Syria

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) said Sunday that it was behind the horrific bombings that struck Shiites in Damascus and Homs. Twelver Shiites congregate in the Sayyida Zainab district of Damascus, the Syrian capital, around the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter. Car bombs and suicide bombers wearing […]

Afghanistan

As ISIL goes Global, Will the ‘War on Terror’ extend for Decades?

contributors

By Paul Rogers | ( OpenDemocracy.net) | – – The war against ISIL has seen 18 months of of airstrikes by United States-led coalition forces in both Iraq and Syria. An even more concentrated period is now under way, with signs of greater use of special forces by western militaries and pledges of ground troops […]

Featured

Will Syrian Kurds defeat ISIL , helping Democrats win White House in 2016?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Bad news came out of Syria for Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on two fronts Friday: Aleppo and, in Syria’s far east, Hasakah. This has been a war with a lot of seesawing, so it is premature to make any decisive pronouncements. But this is an election year, […]

France

France: Turkish-Russian ‘War’ Possible over Syria

contributors

TeleSur | – – The French president said Russia and Turkey could engage in war over Turkish involvement in Syria as Russia called for an urgent U.N. Security Council. There is risk of a Turkish-Russian war as a result of Ankara’s involvement in Syria, French President Francois Hollande warned Friday, as Russia called for a […]

military

Are Outside Interventions in Syria undermining Int’l Law & our own Security?

contributors

By Ingvild Bode | (The Conversation) | – – Since 2012, the war in Syria has lurched from one escalation to another. Syrians have been subjected to large-scale military force not only by their own government, but also by an array of rebel groups, Islamic State (IS), a US-led coalition and other states. The results […]

Russia

Syria: Instead of a Cease-Fire, have Great Powers unleashed new Proxy Wars?

contributors

By Baher Kamal | (Inter Press Service) | – – MADRID (IPS) – – When 25 million Syrians–half of them refugees abroad or at home and the other half terrorised by daily bombing, learnt that major world leaders in their meeting in Germany launched an unprecedented confrontation threatening with unleashing World War III, instead of […]

Kurds

Has the Turkish-Saudi direct Military Intervention in Syria Begun?

Neil Thompson

London (Informed Comment) – The news that Turkey has begun military strikes against the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) militia inside Syria marks an ominous chapter in that country’s civil war. Turkey acted after YPG forces and allied units from the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seized the strategic Mennagh Military Airport in northern Aleppo […]

Palestine

Palestinian Refugees in Syria, besieged by ISIL, receive critical UN Aid at Last amid Faltering Ceasefire

contributors

TeleSur | – – Humanitarian aid has reached refugees in the Syrian town of Yarmouk, on the outskirts of Damascus, for the first time in nine months, according to UNRWA, the U.N. Agency for Palestine refugees. In a statement released Saturday night, UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness said the agency "did not enter the camp itself" but reached the nearby […]

Russia

Russia Says World in ‘New Cold War’ over Syria

contributors

TeleSur | – – "Sometimes I wonder if it’s 2016 or if we live in 1962," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the Munich Security Conference, Saturday. The world has sunk into a “new Cold War” as a result of the mounting tensions between Russia and the West over conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry […]