Peter Kenyon

Turkey's deep suspicions of Kurds are hampering efforts to aid the besieged Syrian border town. Turkish authorities are stopping Kurdish men en route to Kobani and investigating them as terrorists.

Turkey has declined to intervene in the fighting, in part because the defenders are largely Kurdish. There are also Sunni Muslims joining the Kurds to fight ISIS.

Dozens of U.S. airstrikes in recent days have not prevented so-called Islamic State fighters from moving deeper into the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani. The United Nations is warning that thousands of people could be killed if the town falls.

Sanliurfa, the closest Turkish city to Kobani, is a ...

A U.S. envoy, former Marine Gen. John Allen, was in Turkey on Thursday, attempting to drum up support for the fight against ISIS.

Kobania, a Syrian border town, is being assaulted by militants from the self-described Islamic State. Turkey, with tanks and troops massed a short distance away, is being pressured to step in.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani told the U.N. that the solution to the problem of ISIS now must involve the region. He also said resolving the Iran nuclear issue could lead to greater cooperation.

In New York on Friday, Iran and six world powers sat down for the latest talks aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Negotiations resume this week in New York over Iran's nuclear program, but a summer of multiplying crises has world capitals distracted as the talks hit a crucial stage.

Both Turkey and Iran have much at stake as the Sunni militants battle for territory close to their respective borders. But each country has its own reasons to be distrustful.

Naif Khalif Omar, a 33-year-old Yazidi, had survived the worst of the violence unleashed by the militants of the Islamic State. In the end, despair, and a self-inflicted gunshot wound, killed him.

On Sunday, Iraqi and Kurdish forces broke a nearly 80-day siege by the Islamic State on the town of Amerli, where residents now have enough food and water for the first time in weeks.

Ever since the Islamic State seized Mosul more than two months ago, it's been difficult to get a detailed picture of life inside Iraq's second largest city.

But glimpses have emerged. This week, the United Nations human rights chief, Navi Pillay, presented details of a massacre that took ...

The northern Iraqi village of Al-Qoush was humming with activity — and some jitters — when NPR visited back in June. The Assyrian Christian villagers had opened their schools and homes to Iraqis fleeing the takeover of nearby Mosul by Islamist fighters calling themselves the Islamic State.

But ...

In The Sultan of Byzantium, Turkish author Selcuk Altun takes his hero into forgotten corners of the city, where once-majestic monuments go unnoticed amid the bustle of daily life.

Iraq's ethnic Kurds are longtime U.S. allies and have put up the toughest resistance to the Sunni extremists in the so-called Islamic State that has captured swaths or Iraq's north and west.

They're getting help from U.S. air strikes, but also need heavier weapons of their own to match the ...

The Yazidis are a small religious minority and have faced persecution again and again over the centuries. Some say it is now time to leave Iraq for good.

A major dam in northern Iraq, near the city of Mosul, is the latest flashpoint. Kurdish officials say their forces have driven militants from the dam. The militants say they're fighting to hang on.