure on Russia and support for Kyiv on Friday, rallying behind Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky as tensions spike with Washington.

With Pope Leo XIV recovering in hospital on Thursday following his lung cancer operation, questions are swirling about how the illness could change his papacy, less than two years after his election.

Diego Maradona's family on Wednesday called for his medical team to be given stiff prison terms over what two of his daughters called his "murder."

Romanian President Nicusor Dan on Thursday said drone attacks on vessels in the Black Sea were "unacceptable" and must stop, after two ships were struck off the country's coast, spillover from Russia's war with Ukraine.

Istanbul was battling on Thursday to recover from flooding caused by what officials described as the heaviest rainfall in at least 80 years, as the toll rose to three dead and four missing.

Yemen's Houthis on Thursday fired missiles at the presidential palace in Aden, which also serves as the headquarters of the internationally recognized government, security sources told AFP, while a journalist saw smoke rising from the site.

The firing squad execution of a convicted military base shooter will not be livestreamed, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Thursday, scrapping a plan by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that had prompted bipartisan and international outrage.