Hundreds of international fighters have flocked to Syria to join the war against Bashar al-Assad’s government, most of them ill-equipped.

Former comrades are pitted against one another –and against a besieged government.

On a side street off Mogadishu’s Wadnaha Road frontline a young officer is explaining the unwritten rules of the city’s intractable civil war.

Dizzying construction boom relies on migrant labourers who are lured into a life of squalor and exploitation, writes Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.

In most cities of the world, a person might expect to be feted for surviving a single bomb attack. In Baghdad, survival stories can be found on every street corner. Ali, a…

On the banks of the Shatt al-Arab in southern Iraq, a family business is thriving. For the Ashur, a small clan of 50 families, it’s worth several million dollars a week. Costs…