AFP, DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has deployed warplanes to a Turkish airbase in order to “intensify” its operations against the Islamic State group in Syria, a senior Saudi defence official has said. “The Saudi kingdom now has a presence at Incirlik airbase in Turkey,” brigadier general…

AFP, RIYADH: Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Sunday that Russia’s efforts to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not succeed in keeping him in power. Jubeir told a press conference in Riyadh that previous efforts to prop up Assad, including by Iran, had “failed”.…

AFP, COPENHAGEN: One year after a Danish-born gunman killed a filmmaker and a Jewish security guard in twin attacks in Copenhagen, the country will on Sunday honour the victims amid tight security. On February 14, 2015, Omar El-Hussein, a 22-year-old Dane of Palestinian origin, opened fire with an automatic…

AFP, KANO, Nigeria: At least 30 people have been killed in fresh Boko Haram raids on two villages in northeast Nigeria, vigilantes told AFP Saturday, again calling into question President Muhammadu Buhari’s claim that Nigeria had largely defeated the jihadist group. Gun and knife-toting assailants…

AFP, NEW DELHI: Students and teachers staged a fresh protest in New Delhi on Sunday over a union leader’s arrest at a top Indian university for sedition, accusing the government of cracking down on dissent. Police on Friday arrested student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar at Delhi’s Jawaharlal…

AFP, KABUL: The number of civilians killed or wounded in Afghanistan last year was the highest recorded since 2009, the UN said Sunday, with children…

AFP, RANCHO MIRAGE, United States: President Barack Obama said he would name a new Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia, slapping down Republican demands for a delay and setting up a monumental election-year fight. “I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities,” Obama…

AFP, WASHINGTON: The United States has recovered a missile that was accidentally sent to Cuba in 2014 after a logistical mixup in Europe, bringing an end to an unusual and sensitive episode in the world of defense. The dummy training version of a US Hellfire missile was returned to the US with the “cooperation…

AFP, NABLUS: Two Palestinian teenagers fired on Israeli soldiers before being shot dead in the northern occupied West Bank on Sunday, Israel’s army said, the latest deaths in a months-long wave of unrest. An army statement said the pair attacked an Israeli patrol west of the city of Jenin with…