Middle East

By Histyar Qader | Erbil | (Niqash.org) | – – Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan have agreed where Kurdish military should fight. But, as commanders worry, there’s been no agreement as to how long Kurdish soldiers will stay after the Islamic State leave. According to a statement from the Iraqi Kurdish government, around 35,000 of their […]

Featured

ISIL feint toward Kirkuk defeated, but Kills hundreds in Mosul

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Aside from the slow, steady advances being made by the Iraqi army and its allies against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) in Mosul, the two big stories on Friday and Saturday morning were a diversionary attack on Kirkuk by the fundamentalist organization, and CNN’s discovery that Daesh killed […]

Libya

Failing Libya

contributors

By Alison Pargeter | ( OpenDemocracy) | – – If peace and national unity in Libya seem remote five years after the fall of the Qadhafi regime, western powers and the international community bear much of the responsibility. On 20 October 2011, former Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qadhafi was dragged out of his sewage-pipe hideout […]

Iraq

Will Turkey, Iran & Iraq make the Mosul Campaign a Land Grab?

contributors

By James Miller | ( RFE/RL ) | – – We may be witnessing the end of the extremist group, the [so-called] Islamic State [group] (IS), as we know it. Over the weekend, the coalition of Turkish military soldiers and Syrian rebel groups, backed by a small number of U.S. Special Operations Forces and air […]

Arab World

The Mosul Campaign and the 3rd Presidential Debate

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Some of the more extended comments on the Mosul campaign were those of Hillary Clinton. Here is Wallace’s question: WALLACE: . . . let’s move on to the subject of foreign hot spots. The Iraqi offensive to take back Mosul has begun. If they are successful […]

Featured

ISIL Boasts: America will go down to defeat in the Streets of Mosul

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – AFP is reporting that a news agency linked to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), “A`maq,” is carrying a video of a Daesh fighter who swears that he and his colleagues will inflict a decisive defeat on the US in Iraq, as the guerrillas spread through the streets of […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli Jim Crow: US-led ‘Peace Process’ Completely Collapses

contributors

By Sandy Tolan | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – Washington has finally thrown in the towel on its long, tortured efforts to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians. You won’t find any acknowledgement of this in the official record. Formally, the U.S. still supports a two-state solution to the conflict. But the Obama administration’s recent […]

Iraq

Even if Mosul is liberated, it won’t be the end of Islamic State

contributors

Simon Mabon | (The Conversation) | – – After weeks of speculation about an attempt to retake the city of Mosul from the so-called Islamic State (IS), Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proclaimed the start of the offensive. “God willing, the decisive battle will be soon,” he said at a press conference. This could well […]

Featured

7 Things to Know about Mosul

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Iraqi government has announced that the campaign to take the large northern city of Mosul back from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) has begun in earnest. The Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga (Kurdistan Regional Government national guard), Sunni Arab tribal levies, and Shiite militiamen from the south are […]