Raqia Hassan risked her life by openly criticising ISIS on Facebook. Her friends, family, and fellow activists remember her determination to tell the world the grim truth about life in Syria. 

Iraqi forces claim that they are in full control of the city of Ramadi, recapturing it from Islamic State fighters.

The photo of a dead 3-year-old Syrian boy on a Turkish beach captures everything we don’t want to see when we tap our phones or open our newspapers: a vicious civil war, a surge of refugees, the death of an innocent. 

IS militants have reduced the amount of water flowing to government-held areas in Iraq’s western Anbar province, an official said.

Islamic State (IS) extremists have unleashed a wave of suicide attacks targeting the Iraqi army in western Anbar province, killing at least 17 troops.

Islamic State militants are said to be advancing toward the historic city of Palmyra in central Syria, seizing an oil field and taking control of the water company on the outskirts.

Syria warns of ‘aggression’ as 40 Turkish troops brought home

For most sportspeople, the suggestion of Iraq as the next step in a fledgling career might, you’d imagine, hasten the search for a new agent.

US-led air strikes have targeted Syrian oil installations held by the Islamic State group, killing nearly 20 people, as the militants released dozens of detainees in their de facto capital, activists said.

The militant Islamic State group has released a video warning the US that fighters await in Iraq if Barack Obama sends troops there.

The US military has stepped up its campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants with five airstrikes across Iraq.

The Arab League has agreed to combat extremists such as the Islamic State group as one of its suicide bombers killed 16 people at a meeting of Sunni tribal fighters and security troops in Iraq.

Syria launched a series of airstrikes targeting a stronghold of the Islamic State extremist group today, killing at least 25 people, most of whom died when one of the missiles slammed into a crowded bakery, activists said.

Sunni fighters led by an al-Qaeda breakaway group expanded their offensive in a volatile western province, capturing three strategic towns and the first border crossing with Syria to fall on the Iraqi side.

Sixteen people, including three civilians, have been killed in air strikes by the Syrian army against an eastern town which was captured by fighters from an al Qaida breakaway group a day earlier, according to activists.

Israel launched an airstrike into Syria, apparently targeting a suspected weapons site, US officials have said.

Syrian government airstrikes killed at least 14 people in the northern province of Raqqa less than a week after rebels seized the area’s provincial capital, activists said today.

Syrian rebels captured the country’s largest dam today after days of intense clashes, giving them control over water and electricity supplies for much of the country in a major blow to Bashar Assad’s regime.

Wars of the future are likely to be fought over water as climate change, the needs of growing populations, and the greed of politicians collide, writes Dan Buckley

A gang of gunmen disguised in military uniforms killed 25 police, then hoisted the battle flag of al-Qaida in a well-organised attack in the Iraqi city of Haditha.

PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad extended a tank onslaught in Syria’s Sunni Muslim tribal heartland, residents said, in an escalating crackdown on protesters that prompted an extraordinary rebuke from the Saudi king warning the Syrian leader to adopt reforms or risk defeat.

A US Navy special forces soldier was cleared today of taking part in the abuse of an Iraqi prisoner who masterminded a lethal attack on private security guards.

A car bomb exploded near the Iranian Embassy today in Baghdad, killing at least two civilians and wounding five, police said.

The White House says North Korea’s secret work on a nuclear reactor with Syria was “a dangerous and potentially destabilising development for the world”.

Iraqi security forces seized 200 explosive belts today along the Syrian border, a police spokesman said, reinforcing Baghdad’s claims that its western neighbour isn’t doing enough to stop the flow of fighters and weapons to al Qaida in Iraq.

An al-Qaida-umbrella group claimed its militants killed three American soldiers after capturing them last month in Iraq, according to a new video released today.

A body pulled from the Euphrates River south of Baghdad yesterday has been identified as one of three American soldiers abducted two weeks ago in an ambush claimed by al-Qaida.

Iraqi police today found the body of a man floating in the Euphrates River who was wearing what appeared to be a US military uniform.

A Jordanian who was responsible for slaughtering two US soldiers last month was fatally wounded in a clash with security forces, a senior Iraqi official said today.

A rubbish collector and a Baghdad University security chief were killed today - among the latest victims of seemingly random violence in Iraq as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki steps up his efforts to bring insurgents into the political process.

A senior Iraqi military official today said the bodies of two missing US soldiers had been discovered on a street near the town where they went missing.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida-linked militant who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq, has been killed in a US air raid north of Baghdad, Iraq’s prime minister said today.

THE speaker of parliament announced yesterday he was postponing a planned session of parliament “for a few days”.

A car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque south of Baghdad today, killing at least 10 people and injuring about 25, police said.

Insurgents attacked several US bases and government offices with mortars and rockets today before dispersing in Ramadi, the capital of western Iraq’s Anbar province.

A suicide car bomber killed 21 people in northern Iraq yesterday after insurgents lured police to the scene by shooting an officer, officials said.

US and Iraqi forces fighting insurgents near the Syrian border encountered fierce resistance today, with troops encountering dozens of explosive booby traps and killing at least 30 insurgents, a military statement said.

US and Iraqi troops battled insurgents house-to-house yesterday, the third day of an assault against al-Qaida-led militants in a town near the Syrian border as the US command reported the first American death in the operation.