By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Iraqi government has announced that the campaign to take the large northern city of Mosul back from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) has begun in earnest. The Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga (Kurdistan Regional Government national guard), Sunni Arab tribal levies, and Shiite militiamen from the south are […]
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Terrorism
ISIL’s loss of Dabiq: It was never about Armageddon, but Weak States
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Albawaba has an interview with political scientist Khalid Rif`at of the Tayyiba Center for Political Studies, saying that the forced withdrawal of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) from the town of Dabiq in northern Syria on Sunday under heavy Turkish army bombardment and in the face of advancing […]
Sunni Clans in Iraq threaten Reprisals against ISIL Collaborators
Kamal al-Ayash | Anbar | (Niqash.org) | – – In Ramadi, tribes are marking houses belonging to suspected Islamic State [group] collaborators with special graffiti. Often the houses are demolished two or three days later. But the tribes can also get it wrong. Graffiti on walls in Ramadi calling for tribal justice. (photo: Kamal al-Ayash) […]
Family & Friends, not Religion, Draw People into Terrorist Groups
By Rose Delaney | (Inter Press Service) | – – LONDON (IPS) – A recent study supported by the government of Finland has found widespread misconceptions regarding what drives people to join Islamist militant groups like Boko Haram. Boko Haram is Nigeria’s militant Islamist group, wreaking havoc across the nation through a series of abductions, […]
Apocalypse Or Bust: ISIL and the Battle For Dabiq
By David Patrikarakos | ( RFE/RL ) | – – The town of Dabiq, in northern Syria, around 25 miles from Aleppo, with its population of just under 3,500, is an unimpressive site for a battle that is supposed to herald the Apocalypse. Yet, according to the Hadith (a collection of reports about the sayings […]
The Graveyard of ISIL
By Mustafa Sadoun | Fallujah | ( Niqash.org) | – – NIQASH visits an ISIL cemetery in Fallujah and finds the hastily built, last resting places of several of the group’s leaders, as well as unusual ideas for what to do with the place in the long run. A still from the Iraqi military’s video […]
As Battle w/ ISIL for Mosul nears, Iraq should exclude Abusive Militias
Human Rights Watch | – – Role of Abusive Armed Forces, Treatment, and Screening of Detainees (Beirut) – The Iraqi government should make a commitment to prevent any armed forces implicated in laws of war violations from participating in planned operations against the extremist armed group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Mosul, Human […]
In Mosul, ISIL Extremists Wall in Residents, prepare for Armageddon
Special Correspondent | Mosul | (Niqash.org) | – – In Mosul, the Islamic State is preparing for a siege, building walls, tunnels and trenches and boasting that, like the Prophet Mohammed in the 7th century, they will be able to withstand any attacks. Locals doubt it. In Mosul, members of the extremist group that control […]
Trump’s Pro-ISIS Foreign Policy
By Fawaz A. Gerges | ( Project Syndicate ) | – – LONDON – Donald Trump’s recent claim that his opponent in the US presidential race, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama founded the Islamic State is vicious nonsense. But it is also an ironic charge for Trump to make: if […]