Most Western reporters covering the war in Iraq do not speak Arabic, so they are dependent on translators and various officials and getting opinions average people becomes challenging. Too often, you consumers of mainstream media are victims of a fraud. You think you can trust the articles you read - why wouldn't you?

When Rami Khouri, the editor-at-large for The Daily Star in Beirut, graduated from Syracuse University in 1970, he heard no mentions of Palestine in Western media. Today, Khouri sees the same media bias as he did 43 years ago, but now he's capable of speaking out against the Middle East's misrepresentation in the press.

The terror group has been locked in a battle with Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian border town of Kobani since mid-September. The United States and its allies are bombing ISIS positions there, but airstrikes have yet to pry Kobani from the group's hands. Kareem says he fought for a year all across ISIS-controlled territory. He says other fighters he was with were promised wives by ISIS. Most of the fighters were foreigners, he says, and he had difficulty communicating with them because they didn't speak the local Syrian dialect of Arabic. Kareem says he even met a fighter from China at one point.

(CNN) -- He runs his terror group like a CEO -- with spreadsheets on missions, assassinations and captured assets. And reports from Iraq's government suggest ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been hit in airstrikes over the weekend -- though it's not clear whether he was wounded, whose strikes he may have been hit by and in what part of the country he may have been struck.

Orwellian fiction and reality appeared to blur into one on Sunday when reports suggested that an Egyptian undergraduate had been arrested for possessing a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

A jihadist group which has carried out a series of attacks on security forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS). Ansar Beit al-Maqdis announced the move on a Twitter account in Arabic, saying IS promised "a new dawn raising the banner of monotheism".

At the start of the "Arab Spring," I was so optimistic about the prospect of democracy in the Middle East and heartened by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. On my mind was the oppression of millions of Syrians by the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime.

Six weeks have passed since the US-led coalition began its strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants and other jihadist groups in Syria, but recent developments in the stricken country confirm that the mission is facing huge challenges, as BBC Arabic's Feras Kilani reports "We are vanishing before the eyes of the whole world, including our friends in the US," a disappointed moderate commander told the BBC over the phone, after his group's defeat by the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.

Territorial control in Syria has changed many times since the country's uprising began more than three years ago and the current conflict is characterised by fluctuating frontlines. In particular, over the last few months, fighters from Islamic State (IS) - the extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq - have been battling regime forces in new areas, clashing with other armed groups close to Damascus as well as invading Kurdish regions.

(CNN) -- He's enemy No. 1 in the fight against ISIS. But after waves of airstrikes by both Iraq and U.S.-led coalition forces, questions abound over whether the terror group's leader was hit. Iraq's Ministry of Interior said the Iraqi air force wounded ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and killed a number of his senior leaders in an airstrike on the Iraqi town of Al-Qaem on Saturday.

Britain has launched its first drone strike against Islamic State (Isis) fighters in Iraq. An RAF Reaper drone fired a Hellfire missile at Isis forces laying improvised explosive devices near Bayji, the site of Iraq's biggest oil refinery, north of Baghdad, over the weekend, the Ministry of Defence said on Monday.

US-led attacks on the jihadis of the Islamic State (Isis) are the product of a "confused" policy that is turning a "blind eye" to the crimes of President Bashar al-Assad, the leader of Syria's main western-backed opposition group said on Monday.

Voting was extended from two days to three in Egypt's presidential election on Tuesday, apparently because of an unexpectedly low turnout. The contest pits Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, until recently minister of defense and a high-ranking general, against leftist warhorse Hamdeen Sabahi, a fixed election all on its own.

Britain will make "a significant contribution" to equip and train the moderate Syrian opposition to defeat both Islamic State extremists and the Damascus regime of President Bashar al-Assad, its foreign secretary said on Monday. Secretary of Foreign Affairs made a statement,"The UK is helping the opposition establish security and governance, and to deliver essential services. This includes life-saving search and rescue training, helping Syrians whose homes have been reduced to rubble by the regime's bombs."

Democracy was the key word during the Arab Spring demonstrations of 2011. Rather than violent uprisings, they were protests calling for free elections, parliaments and, more generally, a stake in society for millions kept alienated and impoverished.

Saturday October 11 signalled the start of the new academic year in Egyptian universities, delayed this year by the authorities from September to mid-October to allow them time to prepare their security forces for the expected demonstrations.

(CNN) -- Airstrikes against ISIS militants are a "psychological operation," not a military one, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Friday. "It is a common threat for all of us," he said. "And this requires a unison effort from all of us."

Irbil, Iraq (CNN) -- Shortly after ISIS claimed to have carried out attacks within miles of Baghdad, police officials confirmed Tuesday that the ISIS militants had struck Iraqi military checkpoints on the southern outskirts of the capital during the weekend.

I want to cleanse Libya of Muslim Brotherhood: Haftar Renegade general launches 'operation dignity' against Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in Libya Ahram Online, Tuesday 20 May 2014 A retired Libyan general has said he wants to cleanse Libya of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist radicals.