Syrian Regime's Deputy Chief Mufti gives Bashar al-Assad's army soldiers religious permission to rape women in order to take revenge on them and on rebel forces. Human rights groups report that thousands of women have been raped by Syrian army soldiers in the ongoing war,...

More than 73,000 people were killed in Syria in 2013, the bloodiest year yet in the brutal civil war that began in March 2011, an NGO said on Wednesday. The tally from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights came as renewed regime air strikes in the northern city of Aleppo killed at...

Violence in Iraq surged in 2013 to its worst level in five years, fuelled by widespread discontent among the Sunni Arab minority and Syria's civil war, figures released Wednesday showed. Bombs tore through markets, cafes, football fields and mosques, militants assaulted prisons, police...

Sunni Muslim fighters clashed on Thursday with Iraqi troops trying to regain control of two western cities, in a serious escalation of their confrontation with the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Tension has been running high in the Sunni-dominated province of...