The elite troops being sent in to help dismantle Isis are men who have been waging a secret - or not so secret - war for 14 years.

In the years since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, Alaa Aljaleel has become his hometown's unofficial feline caretaker.

Western countries face the prospect of being dragged further into the war in Syria as it prepares to support a new "ground army" from Muslim nations.

New Zealanders first got to know journalist Rachel Smalley from her lively work in television and radio.

Simply by raising the idea of commemorating the wars annually, at least one New Zealander - me - studied up on what the wars were about, Heather writes.

A mother and an Auckland community will gather today to salute their fallen soldier.

Special Ops task force will expand US troops' direct involvement in battling Isis commanders.

Twelve years ago, George W Bush gave his "Mission Accomplished" speech from the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, confident that the Saddam Hussein regime had been....

Before the Syrian conflict, the country suffered a severe drought. Resulting crop failures sent over 1.5 million people into urban centres that contributed to the destabilisation of the country and devastating civil war.

COMMENT: Russia's President has been taught a lesson with the shooting of a warplane over Turkish air space.

The downing of a Russian SU24 fighter jet by Turkish authorities was inevitable. Russia has flouted the territorial border of Turkey time and again in the past few months so it is no surprise that this has happened.

The immense human toll is a far more immediate and obvious concern.

Muslim communities have to be more forthright in their commitment to Western values and less indulgent of those in their midst who preach and practice hatred, writes Paul Thomas.

The Paris attacks and the largely stalemated war in Iraq and Syria have prompted heavy criticism of Barack Obama's handling of the fight against Isis.

France launched fresh air strikes against Syria yesterday, as a defiant Paris reopened for business.

There is a dissonance between the reality of modern war and the high ideals by which war is justified, writes Chris Barfoot. These ideals form a deadly combination.

A field of 100 wooden crosses will be unveiled to mark the anniversary of the end of World War I.

The father of a Northland man's World War I diaries could be the last returned to veterans' descendants by the British archive.

The greatest honour we can pay the dead is to learn from the past and to never commit ourselves to such barbarity again, writes Anton Oliver

Sometimes historical mistakes are so monumental it is pointless to wonder what might have been.

France has honoured the heroic efforts of two New Zealand war veterans.

Filmed from a camera attached to a helmet of one of the commandos, the viewer sees the scene more or less as that soldier did.

Real-life links of Ben Wishaw's family to world of espionage revealed in book by agent's daughter.

An African man shot by an Israeli guard who mistook him for an assailant was then kicked by a mob as he lay bleeding before he died.

Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem are expected to be sealed off and soldiers placed in city centres to support the police amid rising bloodshed and unrest.

American anti-tank missiles supplied to Syrian rebels are playing an unexpectedly prominent role in shaping the Syrian battlefield.

Yunus Emre Alagoz, whose younger brother Abdurrahman killed 33 people in a bomb massacre in July, was named by Turkish police in local media.

Hundreds of people have turned out to commemorate the Battle of Passchendaele - an event military historians describe as this country's darkest hour.

Russia's presence in Syria under the pretence taking the fight to Isis is a strategic triumph for Vladimir Putin and an embarrassment for Barack Obama, writes Paul Thomas.