Iraq

Euractiv | – – Turkey will not allow “terror to take root” or “fait accompli situations” next to its borders, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday (1 October), a day after Russia launched air strikes in neighboring Syria. Russia launched its biggest intervention in the Middle East in decades on Wednesday (30 September), targeting […]

Iraq

The Young Iraqis Promoting Darwinism and Rationalism To Save Iraq

contributors

Marwan Jabbar | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – One of the more unusual, grass roots groups in Iraq today is Real Sciences. They are young Iraqis who translate scientific articles into Arabic, believing that a little more of this could combat violence. In the midst of the conflicts that Baghdad in particular, and the […]

Assyrians

Iraq: Can Mosul’s Christians ever Go Home to their Historic Neighborhoods?

contributors

Nawzat Shamdeen | Berlin | (Niqash.org) | – – They have been harassed, threatened, have lost all their worldly goods and forced to flee. What, if anything, would make Mosul’s Christians want to return to the city they used to call home? A celebration at an Orthodox church in Mosul in the early 20th Century: […]

Iraq

The tragedy of Iraq’s Sunnis

contributors

By Chloe Cornish IRIN | – – KIRKUK (IRIN) – Iraq is congested with armed men: Kurdish peshmerga in the north; forlorn Iraqi army troops strung across the country; ascendant Shia militia groups and volunteer Popular Mobilisation Forces in the centre; and, of course, fighters from so-called Islamic State in the west. Civilians travelling through […]

Iraq

Are U.S., Russian Arms Supplies to Iraq, Syria a Blessing to Rebel Groups?

contributors

Thalif Deen | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The United States and Russia are escalating arms sales to two of their major allies in the Middle East – Iraq and Syria – despite fears that some of these weapons may ultimately wind up, ironically, in the hands of armed rebel […]

Iraq

Iraq: Shiite Militia Abuses Mar Fight Against ISIS

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (Washington) – Iraqi government-backed militias carried out widespread destruction of homes and shops around the city of Tikrit in March and April 2015 in violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Militiamen deliberately destroyed several hundred civilian buildings with no apparent […]

Iraq

Tikrit: ‘My Son joined Daesh/ISIL, Now I’m Living in Hell’

contributors

By Ghazwan Hassan al-Jibouri | Tikrit | (Niqash.org) | – – While [the so-called ‘Islamic State’ group] ruled Tikrit, many locals joined. When they were beaten there, fighters fled, leaving family members behind. Today those relatives are harassed and cannot even leave their homes. Iraqi woman, Suniyad Mahmoud, lives in a small, mud house with […]

Displaced and Refugees

Refugees from the Phony Caliphate: Iraqis hire People Smugglers to escape Mosul

contributors

Special Correspondent | (Niqash.org) | – – Hassan Hafouzi* and his family paid people smugglers so they could leave Mosul, the city controlled by the so-called Islamic State group. Two days after they arrived in Istanbul, they told NIQASH how they got out. Don’t try to leave: The notorious al-Fath al-Mubin checkpoint on Mosul’s western […]

Featured

US Intel Chief: Iraq and Syria may not Survive as States

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Public remarks by the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency and by John Brennan, director of the CIA, suggest that Washington is making its peace with a break-up of Syria and Iraq. They hastened to say that break-up was not US policy, they simply saw […]