By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The provincial capital Idlib, a city of 165,000 in the old days and administrative center of the northwestern Idlib province, appears to have fallen completely to a Muslim fundamentalist coalition spearheaded by Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of Syria) and the al-Qaeda affiliate, the Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra). Most […]
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Middle East
French Firm Pulls Out of Jerusalem Cable Car Project
by IMEMC News | – France-based utility giant Suez Environnement said Wednesday that, because of political sensitivities, it has decided not to take part in a cable car project linking West Jerusalem to the annexed Eastern sector. The project, run by the Jerusalem city council, has stoked controversy over the Israeli cable car’s planned route, […]
Who Has A Stake In Yemen Fight?
By Michael Scollon | (RFE/RL) – Yemen is at the center of a proxy war between regional heavyweights Iran and Saudi Arabia. It's the source of fears of a broader Sunni-Shi'ite conflict. And it has implications far beyond its borders. Here is a look at the stakeholders in the fight. The Playing Field […]
Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbullah slams Saudi attack on Yemen
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Hasan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hizbullah, Lebanese Shiite party-militia, weighed in on Friday on the Saudi intervention in Yemen. The Saudis put together a Sunni coalition against the Shiite Houthis and have bombed Zaidi Shiite population centers like Sa’adeh. I discussed their motives in my just-published piece in […]
More Palestinians killed than any year since1967, Says United Nations
By Valentina Ieri UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – In 2014, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) saw the worst escalation of hostilities since 1967, said a report by the United Nations Office of Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), released on March 26. The report, Fragmented Lives, said that the Gaza strip’s 1.8 […]
The rise of the Israeli far right & the future of Palestine
By Ghassan Khatib | (Ma’an News Agency) – The victory of Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing allies last week at the polls amounts to a major defeat of left and center-left parties in Israel and is merely one more indication that Israeli society is continuing a strong trend of radicalization. Over the last 20 years, […]
How GOP threats against Iran have Guaranteed end of European Sanctions
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The US sanction regime on Iran has a unilateral dimension. That is, there are sanctions only the US applies. Then there is a European dimension, which involves using the clout of the Department of Treasury as well as the persuasiveness of the Department of State’s diplomats to get […]
Assyrian Christians and the ISIS Assault on the Remains of Nineveh
By Adam H. Becker | (Informed Comment) In their sanctimonious showboating ISIS has trashed the ruins of ancient Assyria and this is a loss for world cultural heritage and more so for Iraqis and whatever national culture will exist whenever the political situation finally becomes stable. However, Assyrian Christians, who themselves have suffered kidnapping and […]
Why The Iraqi Army Is Stuck On The Outskirts of Tikrit
By Mustafa Habib | (Niqash.org) – (Baghdad) – The offensive to re-take Tikrit from extremists seems to have stalled as troops surround the city but cannot go further. The same thing is happening elsewhere. And there are three main reasons why. While stopped on the edges of the city of Tikrit, Captain Ahmad Mahmoud says […]