The State of Iraq and The Levant (ISIL) has made gains against its rival Al Nusra Front and other Islamist groups in Raqqa, activists reported.  The ISIL regained control of Al-Qatar and Al-Hazimeh streets in Al-Raqqa city after fierce clashes with Ahrar...

  The spokesman for a gathering of Syrian opposition groups said on Friday that an international conference on the country's future later this month should focus on establishing a time-frame for an end to the fighting. Yahya al-Aridi told the Associated Press in the...

  The wife of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail gave birth on Friday to a boy born from sperm smuggled into Gaza, her family said, the first successful pregnancy of its kind in the embattled coastal enclave. The procedure follows several similar cases last year in...

An Al-Qaeda surge and Sunni-Shiite tumult spanning Iraq and Syria are testing eroded US influence and the logic of a foreign policy built on antipathy to Middle East entanglements. The return of jihadists to cities like Fallujah and Ramadi, fabled battlefields for US soldiers, has left...