U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Qatar's emir in Doha on Monday for crisis talks on Afghanistan after the Taliban claimed to have full control over the country.

Blinken, accompanied by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, is the most senior U.S. official to visit the region since the Taliban's lightning takeover of Afghanistan on August 15.

Israel launched airstrikes on what it said was a Hamas military site in the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, after incendiary balloons were sent into Israeli territory, the army said.

Fighter jets struck a Hamas rocket manufacturing workshop as well as a Hamas military compound in Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, according to the army statement.

Dozens of Syrians who returned home from abroad have been subject to detention, disappearance and torture by security forces, Amnesty International said Tuesday, warning Syria is not yet safe for repatriation.

In a report titled “You’re going to your death,” the rights group documented a series of violations by security forces against 66 Syrians, including 13 children, who have returned since 2017.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed Sunday to Qatar on his first trip since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan as he seeks a united front with allies shaken by the chaos.

Qatar, a major U.S. military base, has been the gateway for 55,000 people airlifted out of Afghanistan, nearly half the total evacuated by U.S.-led forces after the Taliban's stunningly swift victory amid a U.S. withdrawal. 

Two Israeli men who lost close relatives in sectarian mob violence, one Jewish and one Arab, have bonded in grief -- but their contrasting pursuits of justice highlight a deep divide.

Both are mourning loved ones who were killed in the mixed city of Lod during the spasm of inter-communal unrest that tore through Israel during the latest Gaza war. 

Moroccans go to the polls Wednesday for parliamentary and local elections that will determine the fate of the Islamist party that has ruled since the Arab Spring uprisings.

First elected in 2011, the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) hopes to win a third term this year, having clung on to power at the head of coalitions for the whole intervening decade.

Iraq will allow only 40,000 foreigners, 30,000 from Iran, to attend the Arbaeen pilgrimage later this month in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, authorities said Sunday, due to the pandemic.

Arbaeen marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the killing of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, by the forces of the caliph Yazid in 680 AD.

A court in Egypt on Sunday sentenced eight foreigners and two Egyptians to death on charges of smuggling in over two tons of heroin by sea, a judicial source said.

Authorities seized the drugs brought in via the Red Sea, worth around 2.5 billion pounds ($159 million), in 2019. 

Lawyers of six Syrian refugees arrested in Lebanon said on Sunday that the country's security services have given them a 24-hour ultimatum — either leave Lebanon to a third country or be deported to Syria, the war-ravaged country they fled.

Lawyer Mohammed Sablouh said the move is highly unusual, is a violation of Lebanon's international obligations and laws, and seriously endangers the men's lives.

Libyan authorities on Sunday released one of Muammar Gadhafi's sons after more than seven years of detention in the capital of Tripoli following his extradition from neighboring Niger, the country's interim leader said.

Prime Minister-designate Abdul Hamid Dbeibah said in a tweet early Monday that al-Saadi Gadhafi had been released in compliance with a previous court order.