More on the Middle East
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday that would sharply toughen U.S. economic sanctions on...
By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Minutes after Greg Hicks learned that the perimeter of the U.S. mission in Benghazi had been breached by men with guns,...
By Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times
TEHRAN — Iranian presidential candidates began registering Tuesday for the national election next month to choose a successor to...
By Sergei L. Loiko and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW — The United States and Russia agreed Tuesday to try to bring together the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and...
By Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — With three airstrikes against Syria since January, Israel has inserted itself forcefully into the "Arab Spring's" most...
By Patrick J. McDonnell, David S. Cloud and Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — Huge explosions were reported in Damascus early Sunday, just two days after a reported Israeli airstrike in Syria targeting...
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — Iraqi security used disproportionate force, including shooting unarmed civilians, during a raid on an encampment of Sunni...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
By Ned Parker and Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times
ARSAL, Lebanon — When Mustafa Ezzedine, a Sunni Muslim from this Sunni border town, wanted to buy some furniture, he undertook a...
By Paul Richter and Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The White House is considering providing weapons to the Syrian rebels, officials said Tuesday, but no decision is...
By Rasha Elass, Los Angeles Times
DAMASCUS, Syria — White daffodils and violet daisies waxed aromatic from the crystal vase on the young couple's dining table....
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — Hold the martini, please.
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — Shiite-dominated areas in southern and central Iraq were rocked Monday by car bomb explosions that killed at least 22 people...
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government ordered 10 predominantly Sunni Muslim satellite television channels to cease broadcasting Sunday,...
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — Four Iraqi soldiers were shot dead Saturday, the day after Sunni Arab tribes in the restive western province of Anbar...
By Paul Richter, Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agree that Syrians have been exposed to deadly sarin gas in recent weeks, but they...
By David S. Cloud and Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The White House said for the first time that there was evidence Syria had used chemical weapons in its civil war, but...
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — The Syrian government says its forces this week seized a strategic township east of Damascus after weeks of fighting, but...
By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — Israel said Thursday that it shot down an unmanned aircraft that had entered Israeli airspace off the northern coast...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — President Mohamed Morsi casts himself as a leader navigating a landscape bristling with conspiracies by...
By Edmund Sanders and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — Israel's accusation that Syria used chemical weapons against rebels raises the prospect that Damascus crossed what...
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — Security forces for the Shiite-led Iraqi government raided a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on Tuesday, igniting...
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Divisions between Syrian rebels and their foreign supporters came into focus Saturday as a leading opposition group...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — Egypt's besieged justice minister has submitted his resignation after protests over the weekend by Islamists, who want to...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
GIZA, Egypt — The woman with crates of unsold tomatoes breathed in the boisterous music of slum life: creaking shutters, squawking...
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Secretary of State John F. Kerry urged Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to delay a planned visit to...
By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — Growing up poor and motherless in the slums of Jerusalem's Old City, Amoun Sleem dropped out of school at age 7 after...
By Ken Dilanian and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The British and French governments have asked the United Nations to investigate what they believe is credible evidence...
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry implored Congress on Thursday not to impose tough new sanctions on Iran, warning that...
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is sending about 200 troops to Jordan, the vanguard of a potential U.S. military force of 20,000 or more...
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad warned in a television interview Wednesday that the war against his government risked spreading...
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry told Congress on Wednesday that any chance of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times
ANTAKYA, Turkey — In newly printed textbooks at dozens of Syrian refugee schools, a small piece of Middle East geography has been...
By Ned Parker and Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad issued an order Tuesday freeing up to 7,000 prison inmates, but it was not clear whether the...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — The Mass was celebrated as if from centuries past: A bearded priest veiled in incense chanted for grace in a church along...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — President Mohamed Morsi, at least for the moment, appears to be channeling his softer side.
By Ramin Mostaghim and Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
TEHRAN — The reform movement that took to the streets to protest alleged vote-rigging in Iran's last presidential election has been...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
By Rasha Elass and Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
DAMASCUS, Syria — A suicide car bombing in central Damascus killed at least 15 people and wounded 53 on Monday, Syrian state...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
ZINTAN, Libya — The prized scion of Moammar Kadafi is a prisoner of tribesmen in these mountains of scrub and ocher rock.
By Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Iranian officials did not directly respond Friday to the latest American-backed offer to curb Tehran's disputed nuclear...
By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times
After much debate that brought the passions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to campus, UC Riverside's student government has reversed...
By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times
JABAL AL-ZAWIYA, Syria — The rebel commander Jamal Maroof was fiddling with his iPhone when a young man brought him news.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — He arrived with a prankster's aplomb.
By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times
REYHANLI, Turkey — The Syrian opposition fighter arrived unexpectedly at Dr. Mazen Kewara's office at the Syrian American Medical...
By Batsheva Sobelman, Los Angeles Times
TEL AVIV — Israel's highest-ranking female soldier says efforts to draft male ultra-Orthodox students into the Israel Defense Forces...
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the geopolitical winner of the war appears...
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities arrested and charged a 30-year-old U.S. Army veteran turned Middle East "freedom fighter" with...
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — A Syrian opposition coalition was seated as the legitimate government of Syria at an Arab League summit Tuesday, and the...
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times
AL QASR, Lebanon — Each evening, Ali Jamal and other men in this border town grab their Kalashnikov assault rifles, jump on their...
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — The head of a U.S.-backed Syrian opposition coalition resigned his post Sunday, a major blow to a group that the United...
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — A day after announcing his resignation as prime minister, Najib Mikati on Saturday called for a "salvation" government to run...
By Edmund Sanders and Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — President Obama brokered a diplomatic reconciliation between key Middle East allies Israel and Turkey at the end of his...
By Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times
JABIR, Jordan — The Jordanian officer slowly cut the rudimentary dressing that covered the boy's left arm. Patches of red ooze...
By Edmund Sanders and Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — Evoking the Jewish people's biblical struggle for freedom, President Obama called upon Israelis Thursday to sweep aside...
By David Lauter, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama's involvement in the tortuous Middle East peace process can be divided into three chapters, two of...
By Edmund Sanders and Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — In a much-anticipated visit laden with symbols of friendship and words of assurance, President Obama and Prime Minister...
By Edmund Sanders and Batsheva Sobelman, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — By choosing to deliver his landmark speech to Israel in an auditorium filled with students and young people, President...
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD — A bronze statue of a slain Shiite Muslim cleric greets motorists as they drive down the airport highway that invading...
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — The Syrian government accused rebels Tuesday of killing dozens of civilians in a chemical attack near the northern city of...
By Edmund Sanders and Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — As President Obama prepared for his first official trip to Israel, he made a point of referring to Prime Minister Benjamin...
By Maher Abukhater and Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
RAMALLAH, West Bank — As Israelis roll out new red carpet and line streets with American flags for President Obama's visit, the U.S....
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — An offer in the most recent round of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program has created anxiety in Israel and...
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — The Muslim women in Marwa Adel's photographs are shadows, repressed by custom, religion, marriage and regret. While nude,...
By John Horn, Los Angeles Times
Israel's Shin Bet — think of it as a combination of the CIA and the FBI — prides itself on secrecy. So when documentary...