Iran and Saudi Arabia must overcome strained relations and work for stability in Syria and the Middle East, Iran's foreign minister said on Friday, a day after Syrian peace talks brought the rivals to the same table for the first time in months.

Iran says it is cracking down on Valentine's Day celebrations and shops engaging in them will be guilty of a crime.

Rebel groups in Syria have told the BBC they will not stop fighting because they do not believe that Russia will end its bombing campaign in support of the government.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that he intends to retake "the whole country".

Turkish humanitarian groups set up camps in Syria and sent in truckloads of aid yesterday for tens of thousands of people stranded on the border after fleeing a Russia-backed regime offensive on the northern region of Aleppo.

An Israeli soldier was stabbed and lightly wounded in the southern city of Ashkelon yesterday and the assailant was shot, Israeli police said, the latest in a

A Saudi soldier and a civilian have been killed in cross-border shelling from rebel-controlled northern Yemen, authorities said late Saturday. A Saudi patrol was

The key district of Sangin in the southern Afghan province of Helmand is once again on the verge of being overrun by the Taliban, according to an Afghan army

Saudi Arabia's King Salman yesterday called on other countries not to interfere in the kingdom's internal affairs in what appeared to be a rebuke to Riyadh's main foe Iran, which it accuses of attempting to stir unrest.

With rebel forces facing the prospect of a crushing defeat by Syria's Russian-backed regime, their allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey may

Thousands of Syrians were braving cold and rain at the Turkish border yesterday after fleeing a Russian-backed regime assault on

A Syrian military offensive threatened critical rebel supply lines into the northern city of Aleppo yesterday and Damascus echoed its

King Abdullah of Jordan said his country is at "boiling point" because of an influx of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. Ahead

King Abdullah says people in Jordan are at "boiling point" due to the suffering caused by the influx of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.

The UN special envoy for Syria faced an uphill task in Geneva yesterday to get talks to end the brutal civil war off the ground, as the

Syria's main opposition group met UN mediator Staffan de Mistura for the first time yesterday, but the peace process ran straight into

Bombings claimed by the Islamic State group kill more than 50 people and wound dozens near a revered Shiite shrine outside the Syrian capital Damascus.

The first Syria peace talks for two years were a "complete failure" before they started yesterday, a Western diplomat said, after the

Two people were killed and seven others are wounded in a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in the east of Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry says on Friday.

The UN yesterday said that there was no postponement of Syria peace talks due to start Friday in Switzerland, despite uncertainty around whether the main opposition umbrella group would attend.