The baby of Shamima Begum, a British teenager who joined the Islamic State and has sought to return home even as she has defended the group’s actions, has died in a detention camp in Syria, according to a spokesman for the group currently holding the woman. Now 19, Ms. Begum was a 15-year-old schoolgirl when she slipped out of her… Read more »
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria called on the United Nations on Sunday to condemn its rebel foes after an apparent attack with unidentified chemicals in the city of Aleppo sent scores of choking victims to hospitals. Medics reported a flood of patients with breathing troubles, inflamed eyes and other symptoms after a shelling attack on Saturday that Syrian and Russian officials… Read more »
LONDON — A court in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday sentenced a British academic to life in prison on spying charges, prompting a pledge from Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain that the issue would be raised “at the highest level” with the Emirati authorities. The severity of the verdict stunned British officials, who had been reluctant to discuss… Read more »
JERUSALEM — A Tel Aviv court on Thursday sentenced a 19-year-old American-Israeli man to 10 years in prison for sowing havoc and terror with fake bomb threats against hundreds of institutions, including schools, hospitals, malls, police stations and Jewish centers in the United States and other countries. For months, prosecutors said, the teenager, who has not been publicly identified, threatened… Read more »
CAIRO — An Egyptian man accused of supporting the Islamic State was sentenced to death on Saturday in the fatal stabbing of an 82-year-old Christian doctor in Cairo. Prosecutors said the killing in September 2017 happened when the 40-year-old defendant requested to see the doctor, pretending to be a patient. The man, who was not identified, started stabbing the doctor… Read more »
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Shiite cleric who was a central figure in Bahrain’s 2011 Arab Spring protests was sentenced on Sunday, along with two other senior opposition figures, to life in prison, overturning previous acquittals on charges of spying for Qatar. Amnesty International called the sentence a “travesty of justice.” The public prosecutor said the court had sentenced… Read more »
The Trump administration called it the biggest sanctions action the United States had ever undertaken against Iran. Iran’s president called it an act of “economic war” and said his country would win. The package of severe economic penalties imposed against Iran on Monday by the United States is the most significant part of President Trump’s decision last May to abandon the Iranian nuclear agreement… Read more »
AMMAN, Jordan — An American-backed military offensive has stalled against the Islamic State’s last vestige in eastern Syria. Booby traps, land mines and a militant counterstrike during a fierce sandstorm after the campaign began in September have knocked the coalition back on its heels. And last week, the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led militia that is fighting the Islamic State with American… Read more »
HUDAYDAH, Yemen — The fight in Yemen has escalated drastically over the past week, exacerbating a dire humanitarian crisis that the United Nations says could spiral into famine — despite, or even because of, a diplomatic push by the United States to get both sides to the peace table. The Saudi-led coalition, which the United States has armed and supported, has launched… Read more »
He was somewhere on the streets of Istanbul, until he wasn’t. He was dead in a fistfight, until he wasn’t. From the moment the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month, Saudi officials have offered a dizzying variety of public accounts about his fate. Here’s how the Saudi government has changed its… Read more »