Greg Myre

In an NPR interview, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also calls on the U.S. to focus more firepower on Iraq's western border with Syria, saying Islamic State fighters can enter his country too easily.

Depending on whom you ask, there have been 353 mass shootings in the United States this year, or four. Or some other number in between.

How can the figures be so far apart?

A mass shooting would seem to be self-evident. But with the highly politicized debate over gun control, ...

The shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., was the 355th mass shooting in the U.S. this year — or more than one per day on average so far in 2015 — according to groups monitoring such attacks in recent years.

The San Bernardino case, where 14 people were killed, wasn't ...

Let's start with one thing that's clear and simple in Syria's messy war: Many foreign powers are engaged in the battle, and all share the goal of beating back the Islamic State.

This very loose grouping includes Turkey and Russia, who aren't best friends, but at least have this common ...

Gunmen burst into the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital of Bamako on Friday and took some 170 guests and staff members hostage. There are casualties, but many details are murky. (We're following the story on the Two-Way Blog.)

Mali has been unstable in recent years, with radical ...

China's President Xi Jinping has condemned the Islamic State for killing a Chinese man held hostage by the extremist group. But in keeping with China's long-standing policy of not intervening in distant conflicts, he did not specify what action, if any, China might take.

ISIS said in its online magazine ...

The Islamic State's claim of responsibility for a trio of major attacks, including the assault on Paris, has led to a rapid reassessment of the extremist group and its aspirations.

Until a couple of weeks ago, ISIS appeared focused on building its self-declared caliphate, or Islamic empire, in its core ...

The Islamic State attacks in Paris last Friday added to the growing list of deadly attacks the extremist group has claimed outside its core territory of Syria and Iraq.

ISIS has been linked to dozens of attacks in multiple countries over the past year. Here's a look at some of ...

Extremist Islamist groups often choose between two options: controlling territory locally or carrying out terrorist attacks abroad. In claiming responsibility for the Paris attacks, the Islamic State has made clear it thinks it can do both.

Traditionally it's been an either-or choice for extremist groups because it's so difficult to ...

Since emerging as a powerful force two years ago, the Islamic State had focused its energies on building its self-proclaimed caliphate in the Middle East. The carnage in Paris, for which the group has claimed responsibility, demonstrated it can unleash a ferocious, coordinated assault far from its home ...

Russia's military intervention in Syria is intended as a lifeline for Syria's beleaguered President Bashar Assad. Yet the Kremlin's track record on bailing out floundering leaders is largely a litany of failure.

Over the past quarter-century, Moscow's proteges, clients and allies have often lost power, and sometimes their lives, despite ...

President Obama entered the White House with a pledge to bring home U.S. troops from two major wars. Now it looks almost certain he will leave office with U.S. forces engaged in three ongoing conflicts: Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Throughout his tenure, Obama's impulse has been to shrink the U.S. ...

Given the flood of migrants into Europe this year, one might think that continent is the main destination for those fleeing the miserable conditions in their homelands in North Africa and the Middle East.

But as the charts on this page show, migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers overwhelmingly take shelter in ...

U.S. troops in Afghanistan lowered the flag and boxed up their gear at the end of last year as President Obama declared the formal end to 13 years of U.S. combat operations.

As far as most Americans were concerned, that brought down the curtain on the ...

The migrant crisis in Europe and the Middle East lurches from one drama to the next by the day. First it's a rickety boat floundering in the Mediterranean. Next it's a new surge of migrants landing on European shores. Suddenly it's thousands of refugees stranded in an unwelcoming Hungary.

The ...

A single photo of a drowned Syrian child shocked the world's conscience this week and focused international attention on a conflict that has left a quarter million dead and sent 4 million fleeing in the past four years.

But beyond the powerful emotional impact and a surge in aid ...

It started so well. When Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the United States swiftly cobbled together a broad coalition, unleashed a stunning new generation of air power and waged a lightning ground offensive that lasted all of four days. Iraqi troops were so desperate to quit ...

The Iranian nuclear negotiations were hugely complicated. If you understood them, even vaguely, congratulations.

Now that there's a deal between Iran and six world powers, there's a whole new set of issues to master. Iran is obligated to scale back its nuclear program, inspectors will be poking around to ensure ...

Is it a good deal?

President Obama and his detractors are headed for a ferocious debate on this question following the nuclear agreement announced Tuesday in Vienna between Iran and six world powers.

The evidence likely will trickle in over an extended period. What's certain is that the narrow and ...

The Greek crisis is messy and complicated, filled with nebulous terms being casually tossed around. Most every story has obligatory mentions of "austerity," "bailouts" and "capital controls," but it can be difficult to determine what, precisely, all that jargon means.

So let's stick to the numbers. Here's a primer on ...