By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reprint edn. (Slightly rearranged & revised): 1. Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets– any illicit use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of […]
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Archives for 2015
What’s Wrong with Asking Muslims to Condemn Terrorism?
Written by Bridge Initiative Team | (Bridge) | – – Last [September], Vox journalist Max Fisher recounted a interesting story about an exchange between Larry King and a Muslim fan seeking a photo. Upon learning the fan was from Saudi Arabia, the former CNN host told him that he is Jewish and wondered aloud if […]
Trump’s “Deportation Force” Too Nuts For Even Bill O’Reilly
Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola | (The Young Turks Video Report) | – – “Donald Trump has elaborated on his immigration policy. He plans on assembling a “Deportation Force” to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. Bill O’Reilly thought it was a bit far-fetched. Ana Kasparian (The Point) and John Iadarola (Think Tank), hosts of the […]
Kurdish Fighters cut Road between ISIL centers of Raqqa and Mosul
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Al-Arabiya reports that the Security Council in Iraqi Kurdistan has announced that their paramilitary, the Peshmerga have taken 150 square kilometers of the city of Sinjar from Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) and has the entire city surrounded. Some sources say that 70% of the city has fallen […]
Jerusalem Tensions: It’s how the Israelis are Ruling Palestinians There
Brian K. Barber | (Informed Comment) | – – Once again violence has spiked between Palestinians and Israelis; a surge that might well be hard to quell given the chaotic, random, crude, and brutal forms it has taken. There is still an alarming amount of commentary that attributes blame for the violence primarily or solely […]
Afghanistan: America’s Military Money Pit
By Tom Engelhardt | (Informed Comment) | – – Let’s begin with the $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills, Iraqi oil money held in the U.S. The Bush administration began flying it into Baghdad on C-130s soon after U.S. troops entered that city in April 2003. Essentially dumped into the void that had once been […]
Beirut: ISIL claims twin Suicide Bombs in Shiite Area that kill over 41, injure 200
Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — At least 41 people were killed and nearly 200 injured in two suicide bombs targeting a Hezbollah stronghold in the south of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, according to local news reports. Lebanese Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said initial reports indicated that two suicide bombers blew […]
Are 2,000 Gulf fighters in Syria a terrorist threat to . . . the Gulf?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A Saudi preacher has given a press briefing on young men from the Gulf fighting against the al-Assad regime. Although the Hizbullah fighters from Lebanon are often mentioned in the US press as an example of foreign interference, there is little mention of this Gulf contingent. […]
Is the Iraqi army a lost cause?
By Jon Moran | (The Conversation) | – – Building an army in a short space of time is a very difficult task. To be sure, there are some impressive examples. Cromwell’s republican New Model Army was put together while the English Civil War was already underway; Washington’s army of US Independence quickly wore down […]