Given the perils of direct confrontation with the US, the most likely recourse for Iran may be to mobilise its proxy militias to attack American assets in Iraq.
Dilbar Ali Ravu, 10, is kissed by his aunt, Dalal Ravu, as Yazidi children are reunited with their families in Iraq after five years of captivity with the Islamic State group, March 2, 2019.
AP Photo/Philip Issa, File
Interviews with the Yazidi survivors of IS attacks that killed 3,100 people in 2014 reveal the emotional, cultural and spiritual scars of religious persecution.
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.
Today’s protests are driven more by anger over social and economic inequity than deep-seated grievances against a regime.
Orlando Barria/EPA
People get angry far more often than they rebel. And rebellions rarely become revolutions. An expert on the French Revolution explains why today’s protest movements are different.
Turkey’s authoritarian leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was handed a big defeat recently when his party’s candidate lost a crucial election contest. Is this the beginning of Erdogan’s demise?
President Harry S Truman established the initial version of the National Intelligence Council.
AP Photo
The National Intelligence Council works inside government but is little understood outside. Yet it has helped respond to almost all the major foreign policy challenges of the last 40 years.
The New IRA apologized for killing investigative journalist Lyra McKee during a riot in Derry.
Reuters/Charles McQuillan
Organizations try to hide mistakes and evade responsibility, studies show. But two scholars analyzing militant and terrorist groups say they are willing to acknowledge their mistakes – sometimes.
US marines walk through the rebuilt palace of King Nebuchadnezzar, in the ancient town of Babylon, in April 2003. The ruins suffered serious damage when American troops set up a military base amid the ruins during the Iraq War.
Reuters/Jerry Lampen
A scholar analyzed data about UNESCO World Heritage sites to explain why European cultural relics like Notre Dame are so beloved, while splendid monuments elsewhere remain relatively unknown.
The National Museum of Iraq photographed in February 2018. Many of the pieces discovered at the ruins of Ur, arranged and labelled by Ennigaldi-Nanna, can be found here.
Wikimedia Commons
Ennigaldi-Nanna is largely unknown in the modern day. But in 530BC, this Mesopotamian priestess worked to arrange and label various artefacts in the world’s first museum.
A soldier from the Syrian Democratic Forces after defeating Islamic State fighters.
EPA/Ahmed Mardnli
A new study looks at obituaries of private military contractors killed at war. The majority are white men with significant military experience.
Iraqi federal police at a site during the battle at Dawasa district in Mosul city, Iraq, May 24 2017. Mosul was hit by bombing raids against IS.
AHMED JALIL/EPA
The Ministry of Defence says the RAF killed or injured 4,315 enemy fighters in Iraq and Syria over a period with only one civilian casualty. Why do other organisations have very different numbers?
Family members of Sunni men and boys in Iraq accused of supporting ISIS hold up pictures of their arrested relatives.
AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo
Iraq beat the Islamic State. Now, its Shia government is jailing and even executing all suspected terrorists – most of them Sunni Muslims. The clampdown may inflame a centuries-old sectarian divide.