Fifteen Guantanamo Bay detainees have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates, the largest such release in years, the Pentagon announced Monday.

The latest transfers bring the remaining population of the detention center down to 61. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, about 780 inmates have been housed in the U.S. military-run facility.

When Fatima and Mohammad pushed open their front door -- elated to return to Syria's Manbij after it was retaken from jihadists -- their weeks-long dream of coming home turned into a nightmare.

Turkey expects the United States to keep a promise that Syrian Kurdish militia will return east of the Euphrates River after their advance in northern Syria to push out Islamic State jihadists, the foreign minister said on Monday.

Russia is close to joining forces with the United States around Syria's ravaged second city of Aleppo, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in comments aired Monday.

The Islamic State jihadist group on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed more than 30 Syrian rebel fighters in a blast near the Turkish border.

Russia's navy on Monday launched drills including artillery and missile fire in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the defense ministry said.

Shouting to make himself heard from the soundproof glass dock during a break in his trial, Egyptian photographer Mahmoud Abdel Shakour said he feels he has been "forgotten" in prison.

Iraq's parliament on Monday approved five new ministers after months of delay and repeated setbacks to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's efforts to replace the cabinet, the speaker's office said.

Jordan's King Abdullah II has rejected calls to restore access to a border area where tens of thousands of Syrians are stranded, local media reported on Monday.

The Israeli army on Monday destroyed the home of a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, after he killed a 13-year-old girl as she slept in her bed, a military spokeswoman said.