A German father struggles to find and bring home his young daughter, taken by his ex-wife when she went to Syria five years ago with her new husband, an ISIS fighter.
The city has a rich heritage of buildings and mosques. Today, the battle scars are as prominent as ever and residents displaced by the conflict complain about the sluggish reconstruction.
Because their fathers were ISIS fighters, the Yazidi community rejects the children and forces their mothers to give them up. Some willingly do so, but others are desperate for news of their children.
Kurdish Syrian authorities have tried 7,000 ISIS suspects in a justice system that bans torture and the death penalty. Some of the judges are women, which comes as a shock to ISIS fighters on trial.
ISIS has radicalized people around the world. But even with one of the world's largest Muslim populations, India has had very few cases of radicalization — until recently. Most cases are in the south.
In recent visits to the camp, NPR was told of babies dying of malnutrition, and found women collapsed by roadsides. "There's a lack of supplies and the numbers of patients are huge," a doctor says.
Women kidnapped by ISIS five years ago are now being freed. But the Yazidi community does not allow children born in captivity of militant fathers to return with them.
"America sees this as an existential fight," writes former CIA analyst Aki Peritz, who argues in this case, the classic insurgent strategy of bleeding a better-resourced adversary is doomed to fail.
"The women and children who have been raised on the mentality of ISIS and terrorism need to be rehabilitated," an official warns. "Otherwise, they will be the foundations of future terrorism."
"This is not a victory announcement," the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces say, even as they celebrate a breakthrough in a battle in Syria's Euphrates River Valley.
Shamima Begum, who was 15 when she fled to Syria in 2015, had been begging to return to the U.K. prior to her son's birth last month, saying she feared for his health. He died of pneumonia.
A judge ruled there isn't sufficient evidence proving Hoda Muthana and her toddler face imminent harm in Syria. It's a setback for the ISIS bride who hoped to fight her citizenship claim from the U.S.
Hoda Muthana was 20 when she moved to Syria and started posting ISIS propaganda online. She says she has renounced the group and wants to return home, but the Trump administration refuses to allow it.
They say there's rarely enough evidence to prosecute. "The U.S. does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go," Trump tweeted.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's amendment opposing a "precipitous withdrawal" from Syria was backed by many GOP senators who disagree with the president's foreign policy.
After four years in Syria, two brothers returned home to Trinidad this week, following an extraordinary intervention by their mother, a renowned human rights lawyer and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.
ISIS may not be defeated, but the U.S. is right to withdraw from Syria, argue Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson Center and Richard Sokolsky of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The Americans died in a suicide bombing near a restaurant in Manbij, in northern Syria. Analysts say the attacker may have targeted a spot that had become a favorite for U.S. troops.
ISIS has lost almost all its territory, but it claimed a suicide bombing that killed four Americans. The extremist group is still believed to have thousands of fighters who have gone underground.
Four Americans are reported dead, and three more injured, in a suicide bombing in northern Syria. The attack comes shortly after President Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw troops from Syria.
