Arab World

Human Rights Watch | – – (New York) – Hossam Bahgat, a journalist and one of Egypt’s most prominent human rights figures, could be charged in military court after being detained on November 9, 2015, on military prosecutors’ orders. The prosecutors ordered Bahgat held for investigation on charges of publishing false news related to an […]

Iraq War

How a Web of Lies hoodwinked the American Public and delivered Iraq to ISIL

contributors

By Bryan Glyn Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – Last week one of the major architects in the construction of the Iraqi WMD myth, Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, died of heart failure at 71 in Baghdad. His death brought to an end a sordid chapter in U.S. history that saw Central Command launch an […]

Children

400,000 Syrian Refugee Children Can’t Go To School In Turkey

contributors

AJ+ | (Video Report) | – – “Even though Syrian refugee children can legally go to school in Turkey, language barriers and economic struggles make it hard for them to actually attend.” AJ+: “400,000 Syrian Refugee Children Can’t Go To School In Turkey”

Iraq

How can Iraqi PM al-Abadi defeat ISIL if his own Party has Turned on Him?

contributors

Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – Nobody in Iraqi politics appears to like Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi much anymore. Some dislike him for his proposed reforms, others for not reforming enough. It’s a no-win scenario. How long can he last? PM Haider al-Abadi: The senior politician may have run out of friends […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Russian Branch of Syria’s al-Qaeda appeals for Funding from Russian Muslims

contributors

By Joanna Paraszczuk | ( RFE/RL “Do you think you’re safe from the fires of hell? Give yourself a chance — help mujahedin on the path of God!” Thus reads a new fund-raising advertisement published on the VKontakte social network this week by the Russian-speaking battalion of Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front. “Do you […]

Bush

Bush Sr. Blames Neocons for Ruining W.’s Presidency: Is he Warning Jeb?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In interviews given for a new biography, George H. W. Bush, 91 lets loose against Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, whom he clearly blames for many of the failures of the presidency his son, George W. Bush. But if you attend carefully to what he said, […]

Iraq War

Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the wider fallout from the Iraq invasion

contributors

By David Morrison | (OpenDemocracy) | – – Tony Blair was warned by his intelligence chiefs that invading Iraq would increase the terror threat facing Britain. If MPs had known this, would they have voted for war? Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller was the director general of MI5, the UK’s domestic intelligence agency, from October 2002 until […]

Featured

In Rare Victory, Syrian Army breaks ISIL siege of West Aleppo

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The extensive Russian bombing campaign in support of the Syrian Arab Army of the Bashar al-Assad regime has yielded fewer victories than Moscow had hoped, and some of them have been reversed by al-Qaeda, ISIL or other fighters. But on Wednesday it was reported that the […]

Featured

With Ahmad Chalabi’s Death, Passing of an Age of Lies

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Ahmad Chalabi (1944-2015) died of a heart attack in Iraq on Tuesday. Clarence Darrow, the great trial lawyer and orator, said, “I’ve never killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction reading the obituary notices.” I don’t get any satisfaction from this obituary. In the first Star […]