Sunnis

By Juan Cole | — Daesh, the brutal terrorist group the US calls ISIL or ISIS, is calling for attacks in Saudi Arabia. A voice recording has surfaced, attributed to Ibrahim al-Samarra’i, the leader of the brutal terrorist group Daesh (which the US calls ISIL or ISIS). Al-Samarra’i was wounded in a US airstrike on […]

Iraq

Iraq War 3.0? What could possibly Go Wrong?

contributors

By Peter Van Buren (Tomdispatch.com) Karl von Clausewitz, the famed Prussian military thinker, is best known for his aphorism “War is the continuation of state policy by other means.” But what happens to a war in the absence of coherent state policy? Actually, we now know. Washington’s Iraq War 3.0, Operation Inherent Resolve, is what […]

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

Is a Showdown between Radical Shiites and al-Qaeda Brewing in Yemen?

contributors

SANAA (IRIN) – Yahia Abu Talib, serious and stoic, is in no doubt about the importance of his role. “We protect homes and mosques,” he says, referring to the so-called popular committees of which he is a member. In a mixed neighbourhood of Yemen’s capital Sana’a, Abu Talib calls himself a “social superviser” for the […]

Islam

Can’t We all Get Along? Sunni-Shi’a Commonalities

contributors

By Tareq A. Ramadan As we enter the Islamic New Year (1436 AH) and therefore the month of Muharram (one of Islam’s sacred months), many Muslims see an increasingly fractured and segmented Muslim world that is rife with sectarianism resulting from, and exacerbated by, the political and military conflicts that have recently engulfed parts of […]

Featured

Iraq: US dismayed Shiite Gov’t hasn’t Armed Sunni Tribes fighting ISIL

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The pan-Arab London daily Hayat [Life] reports that members of the al-Anbar provincial council say they have met with American officials who are “disgusted” and the slowness of Baghdad to arm the Sunni Arab tribes fighting ISIL. Last week 220 members of the Al-Bu Nimr tribe were murdered by ISIL for taking […]

Featured

Iraq: Grand Ayatollah Sistani joins Hagel in calling for Arming Sunni Tribes of al-Anbar

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Al-Zaman (The Times of Baghdad reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistan is calling, just as is US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, for the arming of Sunni tribes in al-Anbar Province to fight ISIL in Iraq. (The Shiite-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad has been reluctant to move too quickly toward creating Sunni […]

Counter-Terrorism

Iraq: Is the Sunni-Shiite Slaughter at Jurf al-Sakhr really a US Victory?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Apparent good news was announced on Sunday in the fight against the extremist ISIL organization: The Iraqi army, backed by fundamentalist Shiite militias, managed to take the village of Jurf al-Sakhr, southwest of Baghdad, from ISIL fighters. This town has a population of about 80,000, consisting mostly of Sunnis from the Janabi […]

Iraq

Iraq: Are Senior ISIL Commanders already Defecting in Mosul & Tikrit?

contributors

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | via Niqash.org Senior members of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, the Islamic State, have disappeared from Mosul and Tikrit. Sources suggest they defected for a number of reasons: they fear the end is nigh for their group, the threat posed by unhappy former allies who have already assassinated some […]

Barack Obama

Iran Proposes Axis against ISIL to Iraqi PM Abadi as alternative to US Coalition

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole al-Zaman [The Times of Baghdad] reports that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has proposed to visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi an anti-ISIL axis including Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq that would be led by Iran, as an alternative to the US-led coalition proposed by President Barack Obama. In essence, this is the same […]