Middle East crisis

23 years after the United States military invaded Iraq, sparking an insurgency and a civil war, the U.S. has withdrawn its forces, as the country still tries to combat Iranian influence.

Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who commanded U.S. troops in Iraq, says the withdrawal could strengthen Iran and leave Iraq more vulnerable to ISIS.

Turkey's bid for regional influence comes as the Middle East has been hit by profound shocks that started with the Hamas-led 2023 attack on Israel and continue with the seven-month-old war on Iran.

President Trump said he was rejecting an Iranian plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian proposal is similar to a memorandum of understanding agreed upon by the U.S. and Iran back in June.

Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour spent his life painting the faces and landscapes of Israeli occupation. His sons say NPR was the last media to meet him before he died in August.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the U.N. General Assembly a day after President Trump threatened from the same podium to "annihilate" Iran.

As the U.S. conflict with Iran drags, the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have opened a new front, taking new territory and displacing more than 100,000 people.

Saudi Arabia said Yemen's Houthi rebels tried to attack Riyadh with a ballistic missile, the first time its capital has been targeted since the escalation in fighting with the Iran-backed rebels.

The U.N. expanded the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon's mandate 20 years ago to include monitoring adherence to a ceasefire in fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah — the militant group created in 1982 to counter a second Israeli invasion.

Human rights experts commissioned by the U.N. say they have found "reasonable grounds" to believe the U.S. committed war crimes in Iran, including a strike on a school in the southern city of Minab.