By Juan Cole ISIL fighters have advanced into the Kurdish Syrian city of Kobane (`Ayn al-`Arab), with fighting in the streets as Kurds resist, according to the pan-Arab daily, al-Hayat [Life]. Kobane, a city ordinarily of about 50,000, is the third biggest town in the Kurdish part of Syria (the far northeast). ISIL has taken […]
Ben Affleck on Bill Maher’s Muslim Problem
By Juan Cole Bravo to Ben Affleck and Nicholas Kristoff for telling Bill Maher off about his chronic case of Muslim-hating bigotry. (He would say he doesn’t hate Muslims, only their religion, but then those who hate gays say much the same sort of thing). Maher and Sam Harris like to demonize Islam and by […]
Pan-Mideast War: ISIL and al-Qaeda attack Hizbullah outposts Near Lebanese Border
By Juan Cole ISIL and al-Qaeda have, according to Hizbullah, launched attacks in Syria’s Qalamoun district (abutting the Lebanese border near Baalbek) on Hizbullah military outposts on the Syrian side. Hizbullah is acting in Syria as an adjunct to the Syrian Baath Army and helped reduce Qusayr and Homs last spring. The Syrian rebels were […]
ISIL Still Taking Towns in Iraq’s Al-Anbar as Coalition Airstrikes are Delayed
By Juan Cole The pan-Arab London daily Al-Hayat [Life] reports today that ISIL is still expanding its sway in towns in Iraq’s western al-Anbar Province, having just taken Kubaisah in the district of Hit on Friday into Saturday, two days after the district capital of Hit fell to them. Local Iraqi police ran away from […]
The Alamo of the Kurds: Kobane Near Falling to ISIL
By Juan Cole Ismat Sheikh, commander of the Kurdish forces at the border town of Kobane (Ain al-Arab) that is besieged by ISIL tanks and artillery, says that he expects massacres of its inhabitants if it falls to the Sunni Arab extremists. He warned that ISIL fighters are less than a mile from his front […]
7 Surprising Reasons Turkey is entering war on ISIL
By Juan Cole The Turkish parliament voted by a large margin Thursday to allow Turkish troops to make incursions into neighboring countries if necessary to defeat the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This authorization is necessary according to the Turkish constitution. Likewise, parliament voted to allow foreign troops involved in the […]
Lessons from French Morocco: “Fanaticism Anxiety” about Muslims has been with us since the Colonial Era
By Edmund Burke III Today we hear a great deal about the question of what went wrong in Middle Eastern societies. For an historian of the early twentieth century world, it’s déjà vu all over again. Similar questions and similar anxieties were being voiced a century ago. Very much like fin de siècle Europeans, we […]
Palestine goes to UN Security Council to Demand Israeli Withdrawal by 2016
By Juan Cole AP reports that Palestine is presenting a resolution to the United Nations Security Council (through its “Arab Group”) calling for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by 2016. Palestine will argue that Israel has systematically and over decades violated all the international laws regulating military occupations, and […]
$22 Billion to Fight ISIL in same Year Congress cut $8.7 bn in Food Stamps
By Juan Cole It was all the way back in February, so the memory of this headline has faded: ” Congress passes $8.7 billion food stamp cut By Ned Resnikoff It’s official: 850,000 households across the country are set to lose an average of $90 per month in food stamp benefits. The Senate on Tuesday […]
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