Fighting in Lebanon’s second-largest city tapered off Friday but claimed the life of one resident and wounded eight others, as local militiamen from Bab al-Tabbaneh rejected army deployment in their neighborhood.

Tension between two Sunni muftis in the southern city of Sidon escalated Thursday as the newly appointed Sheikh Ahmad Nassar said threats were impairing his ability to carry out his duties.

Iran denied Friday it had forces in Syria supporting President Bashar Assad’s army, one day after foreign backers of his rebel foes demanded Tehran withdraw its fighters from Syrian territory.

International efforts to organize a Syria peace conference are at fever pitch, but in Jordan’s Zaatari camp, Syrian refugees are more concerned with the misery of their daily lives than diplomatic maneuvering.

Britain’s security services faced questions Friday over whether they could have done more to prevent the murder of a soldier hacked to death in a busy London street after it emerged that his suspected killers were known to intelligence officers.

A Syrian-born Islamist sheikh who taught one of the men accused of hacking to death an off-duty British soldier on a London street praised the attack for its “courage” and said Muslims would see it as a strike on a military target.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is moving cautiously and smartly towards fresh Middle East peace talks, but deep distrust between all sides means success is far from guaranteed, analysts say.

To the outside world, the talk often appears to border on the lunatic, with the poor, hungry and electricity-starved nation threatening to lay waste to America's cities in an atomic firestorm, or to overrun South Korea in a lightning attack.

The World Health Organization voices deep concern over the SARS-like virus that has killed 22 people in less than a year, saying it might potentially spread more widely between humans.

Finnish researchers unveil new data to link the Pandemrix flu vaccine to a higher risk of the sleeping disorder narcolepsy in adults.