Iraq

BBC News | — “Kurdish authorities say Pershmerga forces are making headway in the Northern Iraqi town of Sinjar and have taken control of a ‘large area’ from Islamic State militants. Iraqi Kurds made the claim during a visit to nearby Mount Sinjar, where thousands of Yazidis fled after the IS advance. However, the Yazidi […]

Iraq

The Yezidis: People of an Ancient Faith Battle Ethnic Cleansing

contributors

By Richard Foltz | (Special to Informed Comment) — Among the many victims of the barbarous Daesh (what Arabs call ISIS or ISIL), none has suffered more severely than the Kurdish Yezidis. After overrunning a number of Yezidi villages in Northern Syria and Iraq during the summer of 2014, Daesh extremists – who consider Yezidis […]

Iraq

How the Iraq Wars began with the Invasion of Panama

contributors

By Greg Grandin | (Tomdispatch.com) — As we end another year of endless war in Washington, it might be the perfect time to reflect on the War That Started All Wars — or at least the war that started all of Washington’s post-Cold War wars: the invasion of Panama. Twenty-five years ago this month, early […]

Displaced and Refugees

Kurds inflict first Major Defeat on Daesh/ ISIL, Rescue Yezidis of Sinjar

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — The pan-Arab London daily, Al-Hayat [Life] reports that the Iraqi Kurdistan paramilitary, the Peshmerga, have taken Mt. Sinjar from Daesh (what Arabs call ISIL or ISIS). They have therefore saved several thousand members of the Yezidi (Izadi) Kurdish religious minority, who have been besieged and sometimes enslaved or […]

Iraq

Daesh/ ISIL close to Taking al-Anbar Province as Tribal Levies lack Ammunition, Funding, Unity

contributors

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | — Last week, fighters from tribes in Anbar were forced to give up their hold on the town of Wafaa to extremists from the Islamic State because they ran out of ammunition. And they ran out because apparently the Iraqi government won’t supply them. The steady defeat […]

Displaced and Refugees

The Yezidi Minority, Daesh/ISIL, and Iraq’s Human Rights Catastrophe

contributors

by Patrick Ball Patrick Ball with Yezidi boys at an informal camp in Sharya, Iraq. Farhad (not his real name) got the call from ISIS on his personal cell phone just after lunch: we have your sister, and we will give her back if you pay us $6000, plus $1500 for the driver. Carrying little […]

Iraq

Part-Time Work: Shiite Militias Defending Baghdad involved in Burglaries, Kidnappings?

contributors

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) — Kidnappers in Baghdad are disgusing themselves in Iraqi army uniforms. There’s been a rise in crime and kidnapping in Baghdad and it seems that perpetrators are often in military uniform, driving official cars. This has led locals to suspect members of Shiite Muslim militias recently formed to […]

Displaced and Refugees

West Only has Money for Bombs? 60,000 Child Laborers in Jordan as Syrian Refugees struggle to Survive

contributors

AMMAN | (IRIN) | – Jordan is straining under the weight of its over 600,000 Syrian refugees, with government officials and aid agencies warning of dwindling resources and capacity to respond to the ever-growing needs. Yet Syrians fleeing the current conflict only make up one small portion of the country’s refugee population. For decades, the tiny […]

Bashar al-Assad

Iran eager to take leading role against extremism (Iraq, Syria FMs in Tehran)

contributors

By Maysam Bizar | (Your Middle East) — As the US-led campaign against the extremist ISIL militants in Iraq and Syria goes on, Iran, which has not taken part in the coalition, is gearing up for the Rouhani-proposed international conference ‘World Against Violence and Extremism’ (WAVE) on December 9-10 in Tehran. Maysam Bizar reports. Referring […]