Steady advances by insurgents on key fronts in Syria mean President Bashar al-Assad is under more military pressure than at any point in the four-year-old war. Losses in the north, east and south to groups including al Qaeda's Syrian arm and Islamic State may test Assad's hold...

Almost a year after Islamic State's shock capture of Mosul, Iraq's second city, the black flags of the jihadis have been raised over Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province to the west of Baghdad, seat of Iraq’s increasingly theoretical central government. Nobody talks of Mosul or recapturing...

When Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi dispatched fighter jets this year against Islamic State targets in Libya in retaliation for the beheading of 21 Copts, he sent a powerful message to his country's Christian minority. Copts have long complained of discrimination under...

When Lebanon's Hezbollah first joined Syria's war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, its role was a closely guarded secret. Today, as Hezbollah plants its flag in land won from rebels north of Damascus, its role could hardly be more public. And for Syria's increasingly embattled...