Syria

A Syrian from war-torn Aleppo was declared the winner of this year's "Arab Idol" singing contest at the grand finale of the gruelling four-month television competition in Beirut this weekend.
      

Turkey has moved to revive broken ties with Middle Eastern countries, including Syria, Egypt and the Gulf states, according to Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, who stressed the "friendship and brotherhood" amid the ongoing crises in bilateral relations.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group's self-declared police force in western Syria decapitated four men after accusing them of blasphemy, a rights group monitoring the Syrian conflict said on Dec. 13. 

The men were beheaded in the countryside east of the city of Homs by the militant group's "Islamic Police", the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. 

The fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is unifying not only Baghdad and Arbil, but also the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, thereby creating a completely new Kurdish reality in the region.

BELGRADE - State Secretary with the Interior Ministry of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) Bakir Dautbasic said Friday that the departures of citizens of Western Balkan countries to join wars in foreign countries, notably Syria and Iraq can be prevented by regional cooperation.

Syrian rebels using improvised mortar bombs made of cooking gas canisters killed 311 civilians between July and December this year, a monitoring group said on Dec. 12, condemning the use of the wildly inaccurate weapons.
   

In an unprecedented move, almost an entire district in southeastern Turkey bordering Syria is set to be sold to private investors, as part of a new "urban transformation and development" project.

They march in their thousands every Monday evening, wave German national flags and angrily protest against "criminal asylum seekers" and the "Islamisation" of their home country.

In recent months, Germany has witnessed the emergence of a far-right populist movement that has drawn support from hardcore neo-Nazis and also a small but growing anti-euro party, the AfD.

An Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suicide bomber detonated a tank at a Syrian air base in the province of Deir al-Zor, one of the last remaining government strongholds in eastern Syria, jihadist social media and a monitoring group said on Dec. 12.
  

Jihadist attacks around the world in November killed a total of 5,042 people, showing Islamist extremism is "stronger than ever" despite Al-Qaeda's declining role, a new study published on Dec. 11 said.