Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

By Omar Ashour | ( Project Syndicate) | – – LONDON – Terrorist attacks by Islamic State (ISIS) affiliates and sympathizers over the past year have raised alarms in Europe, but they have not yet reached the frequency Europe experienced in the 1970s, according to the Global Terrorism Database. However, whereas previous waves of terrorism […]

Bashar al-Assad

Is Turkey’s incursion into Syria about Daesh, or about the Kurds?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkish military sources told the Anadol news agency that Wednesday’s military attack on the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, held for years by Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), involved hitting 82 targets. The objective, Ankara said, was to secure the Turkish border and to support the US-led Coalition […]

Displaced and Refugees

Merkel: Migrants did not bring Radical Terrorism to Germany

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a campaign event on Wednesday evening, that there is no relationship between the influx of some one million migrants and refugees into Germany in the past year and the incidents of radical Muslim violence in the country. She pointed out […]

Featured

People in Syria’s Manbij Rejoice by Shaving, throwing off Veil as ISIL fighters Flee

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – People in Syria’s norther town of Manbij, now entirely liberated from the rule of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), rejoiced on Saturday. Men shaved their beards (which had been imposed on them by the fundamentalists) and women threw off their burqas (full-face veils) and burned them. The burqa […]

Featured

ISIL fighter number falls to 15,000 as Manbij capture Cuts off Route to Europe

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | AP is reporting that Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland maintains that the number of ISIL fighters in Syria and Iraq is in steep decline, having fallen to as little as 15,000, down from 25,000 at the organization’s height. In Iraq the organization has lost Tikrit, Beiji, Mt. Sinjar, Sinjar, […]

Bashar al-Assad

Monsters to Destroy: Top 7 Reasons the US could not have forestalled Syrian Civil War

Juan Cole

by Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The interventionist temptation, muted since the Iraq imbroglio, is now returning. Sec. Clinton’s team are already talking about taking steps to remove Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from office as soon as they get into the White House. An excellent and principled NYT columnist called the non-intervention […]

Featured

No, Obama did not found ISIL, Mr. Trump: That was the GOP

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump in his daily free association exercise accused President Obama of creating Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in Iraq by withdrawing troops from that country in 2011. It is an accusation he has in past made against Sec. Clinton, but now he is shifting blame to Obama. Obama […]

Featured

Syria: Key ISIL Smuggling city, Manbij, falls to Kurd-Arab Force

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Syrian War is nowhere near over, but the Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) episode may be drawing to an end. Alarabiya reports that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is largely leftist Kurds of the YPG but includes a small Arab auxiliary faction, has taken almost all […]

Featured

ISIL Captures Thousands trying to flee it in Iraq, Executes a Dozen

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Oman Daily’s Jabbar al-Rubaie reports that Iraqi security sources announced yesterday that Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) had executed a number of the residents of the city of Hawija near Kirkuk in northern Iraq because they attempted to escape the city, over which Daesh holds sway. Hawija […]