Terrorism

By Dylan O’Driscoll | ( OpenDemocracy.net ) | – – Multiple segments of the population, including at elite level, have come together in the fight against IS and now the time has come for this effort to extend beyond the battle. The Iraqi army recaptured Mosul’s historical al-Nuri mosque and its leaning minaret on June […]

Iraq

Freeing Fayza: A Journey to War-Torn Iraq to Rescue a Yazidi ISIL Slave Girl

Juan Cole

By: Brian Glyn Williams and Christopher Natola | (Informed Comment) | – – It began with an electrifying text message from a Yazidi member of a network dedicated to freeing Yazidis (an ancient people from Northern Iraq who adhere to a faith rooted in old Iranian religion and influenced by Sufi mysticism). The message was […]

Iraq

Was ISIL’s destruction of Mosul’s Nuri Mosque Grand Strategy?

contributors

By Benjamin Isakhan and Jose Antonio Gonzalez Zarandona | (The Conversation) | – – On June 29 2014 – nearly three years ago to the day – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took the pulpit at the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri in Mosul in northern Iraq. He announced the creation of a new Islamic State that stretched […]

Featured

In Apocalyptic Vandalism, ISIL blows up 800-year-old Nuri Mosque in Mosul

Juan Cole

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 […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

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 […]

Arab World

The top 4 Challenges facing the Arab World

contributors

By Tarek Osman | (Project Syndicate) | – – LONDON – Fifty years after the Six Days War, the Middle East remains a region in seemingly perpetual crisis. So it is no surprise that, when addressing the region, politicians, diplomats, and the donor and humanitarian community typically focus on the here and now. Yet, if […]

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. […]