political Islam

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In Iraq on Tuesday, Iraq militias and the Iraqi military launched a counter-attack on Falluja with the ultimate aim of driving Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) out of al-Anbar Province. The operation follows the successful liberation of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, from Daesh by these same forces. In […]

Featured

Iraq: As Battle Royale to take Falluja from Daesh/ ISIL Looms, Fears for Civilians

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Falluja is surrounded and under siege by the Iraqi Army and its Shiite militia auxiliaries, as these pro-Baghdad forces make plans to take the city back away from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). The militias call the looming operation “Cutting off the head of the Snake.” Some 20,000 […]

Authoritarianism

While Saudi Arabia Goes to War Abroad, It’s Simmering at Home

contributors

By Giorgio Cafiero and Daniel Wagner | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – To hear Saudi leaders tell it, the primary threat to the kingdom’s stability is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Worried over Washington and Tehran’s slowly improving relationship, Riyadh has projected an increasingly militarized and sectarian foreign policy aimed at countering Iran’s alleged […]

Alevis

Why defeating ISIL/ Daesh with military might is starry eyed idealism

contributors

By David Alpher | (The Conversation) | – – Just this past weekend of July 4, US-led coalition aircraft targeted the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria. It was one of the “largest deliberate engagements to date,” said a coalition spokesman, and it was executed “to deny [ISIS] the ability to move military capabilities throughout […]

Authoritarianism

2 Years after Coup, will Assassination of Egypt’s Att’y General be Pretext for More Repression?

contributors

By MariaGloria Polimeno | (The Conversation) | – – Hisham Barakat, Egypt’s most senior prosecutor, has been killed by a car bomb that hit his motorcade in Cairo. The attack came just a month after Islamic State (IS) urged its followers to attack Egypt’s judges and its “deep state” in revenge for their jailing scores […]

Featured

The Great Wall of Turkey? Ankara imagines DMZ w/ Kurds, ISIL

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – So I am going to tell you a story about Turkey, Syria and the United States. It may or may not be true. Its details may or may not have happened, though there is reason to think they did. It is a story. The point is […]

Iraq

Will Iraq Be Libya? Can the Shiite Militiamen Avoid Turning on Each Other?

contributors

Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) – – Iraq’s Shiite militias have been celebrated and criticised. Now, as differences in everything from weapons to leadership to loyalties become evident, tensions between the militias are rising. Last Saturday was the anniversary of senior Iraqi spiritual leader, Ali al-Sistani’s call to arms. The cleric, who is seen […]

Iraq

Next year in Mosul: Iraqi Kurds cut off ISIL/ Daesh Supply Lines

contributors

VICE News | (Video report) | – “A year after the Islamic State’s lightning conquest of Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul, the poorly-trained and equipped Kurdish peshmerga forces are the international coalition’s only reliable boots on the ground in northern Iraq. The Pentagon’s hopes of recapturing the city by spring 2015 have been dashed by […]

Featured

Can Leftist Kurdish Militia cut ISIL/ Daesh off from Turkish Supply Routes and Kill the Caliphate?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The intrepid Liz Sly of the Washington Post gets the story of the attempt of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, to cut Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) off and kill it. Sly’s insightful report is buttressed by one from Ahmad […]