Islam

VICE News | (Video) | – “For more than six weeks, nine countries led by Saudi Arabia have been carrying out airstrikes on Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation. Whole neighborhoods have been destroyed and communities reduced to rubble. According to the United Nations, the strikes, targeting Iranian-backed Houthi rebel positions in the Yemeni capital […]

Bashar al-Assad

As Palmyra Falls, Who Supports Bashar al-Assad in Syria? (Charles Glass)

contributors

VICE News | (Video) “VICE News and the New York Review of Books have partnered to create Talking Heads, a series about the big issues of the day as seen by the Review’s distinguished contributors. In this episode, Charles Glass discusses his essay “In the Syria We Don’t Know.” He drove through Syria in October […]

al-Qaeda

Washington asks, “Who lost Ramadi?” But Washington never had Ramadi

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | — The inside-the-Beltway debate set off by the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Sunday is, as usual, Dadaistic in its disconnection from reality. Republican talking points blame Barack Obama for withdrawing US troops from Iraq in 2011, as though Daesh suddenly […]

Featured

Iraq: 25,000 Shiite Militiamen gather for Battle of Ramadi

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | — Al-Zaman (The Times of Baghdad) reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi met Tuesday with leaders of the Shiite militias to plan the retaking of Ramadi, a Sunni Arab city about 78 miles due west of Baghdad that fell on Sunday to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) as the […]

Counter-Terrorism

Why does the Iraqi Army Keep Running Away from ISIL?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Commen) | — Baghdad was shaken by the news that the Iraq army and police in Ramadi ran away from the advancing forces of Daesh (ISIL, ISIS). As a result, good American weaponry again fell into the hands of the extremists. Diya’ al-Wakil, former Iraqi military spokesperson, has the same […]

Iraq

After fall of Ramadi to ISIL, does Iraq have a future?

contributors

By Brian M Downing | (Informed Comment) | – Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, has fallen to forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. ISIL has now reversed a string of defeats since it swept into northern and central Iraq last summer. This will improve the movement’s recruitment and reaffirm its […]

Arab Spring

Death Sentence for Morsi: Egypt’s Junta takes another step toward being N. Korea

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – That the only freely elected president Egypt has ever known has been sentenced to death is only to be expected from the current military junta, which made a coup in July, 2013, and declared the former ruling party, the Muslim Brotherhood, to be a terrorist organization indistinguishable […]

Featured

Cole: Iraq’s Ramadi falls to ISIL as Shiite Gov’t refuses to Arm Sunni Tribes

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) The Times of Baghdad (al-Zaman) reports that fighters of the Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) terrorist group raised their black flags over the central government building in Ramadi on Friday. The city, just sixty miles due west of Baghdad, is the capital of al-Anbar Province. Daesh announced their victory with megaphones […]

Iraq

Iraq’s Shiite Militias turn on their Shiite Prime Minister

contributors

By Mustafa Habib | (Niqash.org) | – (Baghdad) – Iraq’s relatively new Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, has been performing a tricky balancing act for the past few months, carefully keeping the various internal and external influencers satisfied while fighting against the extremist Islamic State group and shoring up his own power base. Up until now […]