Democrat Hillary Clinton and her Republican White House rival Donald Trump went head-to-head on Monday night in a prime-time duel in front of tens of millions of American voters.

Here is a selection of key quotes from the first of three debates leading up to the November 8 election:

It had become something they just had to do: whenever the main shopping street in Baghdad's Karrada district was bombed, Hussein al-Fatlawi and his brother would rush to help.

When the Islamic State jihadist group set off a car bomb on Karrada Dakhil street shortly before midnight on September 5, 24-year-old Hussein was halfway up the stairs to his flat.

Every time he hears a loud noise, Imed al-Firi hides his healthy leg under a cushion -- a reflex he developed after the summer of 2014, when Israeli tank fire struck his Gaza home and robbed him of his right leg.

For Karam al-Masri, AFP's reporter, photographer and videojournalist in rebel-held Aleppo, the past five years have been a series of tragedies: detention by the regime, and then the Islamic State group, the death of his parents in an air strike, the siege of his hometown, hunger and bombardment. 

Once an economic powerhouse, Aleppo and its surrounding countryside have suffered some of the bloodiest violence in Syria's five-year conflict that has cost more than 300,000 lives.

Mutwali Mohamed watched helplessly as his wife and son slipped under the waves after the crowded migrant boat they boarded capsized off Egypt's coast on its voyage to Italy.

Almost 48 hours after a deadly attack on an aid convoy in Syria that killed about 20 civilians, Russia still furiously denies its jets or Syrian regime planes were responsible.

Here is what we know about Monday's attack that forced the U.N. to suspend its aid deliveries inside the war-torn country:

A ceasefire billed as the "last chance" to halt Syria's five-year war collapsed on Monday night as air strikes battered Aleppo and a U.N. aid convoy was hit near the city.

A ceasefire brokered by Moscow and Washington is due to take effect in Syria at sundown on Monday, the latest bid to end fighting between government forces and non-jihadist rebels. 

The 9/11 attacks of 2001 forever changed America and upended its foreign and national security policy, leaving the country for the past 15 years in a war against jihadists -- without ending the upheaval in the Middle East.

Barack Obama, who will leave the White House in January, is the president who tried to get the U.S. military out of the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan -- devastating "war on terror" conflicts launched by his predecessor George W. Bush in the wake of the suicide plane strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people.