At the entrance of a rural town in Lebanon's Bekaa valley, a blue sign says "Welcome to Bar Elias, population 50,000" but in the past six years, that number has more than doubled with Syrians seeking shelter from the war across the border. "They are our guests," said Mayor Mawas Araji. "But...

Tens of thousands have flowed out of war-wracked Mosul in recent weeks, but Samir Hamid and 33 family members have decided to go against the tide to return home. "We stayed with relatives for a week and now we're going back home," says the father-of-five, who has travelled with his extended...

Iraqi army helicopters strafed and fired rockets at ISIS positions in Mosul's Old City on Sunday as troops on the ground closed in on the strategic and symbolic prize of the al-Nuri Mosque. Federal Police troops had advanced past the train station in western Mosul closer to the mosque. A...

Shihab Ayed and several other men struggled to push a cart carrying the bodies of his son and wife, wrapped in blankets, through a muddy ditch nearly two miles (3 km) from their destroyed home in Mosul. Four other carts followed, laden with days-old corpses from air strikes which the men...