The US missile attack caused heavy damage to one of Syria's biggest and most strategic air bases - but the impact on President Bashar Assad's military capabilities is limited.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has apologised to the Saudi government after an activist tried to carry out a citizen's arrest of one of the Gulf state's generals.

Several attacks in and around Baghdad have killed at least 27 people on a particularly brutal day in the Iraqi capital.

Russia’s defence ministry has insisted humanitarian corridors leading out of Aleppo are still open and that there have been no Russian or Syrian air strikes on the besieged city for seven days now.

No air defence missile systems have ever been sent from Russia to Ukraine, Moscow military officials insist.

The Israeli army’s deputy chief of staff has drawn a rebuke from Israeli ministers for comparing pre-Holocaust Germany to trends in Israel today.

Suicide bombs have killed at least 64 people in multiple blasts in north-eastern Nigeria, according to officials.

A double All-Ireland hurling winner who recently took command of the Army’s 1 Brigade at Collins Barracks, Cork, has been appointed Defence Forces deputy chief of staff.

Two senior army officers and a police general accused of taking part in an attempted coup in Burundi have been arrested, a presidential spokesman said as it became apparent that a military plot to oust president Pierre Nkurunziza had fizzled out.

One of the founders of popular file-sharing website The Pirate Bay has been arrested under an Interpol warrant as he was crossing into Thailand from Laos.

Even before someone at the controls calmly said the last words heard from the missing Malaysian jetliner, one of the Boeing 777’s communications systems had already been disabled, authorities said yesterday, adding to suspicions that one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance of the flight.

Three boys were killed and their parents were injured in an attack in Thailand’s insurgency-plagued south.

An American air force general was sacked from his post for “inappropriate behaviour” while in Russia, it has emerged.

A seamstress who survived 17 days before being rescued from a collapsed clothes factory building outside Bangladesh’s capital is said to be making a good recovery in hospital.

A seamstress buried in the wreckage of a collapsed garment factory building for 17 days was rescued today, a miraculous moment set against a scene of horror, where the death toll shot past 1,000.

Bangladesh’s finance minister has downplayed the impact of the factory-building collapse on his country’s garment industry, saying he didn’t think it was “really serious” hours after the 500th body was pulled from the debris.

IN RECENT years there has been outrage following reports into clerical abuse, as well as the publication of the recent report into the behaviour at Magdalene Laundries.

Syria threatened today to retaliate for an Israeli air strike and its ally Iran said there will be repercussions over the attack.

Iran and Russia have joined the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in condemning a rare Israeli air strike on Syria.

Anti-government protesters calling for Thailand's Prime Minister to step down launched a rally in Bangkok today that authorities feared would grow into the biggest demonstration the country has seen since she took office last year.

A senior security official is among at least eight people killed in a huge car bomb attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

A senior security official is among at least eight people killed in a huge car bomb attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

A 14-year-old girl shot by a Taliban gunman is in a “satisfactory” condition but the next few days will be critical, a Pakistani military spokesman said.

The bodies of more than 30 civilians, some of them women and children, were today found in the streets of the Syrian town of Daraya south-west of Damascus, activists said.

Michael Collins’s vision of Ireland as a centre of economic excellence has been compared by many commentators both to our Celtic Tiger excess and our current woes, writes John Daly

Egypt’s incoming cabinet will have few Islamists and some holdovers from the outgoing military-backed team in key positions, according to a partial list.

Syrian forces struck back against rebels today with attack helicopters and shelling in Damascus, one day after an audacious rebel attack in the capital killed three leaders of the regime.

Rebels penetrated the heart of Syria's power elite, detonating a bomb inside a crisis meeting in Damascus that killed three leaders of the regime, including President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law and the Defence Minister Dawoud Rajha.

The violence in Syria has reached unprecedented levels, the head of the country's UN observer mission said today, insisting there must be a ceasefire for his teams to resume their work.

The army chief leading the fight against al Qaida militants in southern Yemen has been killed by a suicide bomber, security officials said today.

Syrian troops intensified shelling of rebel-held neighbourhoods in central Homs yesterday, according to activists who say humanitarian conditions are growing more dire and are pressing for the evacuation of 1,000 families and dozens of wounded people who can’t get adequate medical care.

The chief of UN observers in Syria has said their mission is being suspended because of escalating violence in the country.

The head of the UN observers in Syria says that the growing violence is derailing their mission and could prompt the unarmed force to pull out.

Syria’s foreign ministry has denied government troops were behind an attack on a string of villages that left more than 90 people dead.

Two suicide car bombs ripped through the Syrian capital today, killing 55 people and tearing the facade off a military intelligence building in the deadliest explosions since the country’s uprising began 14 months ago.

At least 50 people have been killed by two powerful explosions that ripped through Damascus.

UN observers visited an embattled neighbourhood in the central Syrian city of Homs today.

Nervous shop owners closed their doors and security forces fanned out across Bahrain’s capital in attempts to quell widening unrest that threatened to overshadow the return of the Formula One Grand Prix to the Gulf kingdom.

At least 28 people have been killed by Syrian government shelling and offensives against rebel-held towns, activists said today.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has said increased attacks by government forces on Syrian cities violates the Security Council's demand for an end to hostilities.

An army intelligence analyst accused of the biggest leak of classified information in US history will face a court-martial.

Gunmen have snatched two female American tourists and their Egyptian guide in the Sinai Peninsula.

South-east Asia’s most-wanted terrorist and two other senior militants were killed today in a US-backed air strike in the Philippines, military chiefs said.