Syrian troops on Friday reclaimed a cluster of towns they had lost early in the eight-year-old war, pressing their offensive in the northwest, the country's last big rebel stronghold.

Sudan’s new Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, is a seasoned economist who faces the daunting task of rescuing his country’s moribund economy.

Syria said yesterday it is opening a corridor for civilians to leave the opposition-held northwestern region of Idlib, where government bombardment has killed hundreds since late April.

A US military MQ-9 drone was shot down in Yemen’s Dhamar governate, southeast of the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, two US officials told Reuters yesterday, the second such incident in recent months.

Sudan’s new Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was sworn in yesterday as leader of a transitional government, and vowed to make achieving peace and solving the country’s economic crisis a priority.

Ten of thousands of people have fled to Syria’s border with Turkey in the last few days as a Syrian army advance pushed further into the opposition’s last major stronghold, residents, rights groups and opposition sources said yesterday.

More than 70,000 people were displaced from the southern countryside of Idlib province in Syria during August due to a surge in violence, Idlib's health directorate said on Wednesday.

Sudan was taking further steps in its transition towards civilian rule Wednesday with the swearing in of a new sovereign council and the appointment of a prime minister.

Iran's semi-official ILNA news agency said on Wednesday the tanker Adrian Darya 1, which was released after being detained in Gibraltar, is currently leased to the country's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Militants and allied rebels withdrew from a key area of northwestern Syria yesterday, a war monitor said, as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces pressed an offensive against the militant-run Idlib region.

Southern separatists seized two Yemeni government military bases near the southern port of Aden early on Tuesday, triggering fresh clashes between nominal allies that have complicated UN peace efforts, residents and officials said.

China's Syria envoy said Tuesday that "terrorist organisations" including the Islamic State group are being revived in the war-ravaged country, urging the international community not to ignore the "early warning" signs.