Middle East

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Deputy head of the Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday that the group is committed to the ceasefire with Israel but called for international attention to ensure Israel abide by its terms. “We are committed to what was agreed on in Cairo as long as the occupation is,” he […]

Bashar al-Assad

Baathist Riposte: How the Regime Came back in the Syrian Civil War in 2014

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — In the course of 2014, two major trends, long since visible in the Syrian civil war, were strengthened. First, the Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad continued to assert control over most urban areas along the trunk roads of the west of the country. Damascus, Homs, Hama, Latakia and […]

Apartheid

Israeli Occupation military demolishes dairy factory in Hebron, Palestinian West Bank

contributors

HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Thursday destroyed a dairy factory in the Hebron village of al-Burj, the owner told Ma’an. Yasser Muhammad Salim Masharqa said that Israeli forces and civil administration officers escorted two bulldozers to the village and demolised the steel structure, which measures 2000 square meters. Cements rooms measuring 400 square meters […]

Iraq

Iraq: Extremists of Daesh/ ISIL on the Move in Mosul in Response to Kurdish Advance

contributors

Khales Joumah | Mosul | (Niqash.org) Last week’s victory over the extremist Islamic State group in the Sinjar area has had a significant effect on the extremist-controlled city of Mosul. Foreign fighters have left, the city is flooded with refugees and supply routes are cut off. Locals are afraid of what comes next. Extremist fighters […]

Iraq

The Bureaucracy of Terror in Mosul: Todenhöfer’s Unprecedented Footage from Within

Juan Cole

BBC News | — “A German author given unprecedented access to territory controlled by the so-called Islamic State, has told the BBC that IS is stronger, more brutal and harder to confront than he’d expected. Jürgen Todenhöfer spent 10 days in Mosul and Raqqa. Caroline Hawley spoke to him about what he found.” BBC News: […]

Christianity

Christmas in Gaza

contributors

Middle East Eye | — “Christians in Gaza prepare to celebrate yet another Christmas under the Israeli imposed siege. Bishop Alexios of Gaza speaks to MEE about his hopes that the siege will one day be lifted so that both Christians and Muslims from Gaza can visit their respective Holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. […]

Christianity

Threadbare Christmas for Iraqi Christian Refugees from Daesh/ISIL Mosul

contributors

Euronews | — “Internally displaced Iraqi Christians who fled violence in Mosul celebrated Christmas in Baghdad on Wednesday.” Euronews: “Some displaced Iraqi Christians are not in the Christmas spirit”

Featured

Have the Kurds cut the ISIL/Daesh State in Two, Blocking Supply Lines?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — Al-Mada newspaper in Baghdad had an interesting article in the aftermath of the fall of Shinjar to the Iraqi Kurdistan Peshmerga. The piece argued that the Peshmerga (Kurdistan’s paramilitary, meaning ‘one who stands before death’) have now effectively cut of the supply lines between Raqqa in Syria and […]

political Islam

Turkey again goes down Path of the One-Party State

contributors

By Erdağ Göknar (Istanbul) | (ISLAMiCommentary) — Erdağ Göknar If we read the recent government-ordered police raids against opposition media in reverse, we can get a better sense of how last year’s bribery and corruption investigation (December 17-25, 2013) — targeting figures connected to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) — hit close to […]