James Clapper, the United States Director of National Intelligence, warned last month of al Qaeda taking advantage of the growing conflict in Syria. The Syrian regime and its supporters frequently claim that the opposition is dominated by al Qaeda-linked extremists. Opposition supporters often counter that the uprising is completely secular. But months of reporting on the ground in Syria revealed that the truth is more complex.

The Occupy movements that swept across the United States and the world are concerned with the plight of “the 99 per cent”. As someone who was fortunate to grow up in Syria as part of the 1 per cent, let me tell you, in the winter, we were cold.

The conventional wisdom in Washington and beyond is that Bashar al-Assad will fall on his own and that an intervention would be counterproductive, but with thousands dying we need to reconsider those assumptions

The creation of an independent Palestine, side by side with Israel, is broadly supported internationally, formally backed by successive U.S. administrations, and enjoys popular support in Israel, according to polling data.

Omar Ashour is Director of Middle East Graduate Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter (UK), and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.

While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s demagoguery and Holocaust revisionism on the world stage have earned him alarmist comparisons to Adolf Hitler, his recent, ignoble fall from grace reveals the Iranian president for what he really is: the dispensable sword of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Renewed fighting in Yemen's capital between a powerful tribal group known as the al-Ahmar family and President Ali Abdullah Saleh's forces has reportedly killed over one hundred people in the past week (al-Jazeera) and raised questions about whether the country is on the brink of civil war. The possibility looms large if the military gets involved in the conflict between the government and tribal forces, says Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen. While the United States has been a generous benefactor to Yemen over the years, the aid has fluctuated with the perceived terrorist threat, says Johnsen.

Meet the brave souls who dare to stand up to the guns of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria is one of Israel's strongest enemies, but it has been predictable and relatively stable.

BERLIN — On Feb. 18, Germany did something unthinkable. It voted in favor of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling the Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory illegal and demanding the immediate halt of all settlement activity.