Having accepted that President Bashar al-Assad will stay in power for a "transitional period", the US is trying to persuade Russia and Iran to curb the worst excesses of their ally.

Nothing less than a multifaceted strategy is required to address both the political causes and the military symptoms of the rise of Isis, writes Robert Patman.

My role, as a journalist, should be to act as a witness; to report on the situation as a bystander and then leave it as I found it, but an incident in 2013 changed my perspective, writes Rachel Smalley.

Rachel Smalley is set to return to the Middle East this year as she continues to spread awareness and raise money for the growing refugee crisis.

The United States has blocked attempts by its Middle East allies to fly heavy weapons directly to the Kurds fighting Isis jihadists in Iraq.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully is quite blunt about the Security Council and the Middle East peace process.

Eye-witnesses say streets of Palmyra are strewn with hundreds of bodies – the latest victims of terrorists's savagery.

A 9-year-old girl who was taken as a sex slave by Isis was raped by 10 militants and is now pregnant, it has been reported.

Abducted, locked away, all but starved, raped... then, a dramatic escape. How one Yazidi girl escaped the clutches of her Isis captors.

Political unrest. Conflict. The collapse of the country's social infrastructure. And then a daily struggle just to stay alive. An artists has imagined what it would look like in NZ.

New images have emerged of three men accused of homosexuality and blasphemy being publicly beheaded at a traffic roundabout in northern Iraq.

Soldiers may be excused from going to train Iraqi forces in fight against Isis, for personal reasons. The Defence Force says it is part of being a "good employer".

Asim Qureshi has caused outrage by saying the murderer Jihadi John was 'beautiful' adding that he 'wouldn't hurt a fly'.

The Isis executioner known as 'Jihadi John' was today named as a graduate from London who was able to flee to Syria despite being on a terror watch list.

Prime Minister John Key has defended his angry counter-attack in Parliament after Opposition parties' criticised the decision to send troops to the Middle East.

NZ soldiers training Iraqi troops near Baghdad will not be taking a "them-and-us" view of the Iraqis but a partnership approach.

No New Zealand government should commit troops to a war zone without a clear awareness of the ramifications. In the case of the fight against the Islamic State.

The deployment of 106 Defence Force personnel to a military base in Iraq will include just 16 trainers, the New Zealand Defence Force chief confirmed yesterday.

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand is not considering an Iraq deployment to “wave its flag” or please its American allies, but to play an important role in forcing back the “reprehensible” Islamic State.

A video has emerged online claiming one of the two hostages being held by Isis has been killed and showing the other hostage outlining new terms for his release.

Hostages are a "military consultant" who headed to war zones after his wife died of cancer and a journalist dedicated to revealing horrors of war.

Intelligence agencies believe a teenager and her 20-year-old friend have become the first Australian women to join terrorists in Syria and offer themselves as jihadi brides.

Parliament has just passed legislation aimed at stopping would-be foreign fighters from leaving New Zealand to join Islamic State in Iraq.

The father of a teenager from Cardiff is thought to be the first Briton to have rescued his son from the jihadist group Islamic State.

Urgent changes to the law introduced to combat the threat of "foreign fighters" had been flagged by the Prime Minister as for short-term only.

The Islamic State militant known as Jihadi John has threatened to bring slaughter to the streets of Britain and the West in a new video announcing the murder of an American aid worker.

Three NZ Defence Force personnel have already left for the Middle East to scope out a role for New Zealand forces to help train Iraqi forces fight ISIS.

The Prime Minister's landmark speech on national security has two messages for New Zealanders, but they are somewhat discordant.

John Key says any NZ commitment to the campaign against Isis in the Middle East would be for a long time, pointing to the 10-year deployment of troops to Bamiyan.