Alice Fordham

The Syrian city of Raqqa is the hub for militants from the Islamic State, and has sustained ongoing air strikes from the U.S. and the Syrian regime. Activists draw attention to the toll on civilians.

The holy Iraqi city of Najaf has a brand-new and appropriately holy shopping center: the Najaf City Mall.

Under banners with Muslim prayers, children rampage through an adventure playground, while conservative women in long black robes browse for cute outfits to wear when they're home with family.

Think of Iraq ...

Nearly a decade ago, Iraq's war drove millions from their homes and divided the country along sectarian lines. It's happening again in response to the latest brutality by the Islamic State.

The Albu Nimr tribe recently had some 600 members slaughtered by ISIS in western Iraq. The Sunni tribesmen say they're regrouping but need help, which the U.S. has now pledged.

President Obama has confirmed the death of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, an ex-Army Ranger. He was captured by militants of the so-called Islamic State while delivering medical supplies in Syria.

The so-called Islamic State has released a video showing the beheading of another American hostage, aid worker Peter Kassig.

Hipsters in Beirut have a problem. Their long, lustrous beards are getting them mistaken for Islamist extremists and drawing unwanted scrutiny from the security forces.

A Sunni Muslim tribe in central Iraq braves nightly shelling and threats from the Islamic State, refusing the group's orders to join its movement. But they say they need help.

Kurdish groups have often quarreled among themselves, or at least kept their distance. But Kurds from Iraq and Turkey have been fighting side by side in northern Iraq against the Islamic State.

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 ...