MIDDLE EAST

Iranian Deputy Judiciary Head Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejeie on Monday denied that British-Iranian Ghoncheh Ghavami was sentenced to prison after attempting to attend a men’s volleyball game. Earlier in the month, 25-year-old law graduate Ghavami’s lawyer had said that she was sentenced to one year in prison. “According to the verdict she was sentenced to one year in jail”, Iranian media quoted …

On Monday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed a five-member panel to look into Israeli attacks on UN building in the Gaza Strip and discovery of Hamas weapons in UN sites during the Israeli aggression in the Palestinian enclave earlier this year. Ban had announced plans to investigate the war during last month’s trip to Gaza, after describing the Israeli …

The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on former Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh and two Huthi commanders, only two days after Saleh walked out on the new government. The sanctions follow Saturday’s UN sanctions on the three, imposed for threatening peace in Yemen. The US Treasury said that it was blacklisting Saleh, Abd al-Khaliq al-Huthi and Abdullah Yahya al-Hakim …

Iran on Monday said that it is at neighbor Iraq’s disposal if it needs help in battling extremist group Islamic State. Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri expressed his show of support after meeting with Iraqi counterpart and former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Tehran. “In the face of terrorism, we must use all means… Iran is ready to place all …

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday said that he was willing to consider a UN plan to “freeze” fighting in the city of Aleppo. “President Assad has been informed by (U.N. envoy Staffan) de Mistura of the main points of his initiative. (Assad) said it was worthy of study and that work on it is needed… in order to re-establish …

 Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, Egypt’s most violent militant group, on Monday pledged it allegiance to extremist group Islamic State’s self-declared “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, amid reports that Baghdadi had either been wounded or killed in a US air raid. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has executed several lethal attacks in the Sinai Peninsula, traditionally considered its stronghold. Iraqi authorities are investigating reports …

The European Union’s new foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini warned that a new wave of Palestinian-Israeli violence could kick off if peace efforts between the two remain deadlocked. Speaking in Jerusalem, where she was on her first trip since taking up the post, Mogherini said that there needs to be a real “urgency” to advance the stagnant peace process. “The …

The al-Nusra Front on Friday seized three villages in northwestern province of Idlib from rebels forces, including a US-supported group, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said. According to the monitor, the al-Nusra Front now controls the villages of Hizareen, Al-Fateera and Sufuhun, where it had been battling rebel militia; it has been battling moderate and radical rebels in the …

US-led airstrikes in Syria hit al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front and rebel brigade Ahrar al-Sham in a rare expansion of weeks of targeted raids at extremist group Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said on Thursday. Additionally, American media have reported that 24-year-old French bomb-maker David Drugeon, a converted Muslim who had joined al-Qaeda offshoot the Khorasan group, was …

Israel promised Jordan that it won’t allow Jewish people to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, just as several Jewish extremists tried to advance to the compound. With clashes raging currently in many Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied east Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday spoke with Jordan’s King Abdullah II over the phone to personally assure …