WASHINGTON (AP) — Dusty and remote, the Syrian city of Kobani has become an unlikely spoil in the war against Islamic State militants — and far more of a strategic prize than the United States wants to admit. Perched on Turkey's border, the city of about 60,000 has been...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The barrage of U.S. cruise missiles last month aimed at an al-Qaida cell in northern Syria cell killed just one or two key militants, according to American intelligence officials who say the group of veteran fighters is still believed to be plotting attacks against...

(NOW)- Twenty-four hours after the Brital Mountains attack, the Al-Nusra Front – Al-Qaeda in Syria – published a video showing the various stages of a military operation that targeted a Hezbollah position outside...

Two weeks after US warplanes began bombing Islamic State (Isis) positions in Syria, the Pentagon leadership has yet to make critical decisions about building the proxy rebel force central to its plan for taking territory away from the jihadist army. US...

Since Islamic State (Isis) were formed in their current incarnation in April last year, they have had a dilemma: how to gain legitimacy from the local population while continuing to be ruthless and genocidal against fellow Sunnis. The decision by the American-led...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, is facing mounting pressure from its own members to reconcile with its rival Islamic State and confront a common enemy after U.S.-led air strikes hit both groups this week. But that move would require pledging...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As the Islamic State group battles across Syria and Iraq, pushing back larger armies and ruling over entire cities, it is also waging an increasingly sophisticated media campaign that has rallied disenfranchised youth and outpaced the sluggish...

By Dr. Awad Al-Sulaiman; Translation by Dani Murad (Zaman Al Wasl)- The United States and the West in general, are now certain that Sunni Muslims are the source of terrorism in the whole world, and therefore they are exerting great efforts in fighting Sunnis to combat...

(Reuters) - By striking Islamic State in Syria , the United States would be weakening one of President Bashar al-Assad's major enemies. But the new U.S. strategy may still unnerve Assad by helping other opponents determined to overthrow him. The U.S. strategy for tackling...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first President Bush had one, so did President Bill Clinton, and the second President Bush had two. Now, President Barack Obama wants to build a coalition of nations to join the U.S. to combat the threat posed by the Islamic State group in the Middle East and...

By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It took President Barack Obama and his top aides a week to explain that he does in fact have a strategy for confronting the Islamic State militancy. Now he has to prove that he can make it work. Obama has embarked on building what...

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. and its allies are trying to hammer out a coalition to push back the Islamic State group in Iraq. But any serious attempt to destroy the militants or even seriously degrade their capabilities means targeting their infrastructure in Syria. That, however, is...

(Foreign Policy- HassanHassan)- For the first time in four years, a regional consensus seems to be forming around Syria. Everyone from Iran and Saudi Arabia to Syria's warring sides all seem to agree, at least in principle, that the Islamic State is a threat and has to go. How...

In her recently published memoir   Hard Choices,   former Senator Hillary Clinton recounts the meeting, nine days after the election of 2008, when President-elect Barack Obama first asked her to be his secretary of state. He “presented a well-considered argument,” she writes,...

(Reuters) - Syria is wagering that Islamic State's push to reshape the Middle East will eventually force a hostile West to deal with President Bashar al-Assad as the only way to tackle the threat. While Assad's forces escalate their fight with Islamic State militants in the...

(Reuters) - With minorities facing death and persecution at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria , Lebanon's Christians must lay aside their rivalries and agree on who should fill the vacant presidency, a leading Druze politician has warned. Walid Jumblatt, the...

Obama’s new Iraq war began modestly. By the end of his press conference on Saturday, though, it got a bit bigger. President Barack Obama’s war in Iraq just got more ambitious.  Speaking to reporters before departing for a two week vacation with his family on Martha’s Vineyard,...

With American bombs again falling over Iraq—this time striking Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, recently renamed the “Islamic State”) positions near the Kurdish city of Irbil—the White House is finally bowing to the inevitable conclusion that this terror group poses a...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas has entered Egyptian-brokered talks with Israel on a new border regime for blockaded Gaza from a point of military weakness: it lost hundreds of fighters, two-thirds of its 10,000 rockets and all of its attack tunnels, worth $100 million, Israel...

Have Hezbollah and Iran clashed with the Syrian regime over their support for Gaza? ( Al Jazeera ) - There   has been some rather bizarre speculation of a rift between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the one hand, and Iran and Hezbollah on the other. The rumours have been...