Islamic State militants have abducted dozens of Christian families after seizing a strategically located town in the central Syrian province of Homs, a monitor said.

IS militants are thought to have killed up to 500 people — Iraqi civilians and soldiers — and forced 8,000 to flee from their homes as they captured the city of Ramadi, a provincial official said.

Since Saudi Arabia's foundation, its leaders have tried to keep a friendly regime in power in Yemen to prevent it from posing a threat. However, Mohamad Bazzi says this time the stakes are higher

Muslim clerics widely denounced Islamist militants in Syria over the burning to death of a Jordanian pilot, saying such a form of killing was considered an abomination under Islam, no matter the justification.

Jordan executed two al-Qaeda prisoners before dawn, just hours after an online video purported to show Islamic State group militants burning a captured Jordanian pilot to death in a cage.

The rise of ISIS has been uncomfortable for Muslims in Ireland. Ellie O’Byrne met up with some including a 16 year old who can’t chat to friends about his early years in Iraq and Syria

For Salah Paulis, it came down to a choice between his faith and his crop.

More than 12,000 foreigners from 74 countries have gone to fight with rebels in Syria, a leading terrorism expert has said.

Amnesty International says it has uncovered "gruesome" evidence of ethnic cleansing in northern Iraq by Islamic State (IS) militants.

A suicide bomber and several gunmen have attacked a Sunni mosque in a volatile province of Iraq during Friday prayers, killing at least 64 people and wounding more than 60.

It has been many months since ISIS first came to notice in the western media when they seized a town in the east of Syria. Since then they have swept across Syria and northern Iraq carrying out a murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The downing of Malaysian Airline MH17 with the deaths of all passengers and its crew must call into question the sense of having flight paths over conflict areas.

As the world’s estimated 1.6 billion Muslims marked the beginning of Ramadan this weekend, the holy season is marred by unprecedented turmoil, violence and sectarian hatreds that threaten to rip apart the Middle East.

A series of car bombs exploded across Iraq’s capital tonight, killing at least 52 people in a day of violence that saw militants storm a university in the country’s restive Anbar province and take dozens hostage, authorities said.

IN this year of ubiquitous commemorations, the centennial of Jan Karski’s birth has been largely overlooked. And yet Karski’s legacy is more important than ever — nowhere more so than in Syria.

Syrian warplanes carried out air strikes near the Lebanese border today, wounding at least 10 Syrians who were rushed to hospital in a nearby Lebanese town.

Former Lebanese minister Mohamad Chatah, who opposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, was killed in a massive bomb blast yesterday which one of his political allies blamed on the Shi’ite Hezbollah militia.

The Medical Council will be asked to appear before the Oireachtas education committee to explain how it plans to accredit the Bahrain medical facility of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in light of human rights violations.

Fighters from an al Qaida-linked Syrian rebel group beheaded an allied commander whom they mistook for a pro-government fighter, activists say.

An international human rights group has accused Syrian government forces and pro-regime militias of carrying out summary executions earlier this year that left at least 248 people dead.

Al-Qaida has said it was behind raids on two high-security prisons on the outskirts of Baghdad this week that killed dozens and set free hundreds of inmates, including some of its followers.

Pro-government gunmen in Syria have killed seven members of a local reconciliation committee in the central province of Homs, activists said.

Egypt’s top Muslim cleric has warned the country faces civil war and said he will go into seclusion at his home until the bloodshed ends as a show of protest.

Al-Qaida’s leader has urged Sunni Muslims to spare no effort to join the battle in Syria, overthrow President Bashar Assad and set up Islamic rule in the country.

Despite — or possibly because of — our history of internecine savagery conducted, in name at least, for nationalism or religion, we should be able to understand the motivations behind the carnage inflicted daily on populations in Middle East.

A car bomb targeting a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed 19 people in south-west Pakistan today.

A car bomb has exploded outside the women’s waiting area of a government office in Pakistan’s troubled north-west tribal region, killing at least 12 people and wounding 45 others, government officials said.

At least seven people were killed and dozens wounded in gun battles in the Lebanese capital Beirut and coastal Tripoli in further unrest linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Insurgents killed at least 64 people in a wave of attacks against Iraqi security forces today.

A top Muslim cleric has been shot dead and another injured by a car bomb in Russia’s Tatarstan province, officials said.

The new head of Syria’s main opposition group has called for mass defections from a regime struggling to survive by carrying out massacres, as the death toll in the uprising topped 14,000.

At least seven people were killed and 22 others injured in gun battles between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in northern Lebanon today, security officials said, as activists reported fresh shelling in a region in central Syria where a massacre last week left more than 100 people dead.

Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying Sunni Muslims and killed all 10 passengers in a troubled north western tribal region of Pakistan today, a government official said.

SYRIAN helicopter gunships fired machine guns to disperse a large pro-democracy protest in the town of Maarat al-Numaan, witnesses said.

Syrian tanks rolled into a Mediterranean coastal town today in an escalating crackdown by President Bashar Assad, just a day after clashes with anti-government protesters left at least 30 dead nationwide.

The besieged people of Daraa braved sniper fire to pull the bullet-riddled bodies of their dead from the streets today.

A parliament group has asked Bahrain’s king to impose martial law after a month of unrest which has left the tiny Gulf nation sharply divided between minority Sunni Muslims backing the ruling system and Shiites demanding sweeping changes.

HUNDREDS of protesters burned tires and blocked roads across Lebanon yesterday after a Hezbollah-backed politician was named prime minister, shifting the balance of power in the country toward Syria and Iran.

At least 40 people have been killed and 75 wounded in a suicide bombing outside an Iraqi police station in a crowd of recruits waiting to apply for jobs.

The leader of Hezbollah defended the decision to bring down Lebanon’s Western-backed government, saying the Shiite militant group did so without resorting to violence and will not be intimidated by world reaction.

Hundreds of Sunni Muslims have started a nearly 200-mile high-risk trek across Pakistan in a protest against Taliban attacks on the country’s religious sites.

Islamic militants attacked two mosques packed with hundreds of worshippers in Pakistan today killing more than 70 people and wounding dozens.

The Shia militant group Hezbollah seized control of key parts of Beirut from Western-backed Sunni rivals today in a show of force as it fights for dominance in Lebanon’s political deadlock.

YESTERDAY, more than a billion Christians around the world marked the gravest observance on their calendar, Good Friday, the day Jesus died on the cross.