Iraq

Nouri al-Maliki, who is seeking a third term as prime minister of Iraq in the teeth of widespread opposition, abruptly began acting like a strongman on Sunday night. He went on television to denounce President Fuad Masoum for not having appointed a prime minister yet, even though Sunday was the constitutional deadline for him to […]

Iraq

The US intervened again in Iraq in Part to Save the Yazidis: Who are They?

contributors

By Petr Kubalek via RFE/RL Islamic militants this week encircled thousands of members of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, prompting the Obama administration to carry out humanitarian air drops to the refugees who fled their homes to Mount Sinjar. Here are answers to six questions about the Yazidi people, religion, and history. Who Are […]

Featured

The Cruel Jest of American “Humanitarian Aid” to Iraq

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The United States of America has no claim on the language of “humanitarian aid” to Iraq after what it did to that country. It is rather as though Washington should send Meals Ready to Eat to the good people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One is happy that the US has dropped food […]

Iraq

Iraq: Tribes and other Sunnis begin Splitting from so-Called “Islamic State”

contributors

By Shalaw Mohammed | Kirkuk | via Niqash.org The Sunni Muslim extremist group that has taken over parts of Iraq recently is dependent on support from locals in the areas it wants to control. Recently one group of locals tried to leave – they wanted open roads, prisoner releases and a truce with their neighbours. […]

Christianity

New Wave of Christian Refugees as “Islamic State” Takes Iraq’s Largest Christian Town

contributors

By Middle East Eye “Christians have fled from the largest Christian city in Iraq as the militants of the Islamic State took control. They were given a choice of death, fleeing, conversion or taxation, after IS over powered the much vaunted Kurdish peshmerga.” Middle East Eye: “Christians flee Qaraqoush in Iraq as Islamic State takes […]

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Why is Obama bombing Iraq, Really?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Al-Zaman reports that a US drone hit mortar emplacements and F-18s struck artillery arrays and armored vehicles deployed by the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) in Kuwair east of Mosul on the way to the Kurdistan capital of Irbil, and near a major dam, some ares of which are controlled by the IS […]

Displaced and Refugees

Iraq: Yazidis Trapped By Extremists: ‘We Will Run Out Of Food, Water In Two Days’

contributors

By Khales Joumah | Mosul | via Niqash.org Over the weekend, the Sunni Muslim extremist group, Islamic State, entered the Sinjar area in northern Iraq. Their arrival saw the population, mostly members of the ethno-religious Yazidi group, flee. NIQASH spoke with three refugee families, one trapped in the mountains, another that made it to relative […]

Iraq

The Capital of the Caliphate: VICE on the so-called “Islamic State” in Syria & Iraq

contributors

By VICE: “The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced their intention to reestablish the caliphate and declared their leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, […]

Featured

Obama & Airstrikes to Protect Iraqi Kurds: 1991 Deja Vu all Over Again

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole During the Gulf War in early 1991, then-president George H. W. Bush called on Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. In the Kurdish north and in the Shiite South, hundreds of thousands heeded his call. But after the short war was over in March, Bush appears to […]