Syria

The World Food Program says it needs $64 million immediately to continue a voucher program that allows refugees in countries bordering Syria to buy food in local shops.

From videos to Internet magazines, the extremist group has successfully recruited around the world. One of its recent claims: Enslaving women as a prize of war is sanctioned by the Quran.

Abdul-Rahman Kassig went to Iraq as a U.S. soldier and returned to the Middle East to establish an aid group. Here's a look at what motivated him to undertake a risky mission that cost him his life.

We rarely hear from the Syrian civilians trapped by the country's civil war. NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks to a Syrian filmmaker and photographer who describes life in a rebel enclave outside Damascus.

The kidnapping and killing of Westerners isn't a new phenomenon in the Middle East. But the last time around, it stopped after just a few years. This time there's no end in sight.

In a statement, Paula and Ed Kassig remembered their 26-year-old son, Peter Kassig, also known as Abdul-Rahman Kassig, as both a realist and an idealist. Kassig was killed by the Islamic State group.

The self-declared Islamic State released a new video Sunday that shows the beheading of hostage Peter Kassig, who was kidnapped in Syria last year.

U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State began nearly three months ago, yet there have been relatively few changes on the battlefield. Many analysts say the U.S. effort may not be sufficient.

Syrian rebels and Iraqi peshmerga fighters have been allowed to use Turkish territory to enter the fight against militants of the self-declared Islamic State.

Kurdish groups have often quarreled among themselves, or at least kept their distance. But Kurds from Iraq and Turkey have been fighting side by side in northern Iraq against the Islamic State.

A vast plain near Syria is no stranger to military carnage. But a place known as "Potbelly Hill" holds ruins built in ancient times, possibly for ritual purposes, long before organized religion.

Most of those killed — 464 — were fighters with the Islamic State. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also counted 32 civilians among the dead.