Some of the Romanian men and women who have served under NATO in Afghanistan tell BIRN why they went and what it was like.It began with 265 soldiers and 15 medics. Almost 19 years later, Romania’s participation in NATO’s mission in Afghanistan has grown to 693 troops, making the former …

No longer the supreme jihadist group, al-Qaeda has seen other outfits grow and has sometimes clashed with them on the ground. The reported deaths of al-Qaeda’s top two leaders in recent months have raised questions about the future strategy and strength of the terror network, already a shadow of the …

In recent months, “Islamic State” extremists have been demanding tax payments from residents of towns and villages in eastern Syria. Clashes in the Syrian desert between Russia-backed Syrian government forces and “Islamic State” (ISIS) group extremists killed 11 regime loyalists Wednesday, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based …