Russia has delivered the first part of an advanced missile defense system to Iran, Iranian media reported on Monday, starting to equip Tehran with technology that was blocked before it signed a deal with world powers on its nuclear program.

• April 11, 2016

The Turkish army on Monday shelled sites in northern Syria in response to cross-border rocket fire that hit a Turkish town and wounded several people, a government official said.

• April 11, 2016

The Russian air force and Syrian military are preparing a joint operation to take Aleppo from rebels, the Syrian prime minister was quoted saying on Sunday, and an opposition official said a ceasefire was on the verge of collapse.

• April 10, 2016

Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq are netting between $150 million and $200 million per year from illicit trade in plundered antiquities, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations said in a letter released on Wednesday.

• April 6, 2016

Elmira Bagiryan, a resident of a village at the epicentre of four days of fighting between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces, was leaving even though the gunfire had stopped.

• April 6, 2016

The United States urged Russia on Tuesday to push the Syrian government to allow humanitarian access to besieged areas after a boy starved to death and three children died from landmine injuries in Madaya in the past week because they could not be evacuated.

• April 5, 2016

The U.S. Navy plans to conduct another passage near disputed islands in the South China Sea in early April, a source familiar with the plan said on Friday, the third in a series of challenges that have drawn sharps rebukes from China.

• April 2, 2016

President Bashar al-Assad said it would not be difficult to agree on a new Syrian government including opposition figures, but his opponents responded on Wednesday that no administration would be legitimate while he remained in office.

• March 31, 2016