Qayrarah / AFP Iraqi forces backed by coalition air strikes on Thursday pushed the IS group from Qayyarah, a northern town considered strategic for any future offensive against the jihadists’ last stronghold of Mosul. “We control all parts of the town and managed, in very limited time, to root out IS ,” Lieutenant General Riyadh Jalal Tawfik, who commands …

  Ankara / AFP Turkey on Thursday said it had “every right” to intervene if Syrian Kurdish militia do not withdraw east of the Euphrates River in Syria, as promised by the United States. The Syrian Kurdish forces “must move to the east of the Euphrates and Turkey is following this very closely,” Defence Minister Fikri Isik told NTV television. …

  JEDDAH / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry was holding talks with his Gulf counterparts and a British minister in Saudi Arabia on Thursday on the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Libya. The coordination with Washington’s major Middle East allies came on the eve of Syria talks in Geneva between Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. After a …