In 2016, one in four American armed personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan was a private contractor–most of whom were older, white men.
Iraqis protest against the government and the lack of basic services outside the regional government headquarters in the southern city of Basra on September 5th, 2018.
A year after the liberation of Mosul, Iraq's boys find themselves in a series of dead ends.
Tired of candidates who offer splashy, unrealistic promises, many citizens lost faith in the electoral process. That discontent showed in the election turnout.
While the region touts some of the most pro-feminism positions in the world, there are still many regressive aspects to its society.
An Iraqi man walks past a prosthetic leg in a residential area in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq, on March 13th, 2018.
Haji Ali, Iraq: A view of the village—which has been ravaged by battles against ISIS—through one of its destroyed buildings.
With Special Operations Command personnel making up an increasingly large share of troop levels abroad, the government mandate for wartime transparency becomes less binding.
Displaced Iraqi children from the former embattled city of Mosul attend school at the Hasan Sham camp, east of Erbil in northern Iraq, on November 20th, 2017.
The American military has released hundreds of videos showing U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. The victims are not always the intended targets.
The 7.3-magnitude earthquake killed more than 400 people and injured thousands.
A member of the Iraqi forces covers his ears as he fires a mortar against Kurdish Peshmerga positions near the Turkish and Syrian borders in the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region on October 26th, 2017.
Iraqi forces arrive in the southern outskirts of Kirkuk on October 16th, 2017.
Syrian Kurds wave the Kurdish flag in the Syrian city of Qamishli on September 27th, 2017, during a gathering in support of the independence referendum in Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
An Iraqi boy flashes the sign for victory as he celebrates in the Old City of Mosul on July 9th, 2017, after the government's announcement of the liberation of the embattled city.
The rise of precision munitions should have made civilian casualties an avoidable relic of yesteryear. It didn't.
A new paper identifies the Westerners finding their way to Iraq and Syria—and how great a threat they pose, and what should be done to stop them.
What the Mexican novelist can teach us about the nativist fantasies of Donald Trump.
A recent bombing in the town of Suruc has prodded Turkey into re-thinking its approach to ISIS and Syria.
A new study suggests witnessing death, not just deployment or combat, raises soldiers' risk of suicide.
A military study finds the length of service and dishonorable discharges have a much larger influence on suicide risk than being sent to war.
In a new essay collection, historian Richard J. Evans argues against the popular conception.