The Pentagon will send 600 additional troops to Iraq to help in the offensive to retake Mosul from ISIS—but it is unclear if they will be backing Shi'ite, Sunni or Kurdish forces.
Days after the supposed Syria "ceasefire" took effect, Assad regime and Russian warplanes carried out multiple air-strikes on rebel-held towns, leaving some 20 dead.
Iraqi authorities carried out the hanging of 36 accused ISIS militants convicted in the 2014 Camp Speicher massacre—but rights groups said the trials failed to meet judicial standards.
Saudi fighter jets carried out air-strikes on a peaceful rally in Yemen's capital Sanaa that had been called to protest Saudi air-strikes, leaving several dead.
The US  for the first time scrambled jets in response to Assad regime aggression when its Kurdish anti-ISIS partners came under bombardment—foreboding direct conflict with Russia.
Lawyers went on strike and journalists staged demonstrations after scores were slain in a Taliban terror attack on a hospital in Quetta, capital of restive Balochistan province.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein criticized Iran for the mass execution of 20 people this week, calling the action "deplorable."
Human Rights Watch urged Iraqi military commanders to prevent abusive sectarian militias from participating in the campaign to retake the city of Mosul from ISIS.
Exiled Bahraini human rights defender Maryam al-Khawaja, speaking in New York, says the Arab regimes are exploiting sectarianism to pit revolutions against each other.
ISIS claimed responsibility for twin suicide blasts that killed at least 80 and wounded 230 Shi'ite Hazaras who were gathered in Kabul for a protest demonstration.
Bahrain's high court ordered al-Wefaq, the main Shi'ite opposition party, to be dissolved, ruling that it had engaged in "terrorism, extremism, and violence."
Shi'ite militiamen who fought alongside the Iraqi army in the battle for Fallujah are believed to have seized some 900 civilian men and boys and killed nearly 50.
