A senior Syrian opposition activist and her journalist daughter have been found dead at their apartment in Istanbul, the Dogan news agency reported on Friday.

Friends raised the alarm after being unable to reach Aroubeh Barakat and her daughter Halla Barakat by telephone, the news agency said.

Russia on Thursday clashed with the European Union over Syria, accusing the bloc of politicizing aid by linking reconstruction funds to a political transition that would end the war.

The European Union in April secured pledges of $6 billion in aid for Syria, now in its seventh year of war, with over 330,000 people dead.

U.S. and Russian generals have met to discuss Syria operations, an American officer said Thursday, amid back-and-forth allegations that each side had struck the other's allied ground forces.

A top Saudi relief official called Thursday for Myanmar to take back Rohingya refugees and let them live in peace.

A U.S.-backed force battling to oust the Islamic State group from its former Syrian stronghold Raqa said Thursday that "victory is near" and would be declared in coming weeks.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously decided to set up an investigation team to collect evidence on the massacres of Iraq's Yazidi minority and other atrocities committed by the Islamic State group in Iraq.

Britain presented the resolution to help bring perpetrators of IS war crimes to justice -- a cause championed by international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. 

At least 22 civilians have been killed in 48 hours of heavy air strikes by Syria's regime and its ally Russia in northwestern Syria, a monitor said Thursday.

Syria's Kurds are poised to hold their first local elections, a move that has annoyed Damascus and Ankara and comes days before a controversial independence referendum by Iraq's Kurds.

More than 100 migrants are missing after a shipwreck off the coast of western Libya, the Libyan navy said on Thursday.

Tens of thousands of supporters of Yemen's Huthi rebels and their allies gathered in Sanaa on Thursday to mark three years since the rebel takeover of the capital.