Arab World

Kurds Iraq ISIS Middle East Iran

As ISIL dwindles, Iraq fears extremists fleeing Syria

Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – Iraqi forces are upset about the safe passage granted to Islamic State fighters from Syria. They will enter Iraq, where, locals say, thousands of their comrades await them in the extremists’ secret capital. Last week, Lebanese officials confirmed that around 670 defeated members of the extremist […]

Bashar al-Assad

Have we Won yet? Was ISIL a flash in the Pan?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – With the Iraqi campaign against ISIL having wrested from it Mosul and Talafar, and with Hawija and Qaim really the last two areas where it actually controls a town, you have to wonder if ISIL was ever all that formidable. Three years after it announced its […]

Archaeology

Syria’s Heritage, and the World’s, that the War Destroyed–From Palmyra to Castles

contributors

Written by Alreem Kamal | ( GlobalVoices.org) | – – Syria's story is one that has been weaved through families from one millennium to the next. Subjugated as a Roman province under the command of Pompey the Great in 64 BC, and brought under Ottoman rule 16 centuries later by Sultan Selim I in 1516, […]

Displaced and Refugees

Are Muslims allowed to be Sympathetic Victims in US Media, or only Perpetrators?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Libyan activist Hend Amry makes an important point about the relative lack of interest of television news in stories such as the persecution of the Burmese (Myanmar) Muslims by the Buddhist establishment: When Muslims are the victims of terrorism, there isn't the fraction of western attention […]

Arab World

Arabs, Thomas Friedman and the “iron fist”

contributors

By Brian Whitaker | ( Al-Bab.com) Writing about conflicts in the Middle East for the New York Times yesterday, columnist Thomas Friedman talked of “the power that is lost to a society like Syria or Iraq that needs an iron fist to make its many into one, and when that fist is removed, how the […]

Featured

The Criminals who amplified Harvey: Trump & Cabinet must Resign

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The whole Trump administration should resign in shame, since they have lied to the American people about the disaster of burning fossil fuels. The policies of climate change denial made Hurricane Harvey far worse than it would ordinarily have been, some scientists say by as much […]

Displaced and Refugees

20,000 Civilians Trapped in besieged ISIL capital: “The Worst Place on Earth”

Juan Cole

By Roshni Majumdar | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28 2017 (IPS) – The battle to reclaim Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL/Da’esh), has raised concerns among top UN officials as at least 20,000 civilians remain trapped under heavy fire in the city. […]

Featured

Is Israel’s Netanyahu preparing for War on Iranian Special Ops in Syria?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu filled the ear of visiting UN secretary general Antonio Guterres with complaints about Iran and Hizbullah on the latter’s visit to the region. He complained that the UN border patrol, UNIFIL, in South Lebanon, has not reported the thousands of rockets […]