After A Big Victory For ISIS, Iraqi Forces Look To Regroup
The black flag of the self-proclaimed Islamic State is flying over the Iraqi city of Ramadi after government forces collapsed and the extremists seized control over the weekend.Thousands of civilians...
View ArticleA Wedding And A Challenge: Lebanese Couples Fight For Civil Marriage
Like lots of young married couples, Kholoud Succariyeh and Nidal Darwish love to show their wedding video. They go all misty-eyed remembering that day two years ago."Very beautiful," says Succariyeh....
View ArticleWith Syria's Army Losing Ground, A Boost From Hezbollah
The dirt roads on the border between Syria and Lebanon wind across a mountain range dotted with little wildflowers.It's windswept and deserted except for a few hilltop outposts with clumps of gray...
View ArticleIraqi Soldiers, Generals Shift The Blame For Battlefield Defeats
When the Iraqi city of Ramadi fell to the self-declared Islamic State last month, it was a big defeat. Ramadi is a provincial capital just 60 miles west of Baghdad, and the setback played into the...
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After Tunisia Attack, Tourists Leave — And Locals Worry
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View ArticleSunnis Flee The Islamic State, But Still Fall Under Suspicion
The al-Nidaa mosque in northern Baghdad looks grand, with clean, modern lines swooping up to a blue mosaic dome. But inside it's squalid, with piled-up mattresses, cooking pots and almost 60 families....
View ArticleTunisia Seeks Its Way On A Winding, Bumpy Path
Editor's Note: An attacker opened fire on a beach in Tunisia and killed 38 people on June 26. NPR's Alice Fordham went to cover the story. She used to live in Tunisia and reflects on how the country's...
View ArticlePut An Herb In It: Lebanon's Fresh Approach To Beer And Cocktails
The sun has very nearly set on Beirut, and in a bar called Anise, they're mixing the first cocktail of the evening.There's vodka, vermouth and iced glasses.
View ArticleTrained By U.S., Syrian Fighters Stumble As They Hit The Battlefield
A small group of U.S.-trained Syrian fighters entered northern Syria late last month and waited for their mission. They were on a base, with American supplies that included heavy machine guns,...
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ISIS Advances In Syria, Capturing More Than 200 People
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Transcript AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: In Syria, the self-named Islamic State or ISIS is making significant gains into territory held by the government.
View ArticleLebanon's Shrinking Public Beaches
The sun is beating down on the rocky shore of Lebanon's capital, Beirut, and architect Mona Hallak is taking her son and his friends to see their heritage."Who knows how to swim?" asks Hallak, an...
View ArticleWith Eyes On Europe, Iraqis Line Up To Leave Baghdad
At first it seems lively outside on the weekend in Baghdad — the lights are bright in open-air cafes, music streams from beribboned cars in a wedding party and at Ali Hussein's juice stand, decorated...
View ArticleIn Bomb-Weary Baghdad, Iraqis Have Fun In The Name Of Peace
The Baghdad City of Peace Carnival started four years ago, with a young woman named Noof Assi."We started talking to people about a celebration for peace day in Baghdad," Assi says. She's referring to...
View ArticleIraq's Fight Against ISIS Stalls
More than a year after the U.S. led the formation of an anti-ISIS coalition, the extremists still hold large parts of western and northern Iraq.In the west, ISIS took the desert provincial capital,...
View ArticleEast Jerusalem Becomes Focus Of The Conflict, And The Mood Is Bleak
Palestinians sit in a line of idling cars that stretches downhill, waiting to be allowed out of their East Jerusalem neighborhood via a road partially sealed off by Israeli police.Around the corner,...
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Access To Holy Places In Jerusalem Sparks Violence
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Transcript DAVID GREENE, HOST: We are trying to better understand the latest wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Secretary of...
View ArticleTargeted By ISIS, These Yazidis Refused To Leave Their Beloved Mountain
There's something regal about Abdi Ismail. The white-bearded paterfamilias sits cross-legged on a mattress, a scarf wrapped turban-like round his head, his children and chickens keeping a respectful...
View ArticleAs War Drags On, Syrian Refugees In Lebanon Sink Into Debt Trap
It's a common sight in Lebanon: a construction site where every laborer slapping cement onto cinder blocks is a Syrian refugee working illegally. The men take a break to smoke and to tell me how things...
View ArticleIn Jordan, A Family And A Country Feel The Loss Of A Pilot
Editor's Note: Jordan is a staunch ally of the US in the war against ISIS. A year ago, it paid a price when one of its planes crashed in Syria and ISIS captured a pilot. NPR's Alice Fordham kept in...
View ArticleFact Check: Did Obama Withdraw From Iraq Too Soon, Allowing ISIS To Grow?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k7-YNRc4iI
View ArticleIraq Faces A Perfect Economic Storm
Let's start on the frontline of every faltering economy: the grocery store. In a Baghdad shop lined with baskets of spices and rose petal tea, owner Osama al-Hassani is measuring out roasted, salted...
View ArticleThe Fragile Peace Of An Iraqi City Once Run By ISIS
Nine months ago, the only way into Tikrit was to roll along dirt roads recently cleared of ISIS explosives. You also had to avoid celebratory gunfire as Iraqi security forces and their allies wildly...
View ArticleThousands Of Iraqis Cross Mountains On Foot To Flee Islamic State
On a little patch of grass outside a police station in the small town of Rubayda in northern Iraq, a half-dozen women with small children sit on a rug, with a haggard-looking group of men nearby, eager...
View ArticleIn Chaotic Iraq, ISIS Is Just One Challenge Among Many
Iraq's war against the Islamic State is gaining momentum. Intensified U.S. airstrikes and more than a year of U.S. training of Iraqi soldiers seem to be paying off. ISIS supply lines have been cut and...
View ArticleThe Syrians Keep Fleeing, But Now They Hit Turkey's Closed Border
A whistle shrills, and a dozen boys tear across a gray schoolyard. Some are in sneakers, others have bare feet slapping the concrete.
View Article5 Years On, Syria's Moderate Rebels Are Exhausted And Sidelined
At a rehabilitation center in Turkey, just over the border from Syria, Bassam Farouh raises and lowers leg weights, wincing and holding onto a rail.The gray-haired Farouh is a Syrian rebel fighter who...
View ArticleA Remote Syrian Airstrip Hints At A Growing American Military Role
Blink, and you'd miss the little airstrip surrounded by farmland and tiny, mud-built villages in northeastern Syria.There are no checkpoints outside it. Nothing to stop people driving past — just two...
View ArticleIn Syria, Assyrian Christians Cling On After ISIS Onslaught
On a sky-blue Sunday morning in the little town of Tell Tamer in northeastern Syria, sunlight pours through olive trees, dappling the path to a church that has for almost a century been the center of...
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Upsurge In Violence In Syria Threatens Fragile Ceasefire
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View ArticleJoining ISIS: It's Not Always For Reasons You Might Assume
When I meet the captured ISIS fighter, he doesn't look much like the bombastic murderers in the propaganda videos.Ahmed Darwish, 29, is slight, hunched and shuffling in orange plastic sandals, wincing...
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