AL-MUKALLA: Yemeni military forces have advanced into a large valley in Yemen’s southern province of Abyan to dislodge Al-Qaeda militants who have long used the area for recruiting, storing arms and staging deadly attacks against government-controlled areas, a military spokesperson told Arab News on Saturday.

AQABA, Jordan: Regional and international cooperation is key to protecting the Red Sea ecosystem and advancing scientific research, a senior member of the Jordanian royal family said on Saturday.
Speaking at the “First International Conference on the Red Sea Ecosphere: Conservation and Management of the Red Sea Marine Environment,” Prince El-Hassan bin Talal, stressed the importance of developing the Great Rift Valley and addressing disparities in order to empower its people, Jordan News Agency reported.

DUBAI: Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Saturday launched a new satellite-carrying rocket, state TV reported, seeking to demonstrate the force’s space prowess even as anti-government protests rage across the country.

BEIRUT: Scores of Syrian refugees headed home Saturday from eastern Lebanon in the second convoy in less than two weeks as Beirut attempts to organize a mass refugee return to the war-torn country.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the “voluntary return” Saturday included 330 Syrians who left from the eastern Bekaa Valley to Syria’s western Qalamoun region. Qalamoun borders Lebanon and years ago witnessed some of the worst fighting of Syria’s 11-year conflict.

RABAT: Moroccan authorities Friday seized more than two million amphetamine-type captagon pills, foiling an “international trafficking attempt” to West Africa, police said.
The pills were found at the Tanger Med industrial port complex on the kingdom’s northern coast, the DGSN security service said in a statement.
The drugs were “concealed inside a goods container onboard a maritime transport ship” headed from Lebanon to West Africa, it added, without specifying which country.