Officials say rare Pakistani airstrikes have targeted multiple suspected hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban inside neighboring Afghanistan, dismantling a training facility and killing some insurgents.

Iran said it will start easing some of the world’s tightest internet restrictions by lifting its ban on WhatsApp and Google Play - a sign that authorities want to placate domestic opponents as the Islamic Republic faces major economic and foreign-policy challenges.

The U.S.-created global food-crisis monitor FEWS Net said it expects the number of people dying of starvation and related ailments in northern Gaza to reach between two and 15 per day sometime between next month and March.

Turkey is planning to start negotiations with Syria to delineate maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean Sea, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said.

Refrigerated trucks would come nearly every day to dump the bodies in this barren field just outside the Syrian capital, witnesses said.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces say they have launched a counter-offensive against the Ankara-backed Syrian National Army to take back areas near Syria’s northern border with Turkey. The SDF is Washington’s critical ally in Syria.

The U.N. organization assisting in investigating the most serious crimes in Syria said the country’s new authorities were “very receptive” to its request for cooperation during a just-concluded visit to Damascus, and it is preparing to deploy.

Two Navy aviators were rescued after the fighter jet they were flying was shot down this week in an apparent “friendly fire” incident were responding to incoming one-way aerial attack drones and anti-ship cruise missiles threatening U.S. forces in the Red Sea.

The upheaval triggered by Bashar al-Assad’s ouster has raised urgent questions about the 2,000 troops who serve as a bulwark against ISIS and Iran.

Winter is hitting the Gaza Strip and many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 14-month war with Israel are struggling to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain.