Alice Fordham

A town west of Baghdad and home to a notorious prison, Abu Ghraib is where Iraq troops are bracing for a possible attacks by Islamic State militants. Many local residents feel caught in the middle.

In northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters have won back territory from the so-called Islamic State only to lose it again. ISIS is using a range of explosives, inflicting heavy Kurdish casualties.

Until August, 24-year-old Aza Betwata was in Holland, enjoying beef and cabbage and studying to be a social worker. Now, he's among the hundreds of exiled Kurds who have returned and taken up arms.

Over the last few weeks, Islamic State fighters in Iraq have been on the offensive in Anbar province, just west of Baghdad. We look at the latest on efforts to drive back the extremists.

Airstrikes by the U.S. and its allies continued in Iraq on Monday, aimed at pushing back fighters from the so-called Islamic State.

The town, which ISIS is fighting to take over, is mostly deserted, with only a few hundred elderly or immobile people remaining.

Lebanon's civil war ended 25 years ago, but the sectarian divisions that sliced its capital into different enclaves still hold today. Everyone coexists relatively peacefully — most of the time.

In the Middle East, alliances have a strange way of shifting. And as the United States again becomes deeply involved in the conflict in Iraq, it's found itself making some strange alliances too.

Militias that used to fights American forces in Iraq are now fighting against the Islamic State — ...

The musicians and artists of Baghdad work under a government that prefers religious festivals to classical concerts. But with a little cunning, they're finding ways to keep the arts alive.

The killing of British aid worker David Haines by the self-proclaimed Islamic State provoked international outrage and could bolster U.S. efforts to build support for an anti-ISIS coalition.

If President Obama's plan to battle Islamic State militants by bringing Iraq's Sunnis on board to fight sounds oddly familiar, that's because it is.

When the U.S. faced a raging insurgency by Sunni militants — then called al-Qaida in Iraq — seven years ago, it recruited local Sunni leaders and ...

The Obama administration's strategy for combating the Islamic State relies on ground forces provided by Iraq and Syria because the White House says it will not send U.S. combat troops...

Iraq's parliament elected a new prime minister and cabinet officials on Monday but it's unclear whether the changes will help counter the Islamist militants who have taken over much of the country.

American airstrikes pounded Islamic State position in Iraq's Western Anbar province to allow a coalition of tribal fighters and Iraqi forces to make gains.

The air in the Baghdad morgue is thick with the smell of death. There are perhaps two dozen corpses in black plastic bags lying around in the sweltering heat. One of them is burned and has its face exposed, white teeth stark against charred skin.

"The crisis began in June," ...

Iraq's parliament was overrun Wednesday by men whose sons disappeared and were likely killed when the Islamic State captured Tikrit in June. They brandished sticks as they burst throu...

The Syrian civil war has flared up in the south of the country, near the Israeli border. A group of Islamist fighters have now captured a border crossing between Syria and Israel on the Golan Heights.

Peter Theo Curtis was released by Jabhat al-Nusra, known as the Nusra Front. Last week, American journalist James Foley was beheaded in Syria by the group which now calls itself the Islamic State.

Israeli and Palestinian teams are locked in talks in Cairo, but there are no signs a peace deal will be reached. Both sides say they're prepared to start fighting if they don't get what they want.

Down at the Gaza city harbor, a little after dawn, merchants wait with horses and carts and scales to weigh the morning's catch of fish.

But when they come in, the fish are small and few. One man scoops his catch up by the handful, tiny fish slipping through his ...