US President Donald Trump insists that US forces will pull out of Syria "very soon" and laments what he says was Washington's waste of $7 trillion in Middle East wars.

As Saudi Arabia reels from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's crackdown on the kingdom's elite, indications are that the Saudi-Iranian proxy war is heating up.

The UN has said that conflicts in the Middle East are depriving more than 13 million children of an education.