IS PRESIDENT Obama creeping toward a rethinking of his Syria policy? Some words he spoke Tuesday raised our hopes. At a news conference with French President François Hollande, Mr. Obama described the Syrian conflict, which he dismissed five months ago as “ someone else’s civil...

    Gaza's Hamas authorities have blocked a U.N. refugee agency from introducing textbooks promoting human rights into local schools, saying it ignores Palestinian cultural mores and focuses too heavily on "peaceful" means of conflict resolution....

Gunmen seized part of Sulaiman Bek town and nearby villages in northern Iraq on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported local officials as saying. This is considered to be the latest instance of authorities losing ground to militants, who have held all of the city of Fallujah and parts...

Abu Huraira is haunted by memories of shells falling from the sky, ripping to pieces people trying to bury their loved ones in a Syrian graveyard. He is unnerved by the mental images of mutilated bodies, and of bones laid bare in his rebel comrades' deep wounds. But the...