Arab World

A security guard outside a branch of one Iraq’s most powerful paramilitary groups shot and killed a protester on Friday while trying to push back a crowd, police sources said, ratcheting up tensions over a lack of basic services sweeping southern cities. Two people were wounded when demonstrators throwing bricks and stones gathered outside the […]

Syria

Syria Rebels Surrender Zone Bordering Israeli-Occupied Golan

Rouba El Husseini

With Omar Haj Kadour in Al-Eis | – Beirut (AFP) – Syrian rebels have agreed to surrender a sensitive area bordering the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, a monitor and opposition source said Thursday, the latest in a series of deals expanding regime control over key territory. The agreement follows another deal that saw thousands of residents […]

Donald Trump

US Gen. Denies Change in US Syria Policy despite post-Summit Russian Announcement

AFP

Washington (AFP) – The top commander overseeing US military involvement in Syria said Thursday he’d received no new instructions to work with Russians since President Donald Trump met with his Russian counterpart in Finland. “No new guidance for me as a result of the Helsinki discussions as of yet,” General Joe Votel, who heads US […]

Donald Trump

US War on the Weak: Trump in Mideast helps Crush Palestinians, Yemenis

Rebecca Gordon

San Francisco (Tomdispatch.com) – My father and I always had a tacit agreement: “We will never speak of That Part of the World.” He’d grown up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Norfolk, Virginia. His own father, a refugee from early-twentieth-century pogroms in what is now Ukraine, had been the president of his local Zionist […]

Iraq

Protest Wave: ‘Explosion of Rage at System that has Robbed Iraqis of’ Hope

Ali Choukeir

Baghdad (AFP) – In the heat of battle against the Islamic State group, Iraqis united against a common enemy. But just a few months after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over the jihadists, social grievances that once simmered on the back burner have boiled over in a series of protests that have spread to […]

Donald Trump

What exactly did Trump Promise Putin on Syria, START Nuclear Treaty?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – There was a difference of opinion in the Russian press about whether the Putin-Trump Helsinki summit was contentless or whether new agreements were reached, especially on strategy and Syria. BBC Monitoring of the Russian press reports an editorial in the Vedomosti business daily on the Helsinki summit, which says that […]

Iraq

Iraq: Massive Protests against US-Installed Gov’t Enter Second Week

AFP

Basra (Iraq) (AFP) – Protests in Iraq continued into their second week Monday following days of clashes that left eight people dead, with demonstrators rallying to put social problems in the spotlight. Months after Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State group, attention has turned from the military battle to the fight for jobs and […]

Russia

Backed by Putin Air Force, Syrian Army rapidly takes 90% of Daraa

Rouba El Husseini

Beirut (AFP) – Syrian regime forces backed by Russia made sweeping advances on Monday against rebels holding out in the country’s vital southern zone. For nearly one month, Syria’s government has worked to capture the provinces of Daraa and Quneitra with a mix of heavy bombardment, ground attacks and surrender deals brokered by Moscow. Despite […]

Syria

With 5 Powers fighting in Syria, who will come out on top? Netanyahu, Putin, or Trump?

Reese Erlich

San Francisco (48 Hills) – Russian bombs rained down on towns of southern Syria as an estimated 320,000 civilians fled for their lives. Over the past several weeks tens of thousands walked to the Jordanian and Israeli borders hoping to escape the onslaught. Rula Amin, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, based in […]