Middle East | featured news

Syrian authorities on Thursday sent text messages over cell phones nationwide with a message for rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime: "Game over." The messages signed by the Syrian Arab Army also urged the rebels to surrender their weapons and warned the countdown to evict foreign fighters has begun. The texts appear to be part of the regime's psychological battle against the rebels, but are highly unlikely to have any effect on fighters intent on toppling Assad.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make his case against Iran before the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, arguing that time is quickly running out to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear power and the threat of force must be seriously considered.

The UN refugee agency warned Thursday there could be as many as 700,000 Syrian refugees fleeing the war-torn nation by the end of the year as it stepped up its call for emergency funding.

Syria’s civil war is straining sectarian tensions in Iraq nine months after American forces left, and it is causing Iraq’s Shiite-led government to move closer to Iran.

President Barack Obama declared on Tuesday the United States will "do what we must" to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned against threatening attacks whose consequences would be devastating.

Far more civilians have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas than U.S. counter-terrorism officials have acknowledged, a new study by human rights researchers at Stanford University and New York University contends.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday disregarded a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary rhetoric and declared ahead of the annual General Assembly session that Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated."

The White House criticized Republican claims that President Obama called an ambassador's death a 'bump in the road." White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama was referring to Middle East unrest in general, and called the GOP claim "both desperate and offensive."

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney traded shots in high-profile interviews with Romney saying Obama hasn't supported Israel strongly enough and Obama asking if Romney was trying to start a war in the region.

The World Health Organization said Monday it is too soon to say whether there could be an outbreak of a SARS-like killer respiratory disease after health officials in Britain announced they detected a related virus in a severely ill patient from the Middle East.