The Dome of the Rock Mosque in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known by the Jews as the Temple Mount, is seen in Jerusalem's Old City. Israel closed the site to all visitors on Thursday following an assassination attempt on a right-wing Jewish activist.
Sebastian Scheiner/AP
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Iraqi soldiers walk in Jurf al-Sakhr, south of the capital Baghdad, on Monday after Iraqi military forces retook the area from Islamic State militants. Iraqi forces, supported by U.S. airstrikes, have made limited gains in recent months, but critics are questioning whether the U.S. strategy is likely to succeed.
Haidar Mohammed Ali/AFP/Getty Images
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An explosion following an airstrike is seen in the Syrian town of Kobani from near the Mursitpinar border crossing in the southeastern town of Suruc, in Turkey's Sanliurfa province, on Wednesday.
Yannis Behrakis/Reuters/Landov
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud as the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, listens before a meeting at the Royal Palace in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sept. 11.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
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Three female members of Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and an Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighter stand near the front line in Makhmur, in northern Iraq, on Aug. 9. The Turkish and Iraqi Kurds have been fighting together against the Islamic State.
Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images
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A voter raises her ink-stained finger after voting in Tunis Sunday. Tunisians voted in parliamentary elections that bring full democracy finally within their reach, in the cradle of the Arab Spring.
Zoubeir Souissi/Reuters /Landov
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A small solar-powered tree, invented by Israeli energy entrepreneur Michael Lasry, stands at the edge of natural greenery.
Emily Harris/NPR
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Reyhaneh Jabbari, seen here during a 2008 court date in Tehran, was executed in Iran Saturday. She had said she acted to defend herself from a potential rapist.
GOLARA SAJADIAN/AFP/Getty Images
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Companies from Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran were among the more than 100 Internet startups at this year's Startup Istanbul event on Sept. 30. It was Iranian entrepreneurs' first time competing on an international stage.
Courtesy of Startup Istanbul
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The site at Gobekli Tepe, or "Potbelly Hill," on the Urfa plain in southeastern Turkey is believed by some to be the world's first place of worship. This would upend the conventional thought that religion developed as a byproduct of human settlements.
Vincent J. Musi/National Geographic Society/Corbis
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Vincent J. Musi/National Geographic Society/Corbis
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon delivers a statement at the Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Jerusalem in June.
Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
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Peshmerga look out from a front-line outpost — a few sandbags, soldiers, and grenades perched on the brow of a hill — to the eastern Iraqi town of Jalula. The Kurdish fighters are grappling with how to combat changing ISIS tactics.
Alice Fordham/NPR
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Adi Asulin stands in the kitchen of her family's remodeled apartment north of Tel Aviv. She saved thousands of dollars by flying to China to buy furnishings and flooring directly from manufacturers.
Emily Harris/NPR
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Protesters rail outside the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center on opening night of the opera "The Death of Klinghoffer" on Monday in New York.
Bryan Thomas/Getty Images
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Aza Betwata (left) and his brother Mirwan (center) left Holland to join the Kurdish peshmerga fighting against ISIS militants in northern Iraq. Though the brothers come from a family of fighters, Aza had just two days of training — his brother must show him how to strip and clean his rifle.
Alice Fordham/NPR
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Syrian Kurdish fighter Delkhwaz Sheikh Ahmad, 22, sits with his wife Siham, 23, and their two sons, Dilyar and Ibrahim, at his brother's house on the Turkey-Syria border on Friday. He was preparing to leave for Kobani, Syria, to rejoin the fighting against the Islamic State.
Lefteris Pitarakis/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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