Arab World

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Arabic reports that Turkey has launched a land invasion of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria, home to some 500,000 Kurds. Turkey has also flooded Arab fundamentalist fighters into the region, calling them “Free Syrian Army.” The move comes after some 72 Turkish F-16s […]

China

Is China coming into Syria for its “One Belt, One Road”?

Neil Thompson

By Neil Thompson | (Informed Comment) | – – As the Syrian civil war begins to wind down after six and a half years of bitter fighting, a new phase is emerging in the battered country’s political life — plans for country’s postwar reconstruction are already being laid even as the fighting between Islamist rebels […]

Egypt

Pence starts Middle East tour in Egypt, pledges ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ support

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation’s fight against militants. Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after […]

Arms Sales

10,000 Deaths Later Germany Bars Arms Sales to Yemen Attackers

contributors

TeleSur | – – Only in the third financial quarter of 2017 German arms sale to Saudi Arabia accounted for US$550 million. Spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Friday the country will “immediately” stop all arms exports to countries involved in the ongoing war in Yemen, which began in March 2015 and has so […]

Donald Trump

Syria: Turkey Begins Military Operation against US-Allied Kurds in Afrin

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reuters reports that on Friday, Turkey began cross-border shelling of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria. There are also reports of busloads of Sunni Arab guerrillas of the rebel Free Syrian Army, who had been sheltered in Turkey, being sent into Afrin. The region is […]

Iraq

A Mountain Kingdom? Iraqi leaders unconcerned About New PKK ‘Region’

Juan Cole

Special Correspondent | Erbil | (Niqash.org) | – – Late last month the Kurdistan Worker’s Party – an organization some describe as terrorist – declared a region of self-rule in the Qandil mountains. Strangely enough, nobody seems all that upset about their claim. The road into the Qandil mountain area run by the PKK. Only […]

Featured

Russia accuses US of destabilizing Syria with Kurdish-Turkish Clash

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s angry threat to invade a Syrian Kurdish canton in response to the US announcement that it would train and arm a 30,000-man Syrian Kurdish border force produced anxiety in Moscow. Russia has made a big bet, worth billions of rubles and involving […]

Djibouti

Turkey to deploy 60,000 soldiers in bases abroad, including in Qatar

contributors

Middle East Monitor |- – 60,000 armed Turkish soldiers will be deployed across four military bases abroad in accordance with a new 2022 plan, The New Khalij reported today. The Turkish National Security Council finalised the plan yesterday, in order to meet Turkey’s military and commercial interests to support its allies. Turkey already has 3,000 […]

Featured

Trump Admin Commits to Forever War in Syria against Iran

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave a talk Wednesday at the right wing Hoover Institution that hovers over Stanford University, in which he committed to a Forever War in Syria. The talk was a mishmash of incompatible talking points and full of inaccurate and tendentious assertions, […]