(AFP)- Syria has freed after 21 years in jail an ex-horse rider known to have been an equestrian rival of one of President Bashar al-Assad's late brothers, reports said Sunday. The release of Adnan Qassar is part of a wide-reaching amnesty that Assad decreed last week, and has...

Syria's army has been pounding for 24 hours major bases of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in coordination with the Baghdad government, a monitor said Sunday. The strikes against ISIL -- which has spearheaded a week-long jihadist offensive in Iraq -- have been more...

(Reuters) - Sunni insurgents seized a mainly ethnic Turkmen city in northwestern Iraq on Sunday after heavy fighting, solidifying their grip on the north after a lightning offensive that threatens to dismember Iraq. Residents reached by telephone in the city of Tal Afar said it...

BAGHDAD (AP) — As the Iraqi government bolstered Baghdad's defenses Sunday, the Islamic militant group that captured two major cities last week posted graphic photos that appeared to show its fighters massacring dozens of captured Iraqi soldiers. The pictures on a militant...