Qaeda-aligned insurgent group ISIS destroyed a Sufi Muslim shrine in Syrian Kurdistan and announced a "jizya" tax on non-Muslims in their zones of control.
Azad Ahmed, a leading figure in Iraq’s civil resistance movement, was murdered by unknown assailants when his car was stopped between Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah.
Sixteen accused militants were hanged in Iran’s Baluchistan provinceāin apparent retaliation for the deaths of at least 14 border guards in an ambush just the night before.
Elements of Washington wonkdom are calling for the break-up of Syria into ethno-sectarian mini-states, and see the separatist contagion spreading to the rest of the Middle East.
Survivors of the 1988 gas attack on Iraq's Kurdish city of Halabja announced that they will bring suit against companies that supplied chemical agents to Saddam Hussein.
Up to 20,000 refugees have crossed from Syria into Iraqi Kurdistan, fleeing fighting between Kurdish militias and Salafist factions led by the Nusra Front.
Sectarian violence has killed at least 200 in Iraq since the start of Ramadan, and Hezbollah has launched an Iraqi wing to fight al-Qaeda’s networks in the country.
A rocket strike near an important Shi’ite shrine in Damascus sparked protests throughout the Shia world, while Kurdish militias fight jihadist forces in northern Syria.
Turkish security forces killed one and wounded nine as Kurdish villagers armed with improvised petrol bombs attacked a construction site of the gendarmerie in Diyarbakir.
An alliance between the Free Syrian Army and the People’s Protection Committees (YPG), the country’s main Kurdish militia, broke down amid internecine clashes in Aleppo.
Ten years after the US invasion, Iraq is enmeshed in a cycle of human rights abuses, including attacks on civilians, torture and unfair trials, Amnesty International charges.
Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government announced that ExxonMobil has begun exploring for oil in the regionāin a deal rejected by the Baghdad central government as illegal.
