Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – al-Hayat (Life) reports that on Wednesday evening around 9:30 pm local time, Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) blew up the Nuri Mosque in Mosul. The destruction of the 800-year-old edifice was undertaken at a time when Iraqi government troops were closing in on this area in Mosul’s Old […]

Aerospace Campaign in Syria: Did Putin kill ISIL’s so-called ‘caliph’?

contributors

TeleSur | – – The statement came a day after Russia said it killed several senior leaders, 30 field commanders and up to 300 of their personal guards in an airstrike last month. Russian Aerospace Forces based in Syria have made significant gains in the first half of June, eliminating two Islamic State group field […]

Barack Obama

Obama’s last Victory: Syrian Democratic Forces hold Parts of ISIL Capital

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. – T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” Whatever the fate of the world, Eliot’s verse is appropriate to […]

Donald Trump

GOP Rep. urges US Terror alliance with ISIL against Iranian civilians

contributors

NIAC | (Video News Clip) | – – NIAC Action: “Shocking: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher Suggests Tehran ISIS Attack Was “Positive”

Iran

Could ISIL attacks in Tehran plunge the Middle East into greater turmoil?

contributors

By Mohammadbagher Forough | (The Conversation) | – – Iran experienced its first major ISIL attack on June 7, as armed men and suicide bombers targeted two symbols of the Islamic Republic in Tehran: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum and the Iranian parliament. At least 12 people are reported to have been killed and 42 wounded. […]

Donald Trump

How Trump should have responded to London Attacks if he were Normal

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald J. Trump 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue/ Mar-a-Lago Florida (Golf Course) Dear Prime Minister May and Mayor Khan: I was devastated to learn that so many people were killed or wounded on London Bridge Saturday night. The special relationship between my country and the United Kingdom is […]

Featured

Baghdad and Manchester: Let’s Commemorate ISIL Victims in Both

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) lashed out at the civilian population in Iraq on Tuesday with three bombings and over 60 casualties. With its signature warped sadism, the organization sent a suicide bomber with a truck into a crowded square in the upscale, largely Shiite shopping district of […]

Iraq

Mosul curses ISIL corpses: “Beguiled by promises of Virgins, you’re Garbage now”

contributors

Special Correspondent | (Mosul) | (Niqash.org) | – – NIQASH’s Mosul correspondent left the city shortly after the extremist Islamic State group took over. But most of his family remained. After 34 months, he returned home. This is what he found. When I left Mosul on July 1, 2014 – fearing for my life because […]

Copts

Who are Egypt’s Coptic Christians, ISIL’s latest Victims?

contributors

By Paul Rowe | (The Conversation) | – – Coptic Christians in Egypt have been attacked while traveling on pilgrimages and bombed while praying on Palm Sunday, amid an accelerating series of attacks over the last decade. The interrelated challenges of violence, economics and discrimination have led to the increasing departure of Christians from the […]