For decades, Iran has built up a network of proxies across the Middle East. Will it now use them to retailiate for the killing of its top general?
A Middle Bronze Age child from the Lebanese site of Sidon buried in a large jar. Smaller ceramics were placed with the dead as funerary objects.
Claude Doumet-Serhal
As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates its 70th anniversary with a leaders’ meeting in London, five US scholars shed light on NATO’s history and its potential future.
Refugees in the city of Qab Illyas in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley dig their own water wells.
Hussein A. Amery
Both drought and violence drove many Syrians out of their homes; even if the war ends, the continuing difficulty of farming will make it hard for them to return.
Families of those at risk of extremism need to be supported, not judged.
President Donald Trump has rapidly, and without warning to allies or even his own officials, shifted U.S. foreign policy in Syria.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
David Banks, American University School of International Service
In northern Syria, Trump has caused U.S. allies and rivals to view American commitments in a new, uncertain light. Other countries may now shift to depend less on the U.S., weakening national power.
A mass grave is excavated in Khan Al-Rubea in 2003 that witnesses say is filled with the remains of Shia whom Saddam executed in 1991.
AP/Hasan Sarbakhshian
Distrust of the US – even if misplaced – can linger for decades, thwarting Washington’s foreign policy goals. A former US diplomat in Iraq reflects on that country’s skepticism of US aid efforts.
Detention camps in Syria hold about 100,000 Syrian and foreign family members of IS suspects.
Murtaja Lateef/EPA
The Morrison government has shown no enthusiasm for repatriating the family members of IS fighters. But as other nations bring back their own fighters, Australia may find itself forced to act.
U.S. forces are still in Syria, but their role has changed substantially in recent weeks.
AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad
Since the 1940s, Congress has largely let the president make decisions, while members of the House and Senate endorse or condemn those actions from the sidelines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during a joint press conference following their talks in the Black sea resort of Sochi on October 22, 2019.
Sergei CHIRIKOV / POOL / AFP
The EU’s rhetoric after Turkey’s military incursion in Syria has not been backed by concrete action or a persuasive engagement with Erdogan’s government.
There are often many borders to cross, each bringing potentially fatal risks.
Gareth Fuller/PA
The 39 migrants who froze to death in a lorry crossing the channel join hundreds more who have died trying to get into Europe over land.
A Yemeni national, denied entry into the U.S. because of the travel ban, shows their cancelled visa to reporters as they successfully arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Files
From US captive to head of Islamic State, the life of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died in Syria.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may not be irreplaceable, but in many respects he was uniquely suited to the times in which he led.
AAP/EPA/ al Furqan ISIS media wing handout
Almost 4 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey, which has taken noteworthy steps to integrate them into the country in the past five years. Will Turkey now try to force those refugees back to Syria?
Syrian troops deployed near Aleppo. The likely winner from the latest conflict in Syria is the Assad government.
AAP/EPA/SANA handout
With so much politics at play, Turkey is likely to be in Syria for a long time to come – and the real winner from it all is likely to be the Assad government.
Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University