Iraq

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masoud Barzani, has called for an immediate non-binding referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan over whether its people want to secede from Iraq and form an independent Kurdish state. A delegation from the KRG visited Baghdad yesterday, as well, headed by […]

Displaced and Refugees

Not just Madaya: A million people under Food Sieges in Mideast

contributors

By Nadia Prupis, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org) | – – Despite international laws prohibiting the use of starvation against civilians, forces on all sides preventing aid from reaching blockaded towns in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq As crises in the Middle East escalate, food has become a weapon of war. A new Associated Press analysis […]

Iraq

The Kurdish Women fighters taking on Daesh/ ISIL: An Eyewitness Account

contributors

By Brian Glyn Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – It was the sort of invitation that causes both excitement and trepidation, an invite to visit the autonomous mountain enclave in northern Iraq known as Kurdistan to carry out field research. It was exciting because we were being given an “inside track” to a moderate […]

Iraq

How Bad Is The Violence In Iraq?

contributors

AJ+ | (Video News Report) | – – “A UN report on the violence in Iraq from January 2014 to October 2015 makes for sober reading. 19,000 civilians were killed, 36,000 injured and 3,500 are being held hostage by ISIS. ” AJ+: “How Bad Is The Violence In Iraq?”

Foreign Policy

The Collapsed Iraqi Army: How to Succeed at Failing, Pentagon-Style

contributors

By Nick Turse | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – There’s good news coming out of Iraq… again. The efforts of a 65-nation coalition and punishing U.S. airstrikes have helped local ground forces roll back gains by the [so-called] Islamic State [group] (IS). Government forces and Shiite militias, for example, recaptured the city of Tikrit, while […]

Chaldeans

UNESCO: “Deepest Concerns” for Mideast Christianity after Daesh/ISIL Razes oldest Iraqi Monastery

contributors

UNESCO | (Media Services) | – – “I express my deepest concerns after the destruction of the Monastery of St Elijah. It was the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq and an invaluable testimony to the rich cultural and religious diversity of the country. For 1,400 years the monastery stood as a place of worship and […]

Iraq

Iraq: Ethnic Fighting endangers Civilians; now it’s Kurds and Shiites

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (Beirut) – Kurdish and Shia Turkmen armed groups have repeatedly harmed and endangered civilians in clashes in Iraq’s Tuz Khurmatu district, in Salah al-Din province, since October 2015. The armed groups have killed, wounded, and abducted civilians and destroyed scores, if not hundreds, of homes and shops. “Some of […]

Assyrians

For Iraqi Minorities, ‘Immigration No Longer A Choice, It’s Inevitable’

contributors

By Saad Salloum | Baghdad| (Niqash.org) | – – In an interview, Raad Jabar al-Khamis, a representative of the Christian Sabean-Mandaean minority, talks about why all minorities in Iraq will leave the country over the next decade. Raad Jabar al-Khamis has held many senior political positions on behalf of Iraq’s Sabean-Mandaean minority. The Sabean-Mandaeans are […]