Two oil-rich Arab Gulf states suffered severe economic blows Wednesday, as a major credit agency downgraded Kuwait for the first time and the United Arab Emirates acknowledged its economy would contract to a level last seen in 2009. The agency, Moody’s Investors Service, cut Kuwait’s...

He bought it in the United States, shipped it to a friend through Europe and into Lebanon, and found a way to smuggle it by road into Syria. But this was a piece of contraband only made illegal by the United States’ cruel policy of sanctions toward Syria—a critical part needed to fix a...

Throughout the past nine years of conflict, the Syrian military has been instrumental in ensuring the survival of the Bashar al-Assad regime—not because of its performance on the battlefield, but rather due to its consistent loyalty. Unlike other state militaries that faced regime challenges...

Iraqi doctor Tariq Al-Sheibani remembers little else beyond cowering on the ground as a dozen relatives of a patient, who had just died of COVID-19, beat him unconscious. About two hours later the 47-year-old director of Al-Amal Hospital in the southern city of Najaf woke up in a different...