The Taliban massacre of children at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, was shortly followed by a deadly Qaeda attack on a schoolbus stopped at a Houthi rebel checkpoint in Yemen.
Despite—or perhaps partly because of—threats and deadly attacks from ISIS militants, a record 15.5 million Shi'ite pilgrims have converged on Karbala for Arbaeen.
A failed US commando raid on al-Qaeda in Yemen comes as Saudi Arabia has suspended aid to the country in response to the growing power of Shi'ite Houthi militants.
Iran launched air-strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq, the Pentagon admitted. Meanwhile, it appears that NATO ally Turkey opened its territory to ISIS forces attacking Kobani.
A study by UK-based Institute for Economics and Peace finds there were nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in 2013, 44% more than the year before.
Hundreds of thousands from across Saudi Arabia converged on a village for the funeral for victims of a sectarian attack, chanting "Sunnis and Shi'ites, we are brothers!"
Clashes erupted between the Lebanese army and Sunni gunmen in the northern city of Tripoli following the arrest of a suspected ISIS leader in an army raid.
Pakistani and Iranian forces exchanged mortar fire along their border in the divided region of Baluchistan, after days of Baluch militant attacks both sides of the line.
Sh'iite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was convicted of sedition and other charges in Saudi Arabia and sentenced to death—posing greater sectarian tensions in the Gulf states.
Iraqi government-backed Shi'ite militia have been committing war crimes and abducting and murdering "scores" of Sunni men, Amnesty International finds.
The Anbar Tribal Council warns that the western Iraqi governorate is 80% under control of ISIS, and remaining tribal fighters could be routed without urgent intervention.
Following a preliminary examination, the International Criminal Court prosecutor has opened a formal inquiry into ongoing probable war crimes in the Central African Republic.
