Donate

Anbar

Passengers walk on a platform before boarding a train to Fallujah.

Iraq gets on board with new rail service to Fallujah through former ISIS territory

Development

At Baghdad’s grand but half-empty railway station, a single train is sputtering to life. It is the newly revived daily service to Fallujah, a dusty town to the west once infamous as a Sunni insurgent stronghold.

Displaced Iraqi children at the Amriyat al-Fallujah camp in Anbar Province, Iraq, Jan. 3, 2018.

Iraq accused of forcibly returning displaced civilians from camps to unsafe areas

Conflict
An Iraqi soldier carries a displaced child from Ramadi on the outskirts of Baghdad on May 19, 2015.

As ISIS seeks revenge in Ramadi, a US veteran fears for his Sunni allies there

Conflict
A member of Kurdish security forces casts her ballot inside a polling station during early voting for the parliamentary election in Irbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region, on April 28, 2014.

Iraq is holding parliamentary elections in spite of horrific violence

Global Politics
A member of Kurdish security forces casts her ballot inside a polling station during early voting for the parliamentary election in Irbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region, on April 28, 2014.

Iraq is holding parliamentary elections in spite of horrific violence

Global Politics
Fighters of the 'Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria' parading through the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, last Thursday. The next day ISIS fighters were surprised by a concerted attack by other Syrian rebel groups. Dozens were killed.

A powerful al-Qaeda group is fighting in both Iraq and Syria

Conflict & Justice

It’s been quite a week for an al-Qaeda spin-off called ISIS. Last week, ISIS took over Fallujah in Iraq. But it seems some of the local Sunni tribes abandoned the group and have joined government forces fighting against al-Qaeda. Then, rebel groups in Syria combined to attack ISIS there. Borzou Daragahi of the Financial Times explains the politics that work for and against ISIS.

Control of Anbar goes back to Iraq

The U.S. military has handed Anbar province, once the center of Iraq’s Sunni insurgency, back to Iraqi control.