Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed on Friday in a U.S. drone strike, security and intelligence sources said, in the latest blow to the Islamist militant group. The al-Qaeda-linked insurgent group confirmed the death of Mehsud, believed to be in his mid-30s....

Intent on supplying his government with arms, oil and food, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has turned to Russian  banks  to access world markets , and the lenders could open more doors to him, despite a risk of isolation from the U.S. banking system. U.S. sanctions...

  One Syrian security official called it the "Starvation Until Submission Campaign", blocking food and medicine from entering and people from leaving besieged areas of  Syria . Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have used partial sieges to root out rebel forces from...

  While the human and financial means were limited, civilian institutions have nevertheless emerged in a few months in the zones conquered by the insurrection movement in Northern Syria. This experience of reconstructing an administrative system through the bottom-up...