John Herbst, a former U.S. diplomat, wasn’t trying to flatter his German hosts when he took a dig at Washington late last month — he was just describing a new reality. “Berlin is the critical capital in the West for settling a just solution to the crisis in Ukraine,” he said while...

At a dusty checkpoint on the front line facing ISIL in northern Syria, a steady trickle of cars, vans and trucks passes by on their way from Raqqa, the extremist group’s main stronghold. The checkpoint near the town of Ain Issa is no more than an abandoned building beside a dirt track,...

The U.S. military said on Wednesday it was moving toward providing additional weaponry to Syrian opposition forces battling Islamic State after territorial gains in the past week by the U.S.-backed fighters. Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition...

Warplanes pounded ISIS's de facto Syrian capital Raqqa on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people including 13 militants, activists said. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that either Syrian or Russian warplanes are believed to have carried out the strikes. "Thirteen...