Turkish authorities have released a bird that officials had accused of being an Israeli spy. Investigators reportedly forced the animal to undergo X-ray tests at a university hospital before determining that it was not carrying any surveillance or communications equipment with which it could transmit intelligence to handlers in the Jewish state....

Rival rallies between Egyptian opponents and supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi took place throughout Friday, reportedly claimed as many as four lives. The Egyptian military had removed the Muslim Brotherhood-linked former president from power in the aftermath of mass anti-government protests calling for his Islamist-oriented administration to step aside. Morsi’s...

Hezbollah officials are lashing out against the European Union after extensive evidence of terror activities on the Continent – some sufficient to secure criminal convictions – led the bloc to blacklist the Iran-backed group as a terror organization earlier this week. In response Hezbollah international relations official Ammar Moussawi threatened...

Lebanese and Iranian media outlets are again highlighting cables sent from Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani to Hezbollah, supporting the Iran-backed terror group and praising it for waging “jihad” against Israel. Lebanon’s Al-Nahar characterized the cable as support for Hezbollah’s “jihad.” Iran’s FARS outlet was more effusive: “No doubt, your tireless and dedicated efforts and...

Saudi Arabia is recruiting Yemenite mercenaries and sending them to help opposition forces fighting to overthrow the regime of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, according to a report published on the Paris based website, Intelligence Online. Western intelligence sources say the operation is being organized by the Kingdom’s general intelligence service,...

Israel’s regional cooperation minister made a visit to Jericho on Thursday – the first by a high-level Israeli official since 2007 – to inaugurate a  Japanese-funded Palestinian industrial park in the West Bank city. Silvan Shalom, Israel’s minister of regional cooperation, spoke about the economic and political components of peacemaking...

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday brushed aside a recent European Union decision to blacklist the military wing of his Iran-backed group as a terrorist organization, telling a Hezbollah-controlled television station that he was only surprised that it “had taken so long” for Western leaders to issue the designation. “Hezbollah leaders we...

A report by a watchdog group on renewed Palestinian incitement has sparked a debate over the capacity and willingness of Palestinian officials in general, and of the Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas specifically, to make peace with Israel. A picture posted to an official Fatah social media outlet...

Hamas on Thursday deepened its campaign against journalists operating in the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinian terror group controls and over which it has tried to exert increasingly authoritarian rule. Three media companies, including the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television station and the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, were shuttered. Al Arabiya and Maan...

The Egyptian army’s efforts to stabilize the deteriorating security environment in the Sinai Peninsula have involved a range of tactics and strategy, from the mass deployment of troops to the destruction of subterranean smuggling tunnels linking the Egyptian-controlled Sinai to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The Egyptian military blames the Palestinian...