MOSCOW/BAGHDAD (Sputnik) - At least one civilian was killed and 12 others were injured as a result of an explosion in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the Security Media Cell, a service that provides data on security incidents in the country, said on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Tehran is capable of bringing the level of uranium enrichment to 90 percent but not for the purpose of creating nuclear weapons, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday.

The Israeli PM has until 5 May to form a government. If he fails, the mandate will either be given to another candidate or back to the Knesset, something that might trigger another national vote, the fifth in two years.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Yemen's Shia rebel Houthi movement said on Thursday that it had used drones and missiles to attack refineries of the Aramco oil giant, a Patriot missile system, and other strategic targets in Saudi Arabia's southern city of Jazan, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said.

On Wednesday, Biden declared that the US would begin withdrawing its 2,500 troops from Afghanistan on May 1, with the aim of being completely out by September 11. NATO forces will also depart Afghanistan on May 1. This has sparked fears among analysts that the country's civil war will continue once the last foreign soldier has left.

On late Wednesday, the Youm7 newspaper reported that the passenger train, which was heading from the city of Zagazig for Cairo, had derailed near the city of Minya al-Qamh. The newspaper reported about 10 people injured in the incident.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group* shelled Syria's Idlib de-escalation zone 17 times over the past 24 hours, Rear Adm. Alexander Karpov, deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, said at a briefing.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Spain will coordinate the pullout of its forces from Afghanistan in line with its allies in NATO, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Proposals advanced by Washington on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) do not deserve to be considered, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday.

In accordance with the Montreux Convention, the Turkish Foreign Ministry was previously alerted via diplomatic channels that two US warships would be passing through the Bosphorous Strait in order to reach the Black Sea. The warships were originally slated to begin travel on April 14 and remain in the Black Sea until May 4.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Joe Biden and his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani discussed over the phone their commitment to a strong bilateral partnership after the withdrawal of American troops from the South Asian country, the White House said in a readout of the conversation on Wednesday.

Iraqi military bases housing American troops have come under fire from militia forces in northern Iraq for some time. In February, multiple rockets were launched against a military base near the Erbil International Airport that left one military contractor dead and injured several others.

The US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said Wednesday it intends to begin pulling its troops out of Afghanistan before the end of the month.

BEIRUT (Sputnik) - Damascus condemns and denies a report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that claimed that the Syrian military used chlorine in the town of Saraqib, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.

The electricity distribution network of Iran's Natanz nuclear power plant suffered from a blackout on 11 April, with the Islamic Republic's leadership later denouncing the incident as "nuclear terrorism" and blaming the alleged attack on Israel.

Recently it was announced that 7,000 Gaza workers will be inoculated and thus will be allowed to resume their work in Israel, which closed its crossing with the exclave as a result of the pandemic.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The Biden administration intends to go through with a defense arms sale to the United Arab Emirates soon, a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. The Trump-era weapons sale was put on hold by the Biden administration for a review.

Israel’s Mossad has long operated in nearby Iraq, including in a 1966 operation to steal a Soviet-built MiG-21 fighter jet for the United States and a plot in the 1970s to assassinate Iraqi nationalist leader Saddam Hussein with a bomb hidden inside a book.

Tensions have been running high in the region for several months already, as both the United States and Iran have failed to resume compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran has insisted that Washington - since it was the one that left the agreement in 2018 - has to lift sanctions first.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Rear Admiral Alexander Karpov, deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, said at a briefing that the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group* had shelled Syria's Idlib de-escalation zone 22 times over the past 24 hours.