General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim stressed that the agency's strenuous efforts against terror groups entrenched on Lebanon's porous border, have not stop it from pursuing the battle against Israeli spies, Ad Diyar daily reported on Monday.

The agency is increasingly vigilant in “monitoring and arresting Israeli agents,” said Ibrahim stressing that “the battle with Takfiri terrorism did not stop us from pursuing and dismantling networks dealing with the Israeli enemy,” he told the daily in an interview.

A pair of veteran Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, who endured repeated failures, expressed rare optimism about President Donald Trump's efforts to strike a Mideast peace deal.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat and former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spoke at the World Economic Forum's regional meeting Saturday.

A suicide bombing near the oil-rich city of Basra killed at least eight people as the Islamic State group took the fight against Iraqi forces deep into the country's south, a military commander said Saturday.

Five civilians and three troops were killed when the bomber blew up his explosives-laden car on Friday at a checkpoint north of Basra just behind a bus waiting to be cleared, said chief of the Basra Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Jamil al-Shimmari.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won a resounding re-election victory on Saturday as voters backed his efforts to rebuild foreign ties and kickstart the struggling economy.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli confirmed the result on state television, saying Rouhani had won 23.5 million votes -- 57 percent -- compared to 15.8 million -- 38.3 percent -- for hardline challenger Ebrahim Raisi.

A local official says a policeman has shot and killed five of his colleagues as they slept in eastern Afghanistan.

Abdul Wahab Momand, district governor, says the policeman turned his rifle on colleagues Thursday night in eastern Nangarhar province at an outpost in the district of Ghanikhil.

First she's in the hands of her father, then she moves to her husband. Often, she ends up under the power of her son.

From childhood through adulthood into old age, every Saudi woman passes from the control of one legal guardian to another, a male relative whose decisions or whims can determine the course of her life.

Several dozen hunger-striking Palestinians have been transferred from their cells to special wings in Israeli prisons for additional medical supervision, a spokesman for the Israel Prison Service said Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia is literally counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Donald Trump lands in the kingdom for his first overseas trip as U.S. president this weekend.

The kingdom has launched a website in four languages with a countdown clock and details about the visit, which is packed with meetings.

Greek workers walked off the job across the country Wednesday for an anti-austerity general strike that was disrupting public and private sector services across the country.

Workers' unions called the strike to protest new belt-tightening measures that to be imposed beyond the end of Greece's third bailout next year. The left-led coalition government agreed to the reforms as part of a deal with the country's international creditors to release funds from its next bailout installment.

The European Union's landmark migrant plan to share 160,000 refugees in Italy and Greece among their EU partners is likely to result in less than 40,000 people finding new homes by the September deadline.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Tuesday that more than 18,000 migrants have been relocated and that 12,500 people in Greece and some 4,000 in Italy are eligible to go.