More than 70 people were killed in a wave of bombings in markets in Shi'ite neighbourhoods across Baghdad on Monday in worsening sectarian violence in Iraq. No group claimed responsibility for the blasts. But Sunni Muslim Islamist insurgents and al-Qaeda' s Iraqi wing have...

  The following is the edited text of Jenan Moussa’s speech, with a new angle on Syria’s women, delivered at the 2013 Oslo Freedom Forum.  Moussa is a correspondent for Al Aan, a pan-Arab satellite television channel based in Dubai. She makes frequent trips into Syria. I...

For analysts familiar with the politics of Syria, the country’s descent into chaos amounts to an all-too-predictable pattern. It also parallels what  Rami Makhlouf , a major regime figure and first cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, bluntly announced in an interview with...

The golden cupola of the Sayyida Zainab mosque glints, magnificent, against the clear sky. In the courtyard, children play amid shoes shed by their parents before they entered to pray. Only the crack of gunfire, the hissing of bullets overhead and mortar fire close by disturbs the tranquil...