By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reprint edn. (Slightly rearranged & revised): 1. Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets– any illicit use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of […]
Kurdish Fighters cut Road between ISIL centers of Raqqa and Mosul
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Al-Arabiya reports that the Security Council in Iraqi Kurdistan has announced that their paramilitary, the Peshmerga have taken 150 square kilometers of the city of Sinjar from Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) and has the entire city surrounded. Some sources say that 70% of the city has fallen […]
Are 2,000 Gulf fighters in Syria a terrorist threat to . . . the Gulf?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A Saudi preacher has given a press briefing on young men from the Gulf fighting against the al-Assad regime. Although the Hizbullah fighters from Lebanon are often mentioned in the US press as an example of foreign interference, there is little mention of this Gulf contingent. […]
Why EU Labeling of Israeli Squatter Goods could Affect Israeli Economy
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The European Union will probably issue a ruling today that goods produced in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank by Israeli squatters must be so labeled. Such labeling is already carried out in some European countries, but this ruling would extend the practice to all 28 EU […]
Syria: Christian Militia to the Rescue as 1000s of Christians flee ISIL approach
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Despite Russian airstrikes, Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) has made some advances in November. One place it has had some success is Homs province, which is vulnerable because Daesh has a position in Palmyra. At the beginning of November, Daesh took Maheen and advanced toward the major Christian […]
What Obama should tell Netanyahu this Week (But won’t)
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Far right Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is arriving in Washington, D.C., Monday, and will apparently ask the US to almost double its $3 bn. a year in aid to $5 bn. Netanyahu has been a constant thorn in the US side and has done absolutely […]
In ‘Spectre,’ James Bond becomes Edward Snowden
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The latest entry in the Daniel Craig reboot of the James Bond film franchise, Spectre , turns Bond into more muscular version of Edward Snowden, as he takes down a vast 9-nation attempt at electronic surveillance and information-sharing that would also benefit a criminal cartel. Tooling […]
Netanyahu taps Squatter who called Obama Muslim hate sympathizer, as he demands $5 bn./yr. from U.S.
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appointed West Bank squatter Ran Baratz to be his director of communications on the eve of his procession Monday to Washington to demand a vast increase in annual US aid to Israel, which includes civilian as well as military grants of […]
Bush Sr. Blames Neocons for Ruining W.’s Presidency: Is he Warning Jeb?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In interviews given for a new biography, George H. W. Bush, 91 lets loose against Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, whom he clearly blames for many of the failures of the presidency his son, George W. Bush. But if you attend carefully to what he said, […]
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