By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – In a bold move, Daesh (i.e. ISIL or ISIS) fighters moved Monday on Kirkuk and Erbil, two cities patrolled by the Iraqi Kurdistan paramilitary, the Peshmerga (those who stand before death). Erbil is the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. Kirkuk is an oil city and is disputed among Turkmen, […]
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Middle East
Just when you thought they Couldn’t be Worse: ISIL trafficking Human Organs
RT | – The Islamic State is harvesting human organs to finance its blood-driven caliphate, according to Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, urging its Security Council to investigate the issue. Envoy Mohamed Alhakim called on the 15-member body to look at allegations of organ removal by the Islamic State (formerly ISIS) as bodies with […]
Hidden Dragon: China quietly becomes a Major Player in the Middle East
By Neil Thompson | (Informed Comment) – The era of Western neo-colonial dominance in the Middle East may finally be drawing to a bloody close. The Western monopoly ended almost unnoticed in 2013 when China replaced the European Union as the region’s foremost trading partner, pushing the US into third place, with India breathing at America’s heels […]
Iraq: Sunni Sheikh Killed trying to Mediate between Shiite, Sunni Extremists
By Erin Evers | (Human Rights Watch) In Latifiyya, a small town 20 miles south of Baghdad, fighting has been raging since long before the armed conflict that erupted when the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) took over Mosul. For at least two years state security forces and government-backed militias have been battling Sunni […]
2 1/2 yrs after US Consulate Attack, Libyan Nat’l Army advances in Benghazi against Radicals
CCTV Africa | – “Footage from Benghazi showed troops, equipped with tanks, gun-mounted trucks and automatic weapons, advancing through farmland.” CCTV Africa: “Libya’s Army Makes Gains In Fighting Against Militias” The Algerian Times also reported last week: The Libyan army retook Benghazi’s largest military base … in the East, from fundamentalist fighters who held the […]
Avenging its Christians, Egypt Bombs Libya in first formal Campaign since 1991
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The murder by Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) thugs in Sirte, Libya, of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians this weekend provoked the first formal Egyptian military incursion into another state’s territory since the 1991 Gulf War. Egyptian fighter jets bombed warehouses, training camps and other assets of Daesh in Derna. […]
Israel’s Obsession for Monopoly on Middle East Nuclear Power
By Thalif Deen | — UNITED NATIONS, (IPS) – As the Iranian nuclear talks hurtle towards a Mar. 24 deadline, there is renewed debate among activists about the blatant Western double standards underlying the politically-heated issue, and more importantly, the resurrection of a longstanding proposal for a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction […]
Netanyahu urges Europe’s Jews to move to Israel
Euronews | – “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to this weekend’s deadly synagogue shooting in Copenhagen by urging European Jews to emigrate to Israel. Netanyahu’s invitation comes despite reassurances from his Danish counterpart Helle Thorning-Schmidt that Denmark’s Jews belong there and that everything would be done to protect them. Warning that more anti-Semitic attacks […]
700 British artists pledge to boycott Israel until Pal Rights Granted
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — 700 British artists have signed a pledge to boycott Israel as long as it “continues to deny basic Palestinian rights,” the latest major success for the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel movement. “In response to the call from Palestinian artists and cultural workers for a cultural boycott of Israel, we […]
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