Iraq

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – It has been over a year since Mosul fell to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). In some ways the organization has continued to make advances since then, taking Ramadi and Palmyra in the past few months. It isn’t as important as FBI director James Comey says it is, […]

Featured

Turkey’s new “war on terror” mainly targeting Kurds

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – What was at first announced as a new Turkish turn toward attacks on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Friday has quickly become largely a campaign against Kurds instead. It is being alleged that the Turkish Air Force launched dozens of strikes against bases of the Kurdistan Workers […]

Iran

Iraqis Divided on Iran Deal: Sunnis say, “The US sold us to Iran”

contributors

Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – While the rest of the world debates the merits of the Iranian nuclear deal, Iraqis are arguing about it too: Did the US sell them out? Will Iran now be able to interfere in Iraq with impunity? Earlier this month news broke that a deal on […]

fiction

One Ring to Bind them: Reading the Lord of the Rings to defeat ISIL

contributors

By Akil N Awan | (The Conversation) | – – The wave of recent attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and Turkey, all apparently linked to Islamic State in some way, have reinforced the spectre of the unstoppable “Daesh death cult” whose tentacles of terror can reach deep into every corner of the globe The omnipresence of […]

Iraq

Is the ISIS War About Oil After All?

contributors

By Jack Werner | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – The unfolding intervention against the Islamic State shows that oil doesn't just guide U.S. foreign policy. It constrains our ways of thinking about it. Foreign intervention is 100 times more likely if oil reserves are present in a country experiencing civil war. That’s the […]

Iraq

As the Iraqi Army takes on ISIL in al-Anbar: How did we get here?

contributors

Brian Glyn Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – Last week the Iraqi government announced that it would be commencing operations to retake Ramadi, the capital of the vast western province of Anbar from ISIL (also called ISIS and Daesh). This represents the Shiite-dominated government’s first attempt to roll back the hybrid terrorist-army in Iraq’s […]

Featured

Iraqi Government halts al-Anbar Campaign over Sectarian Fears, US Pressure

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Kuwaiti press (al-Siyasah) is alleging that the Iraqi government, under American pressure, has hit the pause button on its campaign to take al-Anbar Province back from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). The report was also carried by 24.ae in the United Arab Emirates. A source in the […]

Human Rights

On ‘Death Road’: Women, Civilians Flee ISIL Extremists in Iraq & Syria

contributors

By Shalaw Mohammed | Kirkuk | (Niqash.org) – – As extremists rule harshly and coalition airstrikes hit, there’s a mass exodus of civilians out of Hawija. And one of the ways they are getting out is with people smugglers on the “death road”. A few days ago Mahmoud Fathallah arrived with his family and another […]

Children

Wars targeting Children: 20 mn Homeless, 300K Conscripted & now Mass Abductions by ISIL

contributors

By Beatriz Ciordia | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – Whether in Palestine, Ukraine or Somalia, wars result in millions of children threatened by the brutality of armed conflict. The numbers speak for themselves: more than 300,000 child soldiers are currently exploited in situations of armed conflict and six million children […]