Captured foreign Islamic State militants must be taken back by their home countries, the Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria have said. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it would not put them on trial themselves and lacked the resources to hold them indefinitely. The SDF, which controls the region, say they hold about 500 jihadists, and hundreds of their wives and children. The captured IS fighters are reported to be from dozens of countries. States that the IS jihadists came from have proven to be reluctant to take these dangerous men back, the BBC’s Middle East analyst, Alan Johnston, says. […]

US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Nikki Haley on Thursday chaired a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East. At the meeting, Haley pointed out the gravity of Iran’s actions, and urged the Council to focus on Iran’s aggression in Iraq. “The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is serious and worthy of this Council’s attention. But if there is one country that is the source of conflict and instability in the Middle East – one country that merits a quarterly debate in the Security Council – that country is not Israel. It’s Iran,” Haley said. “For almost 40 years, the Iranian […]