Iraq

By Peter Van Buren via Tomdispatch.com What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Seven Worst-Case Scenarios in the Battle with the Islamic State By Peter Van Buren You know the joke? You describe something obviously heading for disaster — a friend crossing Death Valley with next to no gas in his car — and then add, “What […]

Displaced and Refugees

Real Estate Agents to the Terrorists: ISIL Steals Mosul Refugee Property to Raise Money

contributors

By Nawzat Shamdeen via Niqash.org The Sunni Muslim extremist group that has taken over the northern city of Mosul has a new source of income: real estate. The Islamic State group has confiscated the properties of all those who fled or taken them off those they consider enemies. Locals say the plan is to auction […]

Colonialism

America’s Colonial Armies: Absentee Soldiers, Corrupt Officers and Collapse

contributors

By William J. Astore via Tomdispatch.com In June, tens of thousands of Iraqi Security Forces in Nineveh province north of Baghdad collapsed in the face of attacks from the militants of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS), abandoning four major cities to that extremist movement. The collapse drew much notice in our media, but not much in the way of […]

Featured

Is Baghdad next? ISIL takes Hit Base in Iraq, loots it for Weapons

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole According to Aljazeera sources, ISIL has completed the taking of Hit district in the al-Anbar Province of Iraq. At a time when, supposedly, a range of coalition partners is taking on ISIL and attempting to push it back from the territory it has taken in Syria and Iraq, in fact the organization […]

Human Rights

Iraqi Kurds to Turkey: Let Volunteers Through To Defend Failing Kobani

contributors

By Charles Recknagel via RFE/RL A top official of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region is calling on Turkey to let volunteer fighters through to the besieged Syrian city of Kobani, where Syrian Kurds are waging a desperate battle against Islamic State (IS) militants. Speaking on a visit to RFE/RL in Prague on October 13, Falah Mustafa, […]

Featured

The Wider Appeal of ISIL and Sunni Grievances

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole al-Quds al-`Arabi [Arab Jerusalem] reports on the appeal of ISIL to Salafi hard line Sunni Muslims. In a worrisome development, radicals throughout the region are rallying to the so-called “Islamic State,” which is actually just a bunch of armed thugs and brigands. Some of the Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan have announced their […]

Iraq

Iraq’s Sole Yazidi Lawmaker Says 25,000 Girls Abducted By ISIL To Be Raped, Sold

contributors

By Freshta Jalalzai and Luke Johnson via RFE/RL Iraq's only ethnic Yazidi member of parliament says that the human rights situation in her country is "deteriorating," with Islamic State (IS) militants kidnapping, raping, and selling Yazidi women. "They are still without any shelter. They are sleeping on the streets. The situation is not good and the […]

Featured

ISIL takes one third of strategic Kobane in Syria, loses Tuz Khurmato in Iraq

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole al-Khalij [The Gulf] (Sharjah, UAE) reports that the Syrian Human Rights Observatory says ISIL fighters are now in one third of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane (`Ayn al-`Arab). The radical fundamentalists have advanced into the besieged city despite a new round of US and other bombings on its outskirts. In contrast […]

Iran

Is the new US airbase in Iraqi Kurdistan all about Iran?

contributors

By Hiwa Barznjy | Erbil | via Niqash.org NIQASH interviewed Safeen Dizayee, the spokesperson for the government of semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. During a candid and wide ranging conversation, Dizayee spoke about why the US is building a new airbase in the region, where exactly Iraqi Kurdish oil is going and whether refugees in the region […]