Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

By Akil N. Awan via The National Interest Last week, President Barack Obama chaired a special meeting of the UN Security Council in which member states passed a resolution establishing an international legal framework to help prevent the recruitment and transport of would-be foreign fighters from joining terrorist groups. As expected, United Nations Security Council […]

Iraq

Can Iraq Convince its Sunnis to Fight Extremists?

contributors

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad via Niqash.org Local opposition to Sunni Muslim extremists in control of parts of Iraq is building – and it’s being formalised with the creation of a new National Guard, with military units enlisting locals to protect their own provinces. As well as fighting the extremists, the new units could include […]

Afghanistan

Syria to Afghanistan: US Military Policy hasn’t Solved the Zone of Crisis & may Enlarge it

contributors

By Amin Saikal, author of Zone of Crisis: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq The Middle East and its wider eastern environs are in the grip of multiple humanitarian and geopolitical crises. The entire region from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria to Palestine and Libya is shattered by more violence than usual and long-term […]

Energy

US strikes ISIL oil fields in Quest to Defund it: But will it Replace oil with Fracking?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Sawt al-Iraq [Voice of Iraq] reports that during the past two days, Saudi, UAE and American fighter jets attacks small oil refineries originally built for Syria by Turkey, which had been run by ISIL in Deir Ezzor. the day before yesterday the allies struck 12 refineries that ISIL had been in control […]

GCC

What Arab partners will get in return for strikes on Syria

contributors

By Lars Berger The decision by President Obama to launch missile and air strikes against Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaeda affiliate “Khorasan” in Syria draws the United States ever closer to yet another prolonged military confrontation in the region. But there’s a difference this time: the participation of a coalition of Arab states, variously […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Hidden Camera Reveals Chilling Life Under ISIS Control

contributors

The Young Turks: “”A mother, with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder, walks her child to a playground. A man driving a car orders a woman to cover her face: ‘God loves women who are covered.’ A woman in an Internet cafe, in flawless French, tells her mother that she won’t be coming home: ‘I […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syrian Media Hail America as Damascus Ally, Support UN Ban on Foreign Fighters

Juan Cole

by Juan Cole Aljazeera Arabic reports on the reaction in Syria to US air strikes against ISIL, which included attacks on Wednesday on their oil installations, an important revenue stream for the terrorist organization. It turns out that the Damascus press is giving President Obama an uncomfortable embrace. This kind of talk is deadly to […]

Iran

Is this Iranian the most powerful man in Iraq?

contributors

BBC “Gabriel Gatehouse reports for BBC Newsnight on the secretive Iranian General described as the most powerful man in Iraq.” BBC Newsnight: “Is this Iranian the most powerful man in Iraq? – Newsnight”

Bashar al-Assad

The Syrian Maelstrom: How Repression, Drought & Climate Change Drove the Civil War

contributors

By Tareq Ramadan Long before March of 2011, when Syrian demonstrations calling for reform and in some cases, regime change, morphed into a full-blown military conflict that has transformed into a supranational bloodbath, the economic and political policies of Bashar Al-Assad’s Baa’thist regime undoubtedly fomented major discontent among various segments of Syria’s population. While both […]