Syria

Iran called on Britain on Friday to immediately release an oil tanker that British Royal Marines seized last week on suspicion it was breaking European sanctions by taking oil to Syria, a foreign ministry spokesman told state news agency IRNA.

Iran-backed Hezbollah has reduced its forces in Syria as fighting died down though it still has fighters all over the country, its leader said on Friday.

Air strikes targeted rebel-held cities in northwest Syria on Friday, a war monitor reported, widening bombardment of the last major insurgent enclave to areas that had mostly escaped it.

Panama will withdraw its flag from more vessels that violate sanctions and international legislation, the country's maritime authority told Reuters, following the removal of about 60 ships linked to Iran and Syria from the Panamanian registry in recent months.

A car bomb killed 11 people and wounded many others on Thursday in the Syrian city of Afrin, which Turkey-backed rebels captured from Kurdish fighters last year, medical sources and a monitor said.

A Berlin court has ruled that Germany's foreign ministry should repatriate from Syria the German wife and three children of a suspected Islamic State fighter, in what a court spokesman said was the first such ruling against the government.

A new team established by the global chemical weapons watchdog to attribute blame for the use of banned munitions in Syria will investigate nine alleged attacks during the country's civil war, including in the town of Douma, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The United Nations is close to agreement with Syria on setting up a constitutional committee, a long-awaited step in a stalled peace process, the U.N. Syria envoy said on Wednesday.

A Dutch-born alleged Islamic State militant went on trial in the Netherlands on Monday for war crimes committed in Iraq and Syria, after posing with a crucified body and sharing images of dead victims online.