United States

Saudi Arabia is determined to secure a military pact requiring Washington to defend the kingdom in return for opening ties with Israel and will not hold up a deal even if Tel Aviv does not offer major concessions to Palestinians in their bid for statehood, three regional sources familiar with the talks say.

More than half of American voters oppose a defence pact with Saudi Arabia that would commit Washington to send forces to defend the kingdom in the event it is attacked, a survey shows.

Syria has called for the lifting of sanctions imposed by Washington and its European allies on other countries, describing them as “economic terrorism”, which must end.

The United States Central Command says its forces have captured an ISIS official after conducting a helicopter raid in northern Syria.

Senior US officials have arrived in Armenia after neighboring Azerbaijan launched a full-scale military operation last week in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region and forced the evacuation of thousands of ethnic Armenians.

Two decades on, Washington has failed to provide redress or compensation to Iraqi victims of its military’s torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported.

A US congressional delegation was meeting Armenia's leaders on Saturday to show support for the Yerevan government in the wake of protests rocking the Caucasus nation after Azerbaijan reclaimed control over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.

The United States has taken a number of economic measures to repel Arab nations' interest in reengagement with Damascus, which eventually caused the Arab League's special committee to halt contacts with Syria despite the country's readmission to the organization, a source familiar with the matter told Sputnik.

US Senator Robert Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, were indicted on charges of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars, gold bars, a luxury car, and other bribes in exchange for corrupt acts that benefited the government of Egypt.

Lawyers for one of Guantanamo's "forever prisoners" filed a lawsuit against the two psychologists who helped conceive the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques, which have been widely seen and condemned as torture.

Shots were fired near the US diplomatic mission in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, late on Wednesday but no injuries were reported, embassy spokesperson Jake Nelson has confirmed.

US soldiers will complete a joint military exercise with Armenian forces in the Caucasus state on Wednesday as planned, and the drill was not affected by the launch of a major military operation by neighbouring Azerbaijan, according to a US military spokesperson.

The US and Saudi Arabian officials are reportedly discussing the terms of a security pact resembling those with Washington’s East Asian allies, in what is viewed as an incentive for the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel.

More than a dozen rights organizations have signed a statement rebuking the US administration's decision to approve more than $200m in military aid to Egypt, arguing that the money will only embolden President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi amid an intensifying crackdown on civil society.

The United States plans to withhold $85 million in military aid to Egypt because of Cairo's failure to meet Washington's conditions on freeing political prisoners and other issues, a US senator has confirmed, calling for withholding $235 million more.

Armenia has launched a joint military drill with the United States, a move that has angered the Caucasus nation's main ally, Russia.

The United States and Armenian militaries will hold joint exercises later this month, with special emphasis on peacekeeping operations, Yerevan has announced. Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which also includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

The US, the UK and the European Union are making a new push to convince the United Arab Emirates to stop the flow of goods to Russia that could help it in the war against Ukraine, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Saudi border forces accused of killing hundreds of people trying to cross the border from neighbouring Yemen, received training from the United States and Germany, according to the Guardian.

Saudi Arabia is considering bids to build a nuclear power station from countries including China, France and Russia as Riyadh seeks to sway Washington over a sensitive security pact, according to a report run by the Financial Times.

Qatar is balancing its relationships with both the US and China, and that one link does not damage the other, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani has stated.

More than a dozen human rights organizations penned a letter to United States President Joe Biden, urging Washington to press the Bahraini authorities to immediately release Abdul-Hadi al-Khawaja, a prominent rights activist.

The family of a prominent political prisoner, who is a permanent US resident in Egypt, has condemned the Biden administration, accusing it of abandoning him after the prisoner informed his family that he is facing death while in detention.

A new report has suggested that the United States is not doing enough to support human rights in Egypt since the killing of over 900 pro-democracy protesters a decade ago in Cairo.

The United States is responsible for the military escalation in eastern Syria, where terror groups such as Daesh intensified their activities recently, the Syrian Foreign Ministry has announced.