Syria

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Greg Jaffe and Adam Entous at WaPo report that Trump cancelled the CIA program to support the remnants of the Free Syrian Army a month ago. The decision was made in a meeting of Trump with CIA director Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser H. R. […]

Bashar al-Assad

Trump & Macron Consult on Syria Cease Fire in Shadow of Don Jr. Scandal

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – French President Emmanuel Macron and his American counterpart Donald J. Trump consulted on a number of bilateral issues on Wednesday, including cooperation in Syria and Iraq. Trump says he was in France to attend Bastille Day and commemorate the centenary of the entry of the US […]

Iraq

Rolex “Caliph” of ISIL Dead: Syrian Observatory

contributors

TeleSur | – – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death has been widely speculated for months. Reports from the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, SOHR, claim that ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed. “(We have) confirmed information from leaders, including one of the first rank, in the Islamic State in the eastern countryside […]

Foreign Policy

Syria: US & Russia Agree to Ceasefire, De-Escalation: But will it Hold?

contributors

TeleSur | – – Rex Tillerson praised the agreement as indicative of future cooperation in Syria, but also said that the United States still sees no “long-term role” for the Assad government. The United States and Russia have cooperated to negotiate a ceasefire in the southwest region of Syria, an agreement which will involve a […]

Featured

Leftist Kurds with US Air Support breach Walls of ISIL Capital, enter Old City

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Al Jazeera reports that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) supported by the US Air Force and other international allies, has breached the walls around the old city of al-Raqqa in eastern Syria and managed to get into the old city itself. Al-Raqqa is the capital of […]

Syria

Syria: as anti-ISIL Fight enters End Game, Civilian Casualties Spike

contributors

By Roshni Majumdar | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – As US-backed Syrian rebels plow ahead in the fight to take back Raqqa from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria, the stake of civilian lives, who number as many as 100,000 in the city, has raised […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria: Russians alarmed, Washington Befuddled, by White House threats

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The unusual statement from the “White House” on Monday saying that there were indications that the Syrian regime was preparing to use poison gas has provoked much head-scratching both inside the Trump administration and around the world. Why would the “White House” say this? Is it […]

Chemical Weapons

Can Iran, Turkey and Egypt Cooperate to deliver Mideast from Chaos?

contributors

Farhang Jahanpour | ( Tehran Times | – – TEHRAN – Professor Farhang Jahanpour, part-time tutor on the Middle East in the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, tells the Tehran Times that Iran, Egypt and Turkey must set aside their differences in order save the the region from “chaos and destruction”. […]

Bashar al-Assad

Trump’s Escalations of War in Syria—Sleepwalking into a Global Confrontation

contributors

By Reese Erlich | (The Progressive) | – – Syrian President Bashar al Assad claims to have won the war and that he is merely mopping up remaining rebel groups. With its escalation of the undeclared war in Syria, the Trump Administration risks a direct military confrontation with Russia. On June 20, the United States […]