Reuters/Alkis Konstantinidis
US-backed forces in Iraq and in Syria are in the process of rooting Islamic State (IS) fighters out of their strongholds in northern Iraq and eastern Syria. In the case of Mosul in Iraq, the removal of…
Destination: Tehran.
EPA
The Middle East could be witnessing a foreign policy misfire of epic proportions.
EPA/US Navy/Christopher Lindahl
Donald Trump’s predecessor once made an empty threat against Bashar al-Assad – and it didn’t end well.
A handout aerial image made available by the Combined Joint Task Force shows the destroyed remains of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri.
EPA/Combined Joint Task Force Handout
The destruction of the al-Nuri Mosque and its minaret is a sad blow to Iraqi culture – and a rallying cry too.
Ishtar (on right) comes to Sargon, who would later become one of the great kings of Mesopotamia.
Edwin J. Prittie, The story of the greatest nations, 1913
Love, it is said, is a battlefield, and it was no more so than for the first goddess of love and war, Ishtar. Her legend has influenced cultural archetypes from Aphrodite to Wonder Woman.
Arab Spring protesters were often below 24 years old. Cairo January 28, 2011. R.
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
A certain combination of demographics and corruption can lead to political upheaval.
IvanKurmyshov/Shutterstock
What’s so ‘brotherly’ about a major diplomatic spat?
EPA/Yousseff Rabie Yousseff
The sustained assault on IS’s two main strongholds could be followed by years of local and global insurgency.
Recent Tunis protests.
EPA
Protests in Tunisia and Morocco show underlying causes of the Arab uprisings remain intact.
Iranian policemen at the parliament building in Tehran, June 7.
EPA/Omid Vahabzadeh
The world’s response to two terrorist incidents in Iran was telling, and ominous.
A boy is evacuated during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran on June 7 2017.
Omid Vahabzadeh/ REUTERS
Terrorist attacks in Iran are evidence that, in the Middle East, there are far too many moving parts for US President Donald Trump’s recent trip to have changed much on the ground.
Doha, under a cloud.
EPA/Yoan Valat
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have butted heads before, but this time seems different.
Israeli soldiers during the Six-Day War.
רפי רוגל via Wikimedia Commons
A 50-year-old conflict that redrew the Middle East in less than a week tells us a lot about how states can play the media.
Iraqi soldiers gather near the remains of wall panels and colossal statues of winged bulls that were destroyed by Islamic State militants in the Assyrian city of Nimrud, late last year.
Ari Jalal/Reuters
Islamic State has destroyed globally-significant sites in Iraq and Syria, but not as wanton acts of destruction. Instead, they are calculated political and religious attacks.
Demonstration of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, at a naval base in California.
REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon
For-profit corporations are deeply embedded in US national security infrastructure – and they’re not going anywhere.
EPA/Yahya Arhab
Already one of the world’s most urgent humanitarian disasters, the situation in Yemen is only getting worse.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks on a podium as U.S. President Donald Trump listens.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
We asked an expert on diplomacy and foreign policy.
A game of football in Douma, Syria, where prospects for many youngsters look bleak.
EPA Images
In the Middle East, tens of millions of young people have few opportunities – and plenty to be angry about.
Solidarity tent.
As 1,300 prisoners went on strike for improved conditions, a wave of solidarity protests spread across the Palestinian Territories.
Libyan fighters head off to fight Islamic State.
EPA
Of all the places for a jihadist militant group to operate, it would be hard to find a more conducive country than Libya.