Syria

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Russian side of the story, presented in the Syrian press, is that an al-Qaeda-linked group in Idlib, a northwestern province of Syria, used a shoulder-mounted missile launcher to shoot down a Russian fighter jet. The pilot ejected and landed, but then was attacked by ground […]

Foreign Policy

US general defies Turkey, says not planning Manbij troop withdrawal

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – The United States has no plans to withdraw troops stationed near the town of Manbij in northern Syria despite warnings from Turkey to remove its forces immediately, CNN quoted the US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel as saying. Pulling US forces from Manbij is “not something we are […]

Kurds

Ankara warns US spec ops to Abandon Kurds or risk Turkish Attacks

contributors

TeleSur | – – Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag also stated that “those who support the terrorist organisation will become a target in this battle.” Turkey’s government has urged the United States to rein in its support for pro-Kurdish fighters, otherwise, they risk engaging with Turkish troops on the battlefront in Syria. The statement, […]

Afghanistan

US Pentagon will Keep fighting in Syria until they win the Vietnam War

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Vietnam: it’s always there. Looming in the past, informing American futures. A 50-year-old war, once labeled the longest in our history, is still alive and well and still being refought by one group of Americans: the military high command. And almost half a century later, they’re […]

Featured

In blow to Trump, Syrian Kurds call on al-Assad to Save them from Turkey

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The hopes of the Trump administration to use the Syrian Kurds as a wedge against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus may be rapidly fading. The liberal Lebanese newspaper Elbalad [The Country] reports that the Autonomous Administration of the Kurdish-majority Afrin region of northern Syria, […]

Donald Trump

Countering Turkish Propaganda, Pentagon reports 150 ISIL Killed in Airstrikes

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The front page news today that US and coalition aircraft (mostly American joined by French and British pilots) struck last Saturday at an ISIL base in eastern Syria where hundreds of fighters had regrouped, killing 150 of them. There are lots of question marks about this […]

Pentagon

Top Trump officials, in Syria’s Raqqa, vow “Stabilization” w/out “Reconstruction”

Juan Cole

Middle East Monitor | – – The US government’s aid chief, Mark Green, made an unannounced visit to Raqqa in Syria on Monday, the most senior US civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the war-struck northern city months after it was retaken from Daesh, Reuters reports. Green was accompanied by head of the […]

Featured

Turkey launches Land invasion of Syria, Calls France opposition “Terrorism”

Juan Cole

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 […]