Jane Arraf

More than a year after ISIS was driven out, residents are doing their best to rebuild in historic neighborhoods left in rubble. "Even if no one else came back," a shopkeeper says, "I would come back."

More than a year after the end of the battle of Mosul, the large Iraqi city still has neighborhoods in rubble and a traumatized people trying to rebuild their lives.

An Iraqi man looks back on seven decades in the city of Mosul, recalling the times of turmoil and horror but also savoring the city's better days.

Egypt is building a new capital about 30 miles away from overpopulated Cairo.

The protests sweeping Basra and other southern provinces in the past week threaten to destabilize Iraq's caretaker government.

Protests have gripped areas in southern Iraq for several days. The government has cut off access to the Internet, making it more difficult to get accurate information.

NPR recently visited the base, where 150 U.S. soldiers and Marines provide support for Iraqi and U.S.-backed Syrian forces.

A U.S. major general tours a remote outpost of troops along the Iraq-Syria border, where U.S. Marines and soldiers fire into Syria to hit ISIS targets and help secure the relative calm in Iraq.

NPR travels with a U.S. general as he tours the remote border of Iraq and Syria, where U.S. troops are shelling ISIS targets and trying to secure Iraq.

About 3,800 objects purchased by Hobby Lobby were returned to Iraq in May. Some come from an ancient Sumerian city, Irisagrig, and indicate that life there was "pretty good," an archaeologist says.

Antiquities that had been smuggled into the U.S. and bought by Hobby Lobby, the craft store giant, are headed back to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, Iraq's main archeological museum.

Homosexuality isn't illegal in Egypt but human rights groups say other laws have been used to target LGBT Egyptians. "Prison killed me. It destroyed me," says an Egyptian woman jailed after a concert.

The battle that the United Nations and aid agencies have feared in the Yemen civil war has begun. A Saudi-led coalition began its attack on a major port city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.

The U.S.-backed coalition says it aims to oust Iranian-sponsored Houthi rebels, but aid groups warn of potentially high civilian casualties.

The U.N. pulled foreign staff from Hodeidah amid efforts to avert an attack by pro-government forces backed by the United Arab Emirates. A shutdown of the port could put hundreds of thousands at risk.

The United Nations has withdrawn its international aid workers from Hodeidah amid intense negotiations to avert a devastating attack by Emirati-backed pro-government forces.

More than 500 foreign women are accused of being married to ISIS fighters and are standing trial in Iraq. The women have more than 1,100 young children. All face a perilous future.

King Abdullah appointed economist Omar Razzaz as his new prime minister. It will be up to Razzaz to defuse a crisis over a plan that would levy income tax even on those earning $11,000 a year.

Protesters were out in cities across Jordan demonstrating against IMF-backed austerity measures that include a new income tax. In the capital Amman, protesters are demanding a new government.

Tax and price hikes in Jordan are shaking the Middle East kingdom and increasing tensions in the country that's a key ally for the U.S.