By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The cessation of hostilities in Syria never included Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) or al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front or Support Front), but it did include some of the de facto allies of al-Qaeda. The Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies, with Russian air support, have taken […]
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Syria
Syrian independent media offers bold challenge to extremism
By Julia Taleb | ( Waging Nonviolence ) | – – On January 10, the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group in Syria, stormed the headquarters of Radio Fresh in Kafranbel and arrested its director Raed al-Fares and journalist Hadi Abdullah. The flag of the Syrian revolution was thrown on the floor and al-Nusra members […]
Syria: Al-Assad Family’s Massive Stolen Wealth in Panama Papers helps explain Revolution
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The revelation in the leaked Panama Papers that Mossack Fonseca and Swiss bank HSBC serviced the companies of corrupt Syrian billionaire Rami Makhlouf (first cousin of dictator Bashar al-Assad) long after the US imposed sanctions on him is a reminder of why Syrians revolted against the […]
Dear GOP: Top Myths about Syrian Refugees, refuted by Actual Facts
By Jeffrey H. Cohen | (The Conversation) | – – Following the March 2016 bombings in Brussels, Donald Trump stated: We have to be smart … We’re taking in people without real documentation. We don’t know where they are coming from … they could be ISIS-related. Not to be outdone, Sen. Ted Cruz added: We […]
Syrian Ceasefire in Tatters as al-Qaeda & allies attack in South Aleppo
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The London pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reports that the rebel opposition allied with al-Qaeda broke the ceasefire Saturday morning, taking several villages and towns in the southern hinterlands of Aleppo. The attack was launched with suicide car-bombers who detonated their payload, targeting Syrian Arab Army troops and […]
Syria Endgame: Are Russia and US Planning overthrow of ISIL in al-Raqqa?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Russian press had been complaining that the West was ignoring its defeat of terrorism in Syria. But now the Russian press is saying that the US and the Russian Federation are jointly planning to liberate the Syrian city of al-Raqqa, the capital of the phony […]
After Palmyra, the last days of the phony Caliphate?
TeleSur The loss of the historic city amounts to one of the biggest setbacks for the extremist group since it declared a caliphate in 2014. Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes battled Islamic State group insurgents around Palmyra on Monday, trying to extend their gains after taking back control of a city whose ancient […]
Fall of Palmyra: Syrian regime races to take ISIL’s ‘Berlin’ and forestall ‘Partition’
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – That massive Russian air strikes and a determined infantry and armor assault by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) on the ancient city of Palmyra could dislodge from it a few hundred or at most a couple thousand Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) fighters is not all that surprising. […]
What would effective Counter-Terrorism look like after Brussels?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The various nostrums proposed to counter Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) terrorism in Europe and North America by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz (armed patrols by police of putative “Muslim neighborhoods”, a Muslim exclusion act, etc.) are of course complete non-starters. So too are killing the children of […]
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