Kurds

By Cengiz Gunes | (The Conversation) | – – Hours after Ankara was rocked by the second bomb attack in less than three weeks, killing at least 37 people and injuring 70 others, Turkish jets bombed PKK bases in the Qandil mountains deep inside the Kurdish region of Iraq. Turkish security officials told reporters that […]

Democracy

Turkey’s Elections no longer for Democracy but for Nationalist-Conservative Domination

contributors

By Umit Cizre | ( OpenDemocracy) | – – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s readiness to circumvent elections, illustrates that promises to end the conflict were contingent on securing a mathematically permanent conservative-nationalist electoral bloc. Two historic general elections were held in Turkey over the course of four months in 2015. The desperate losers in the first […]

Kurds

Arab Youth join socialist Syrian Kurdish militia to fight ISIL

contributors

TeleSur | – – The news comes amid rising tensions between the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia and Arabs in Syria. The “first group of Arab fighters” joined the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, according to Kurdish media. The YPG has been known to include non-Kurdish forces, including Western, Turkish and Assyrian fighters, and it […]

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, […]

Authoritarianism

Turkey: Erdogan’s Domestic War for a Presidential System

contributors

By Rosa Burç and Burak Çopur | TeleSur | – – The current war against the Kurds and oppositional voices is being waged to push an autocratic presidential system. The surprising electoral success of the pro-Kurdish HDP in last year’s June 7 elections denied the ruling AKP a majority for the first time since 2002 […]

Iraq

Confirmed: ISIL used Mustard Gas Against Kurds in Iraq

contributors

TeleSur | – – A chemical weapons investigator confirmed earlier reports that the extremist group used the banned chemical weapon. [ISIL] used chemical weapons against Kurdish militants last year, Reuters reported Monday. The August 2015 attack occurred near Erbil, the capital of autonomous Kurdish Iraq. About 35 Kurdish troops were attacked with mustard gas, according […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Why is ISIL still trying to Slaughter and Enslave the ancient Yazidi Minority?

contributors

By Brian Glyn Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – On February 3, the New York Times quoted the desperate plea of a Yazidi, a member of an ethnic-religious group facing communal extermination at the hands of ISIS jihadi terrorists. In simple, but moving terms he summed up the plight of his people, whose ancestral […]

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 […]

Central Intelligence Agency

Despite Syria Cease Fire, Belligerents Plot military Victory

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Despite the announcement at Munich of a cessation of hostilities in Syria, to be implemented in the next week or so, all the major fighting forces in Syria have announced a determination to soldier on. According to the London pan-Arab daily al-Hayat [Life] , Russian foreign […]