he founding of the United Nations was a historic moment that saw leaders from across the planet join together to commit to a more peaceful world. But most historians don’t remember the Jedi master Yoda being among them. The Saudi government is scrambling to withdraw a history textbook that accidentally included a doctored photograph of King Faisal sitting next to the little green Star Wars character.

An American-born journalist and her mother, who were active in opposition to the Syrian regime, were found murdered in Istanbul yesterday. Halla Barakat and her mother Orouba Barakat were Syrians living in Turkey and close friends of American humanitarian aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was taken hostage by ISIS in Aleppo, Syria in 2013 and killed 18 months later.

Russia warned the United States it would target areas in Syria where U.S. special forces and U.S.-backed militia were operating if its own forces came under fire from them, which it said on Thursday had already happened twice. Russia was referring to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting with the U.S.-led coalition, which Moscow said had diverted from the battle for control of Raqqa to Deir al-Zor, where Russian special forces are helping the Syrian army push out Islamic State militants.

It was a reading festival. But this is Mosul, and until a few months ago it was crawling with Islamic State militants. They occupied the city's university library, where last week festival-goers celebrated a rich culture and donated books. The volunteer effort to save what was left of Mosul University library after it was destroyed by IS has renewed hope for the city after more than two years of occupation.

Iranian authorities hanged a man in public on Wednesday after he was found guilty of raping and murdering a seven-year-old girl in a case that has caused uproar in the Islamic Republic. The 42-year-old man, Esmail Jafarzadeh, allegedly confessed to the brutal murder after the body of the girl, Atena Aslani, was found in the garage of his house. She disappeared on June 19 when she was separated from her father, a market vendor.

For a brief moment, Iran’s female soccer fans thought they were finally allowed to attend a match, but their hopes were dashed on Monday when authorities said their tickets were sold by mistake. Women have been barred from attending soccer matches, and some other sporting events such as wrestling, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with officials saying they must be protected from the vulgar atmosphere.

The U.S. Department of Defense is reportedly still funneling billions of dollars’ worth of Soviet-era weaponry to anti-Islamic State groups in Syria, with questionable oversight. In a joint report published Tuesday, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) allege that the Pentagon has given up to $2.2 billion worth of weapons to groups like the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG.

In recent months, as supplies of aid, money and weapons to Syria’s opposition have dwindled, it had clung to the hope that ongoing international political support would prevent an outright victory for Bashar al-Assad and his backers. Not any more. An announcement earlier this week by Jordan – one of the opposition’s most robust supporters – that “bilateral ties with Damascus are going in the right direction” has, for many, marked a death knell for the opposition cause.

Soldiers and civilians in Burma are attempting to cover up the massacre of the country’s Rohingya Muslim population by gathering their bodies and burning them, an advocate for the minority group has said. Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which monitors violence in Burma’s Rakhine state, said her organisation had documented the killing of at least 130 people in one settlement in the Rathedaung region.

Israeli police evicted a Palestinian family from a home in east Jerusalem Tuesday to make way for new Jewish tenants who claimed ownership. Municipality officials backed by armed police officers enforced a court order to remove the six-member Shamasneh family from a home claimed by heirs of a Jewish family forced to abandon it in 1948 when it came under Jordanian control. Israel took control of the area after the 1967 war and continued existing rental arrangements with Arab tenants.

Young men who leave their homes to fight for terrorist groups in Syria mainly come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have low levels of education and “lack any basic understanding of the true meaning of jihad or even the Islamic faith”, according to a new report. A study for the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism found that despite claiming to protect Muslims, most of the returned fighters were “novices” in their religion and some did not know how to pray properly.

The operation to liberate Raqqa from ISIS, launched by YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on June 6, continues at full force in its 73rd day.

US-led coalition air strikes killed at least 42 civilians after targeting densely-populated neighbourhoods of the Isis-controlled Syrian city of Raqqa, a monitoring group has said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included 19 children and 12 women.

The new video shows a distraught Wenzel with her arms secured by armed men being marched through Mosul amid a crowd of cheering Iraqis.

“When I was little, I dreamt of being an IDF war pilot,” says 19-year-old Noa Gur Golan. Now, however, the teenager is sitting in Military Prison 396 near Haifa. She’s been branded a traitor and a coward. It’s not clear when she is going to be released, because she’s being detained for refusing to do her military service with the Israel Defence Force (IDF).

Speaking in a visit to Norway, the Qatari FM noted that Saudi authorities had yet to respond to queries from the Qatari Ministry of Islamic Affairs regarding the security of Qatari citizens during Hajj. “The level of tension between the two nations, the language and the tone of the Saudi media spreading hatred against Qatari people represents a great concern for us,” he told a news conference, as reported by Reuters.

A former care worker from Nottinghamshire who joined the fight against Islamic State in Syria has been arrested upon his return to the UK. Aiden Aslin, 23, was being questioned under the Terrorism Act, after being arrested on suspicion of engaging “in the preparation to fight against Daesh” and possessing “articles for terrorist purposes in Iraq/Syria”, Nottinghamshire police said, using the derogatory Arabic term for Isis.

Two Russian submarines have fired Kalibr cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, hitting Islamic State terrorist targets in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Seven Kalibr cruise missiles were launched Thursday from Russia’s Velikiy Novgorod and Kolpino submarines in the eastern Mediterranean, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Saudi Arabian armed forces have successfully intercepted a missile launched by Yemeni Houthi rebels that was targeting the city of Mecca, considered one of the holiest places in Islam, the Saudi coalition said in a statement. Air defense units stationed in the area of Taif, located not far from Mecca, intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Houthi forces from Yemen that was intended to hit the Muslim holy city, the coalitions said in a statement published by the official press agency.

A video of a young girl giving a passionate defence of why she should not have to wear a hijab in Iran has gone viral.  Posted by Stealthy Freedom, a group that campaigns against laws making the hijab compulsory for women, it shows the girl making an argument for freedom of choice. 

Saudi Arabia is on a beheading mania. According to Amnesty International, Saudi regime has executed more than 26 people in the last month. 14 young men are to be beheaded based on various crimes charged against them by Saudi Arabia. They are charged with offences like “armed rebellion against the ruler”, “participating in shooting at security personnel, security vehicles”, “preparing and using Molotov Cocktail bombs”, “theft and armed robbery” and “inciting chaos, organizing and participating in riots”.

An ISIS element has been burned to death by his first wife on the night of his marriage with another woman in Tal Afar, near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. An informed Iraqi source in Nineveh Province has said the first wife of an ISIS terrorist has burned alive the husband, along with his newlywed second spouse, a few minutes after the end of their wedding ceremony in Tal Afar in west of the northern Iraqi province.

Iraq and Saudi Arabia are negotiating a new alliance that would give Riyadh a leading role in rebuilding Iraq’s war-torn towns and cities, while bolstering Baghdad’s credentials across the region. Meetings between senior officials on both sides over the past six months have focused on shepherding Iraq away from its powerful neighbour and Saudi Arabia’s long-time rival, Iran, whose influence over Iraqi affairs has grown sharply since the 2003 ousting of Saddam Hussein.

The Saudi military coalition – which receives logistical support, weapons and political backing from the US and UK – has been accused of killing hundreds of children in Yemen, according to a confidential UN report. The report, which has yet to be made public and could still be changed, says that 51 per cent of all child deaths and injuries in Yemen last year were the result of the Saudi-led military operation. It says the deaths were “unacceptably high”.

Lebanon's U.S.-backed army on Saturday launched its biggest military operation yet against Islamic State militants who in 2014 gained a foothold along the tiny Mediterranean country's border with Syria. The long-awaited campaign aims to defeat IS in the group's border enclave and put an end to a terror threat that has loomed over Lebanon.

A referendum on Kurdish independence is favored by Kurds and opposed by every major power in the region.

Capping off his trip to Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump completed his process of fully assimilating to the Saudi’s political outlook and goals by laying hands on the magical orb that cleanses all sense of self from anyone who touches it.

Wearing full Islamic veils for women including burqa, a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear, has been banned in public places in newly liberated parts of Mosul as part of new security measures to confront possible suicide bombing attacks during Ramadan, according to a statement from Nineveh police office Sunday, Rudaw reported.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates have broken diplomatic relations with Qatar, rattling a powerful 36-year-old Gulf states union, over what they say is the country's support of terrorism.

An elite group of Iraqi soldiers is leading the battle to free the city of Mosul from ISIS. The so-called “Golden Division” was formed and trained by the US to hunt terrorists — but in Mosul they have been thrown into brutal urban combat. Mike Giglio and Warzer Jaff accompanied them to the front lines for some of the decisive moments of the seven-month offensive. This is the story of their fight against ISIS and of the men they lost along the way.

Fifty years after the Six-Day War, the intellectualism that once lit up the Middle East has been all but extinguished by corrupt regimes and perverse…

Palestinian militants disputed an Islamic State claim Saturday that it was behind a deadly attack against Israel, saying it was their people who killed a female police officer on duty near Jerusalem's Old City. Family members of the attackers said they were deeply religious men who acted on their own.

Saudi Arabia's king deposed the sitting crown prince Wednesday and replaced him with Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the deputy crown prince, the state news agency reported.

Al Nuri Grand Mosque, in Mosul, Iraq, was blown up on Wednesday. The Islamic State said a U.S. airstrike destroyed it. But surveillance footage shows that the building appeared to be packed with explosives and not hit by an airstrike.

US President Donald Trump is reportedly weighing whether to pull out of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations following a "tense" meeting with White House senior staff and officials in Ramallah, according to London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat on Saturday. The report claimed that Trump is to determine the future of reigniting Mideast peace efforts in the near future, including the possibility of withdrawing completely from the process.