Veteran Iraqi politician and now prime minister designate Adel Abdel Mahdi Wednesday began the tough task of forming the next government, seeking to overcome sharp differences and unite fractious political parties.

A Turkish military convoy entered rebel-held northwestern Syria early on Wednesday, an AFP correspondent reported, as the deadline for establishing a buffer zone between rebel and government forces draws closer.

A veteran Saudi journalist who has been critical of the government has gone missing after visiting the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.

Moderate Kurdish candidate Barham Saleh swept to the post of president of Iraq Tuesday evening in a parliamentary vote pitting Kurdish heavyweights against each other for the first time.

Saleh routed his main rival Fuad Hussein with 219 votes to 22, dealing a blow to Hussein's main backer, former Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani who was the architect of an ill-fated 2017 independence referendum.

The Islamic State group has killed a woman from a group of Druze hostages it seized during a deadly attack in Syria's Sweida province, a source and a monitor said Tuesday.

The 25-year-old was among more than 30 people IS jihadists abducted as they launched the deadliest attack to hit Sweida's Druze minority since the start of Syria's seven-year civil war.

Troops from NATO allies Turkey and the United States have started training together ahead of conducting joint patrols around the northern Syrian city of Manbij, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Images of an emaciated child crying and a boy hobbling on crutches are among more than 100 paintings on display in Yemen's rebel-held capital aimed at highlighting the human suffering of war.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog Tuesday refused to "take at face value" Israel's claims that Iran is harboring a secret atomic warehouse, fending off pressure to inspect the allegedly suspect site.

The U.S.-led military alliance battling the Islamic State group faces "a tough fight" to oust the jihadists from their last holdouts in Syria, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday.

A Syrian man has been arrested after almost seven months stranded in a Malaysian airport, an official said Tuesday, in a bizarre saga that drew comparisons with hit movie "The Terminal".