Iraq

Channel 4 News “Dramatic footage as our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman helps drag dehydrated children to the back of a military helicopter who have fled Islamic State forces in northern Iraq. As the helicopter left Mt Sinjar it came under fire from IS militants and the helicopter crew are filmed returning fire. Camerawoman: Philippa […]

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The Long Knives Come out in Baghdad

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The coup-like atmosphere created by Nouri al-Maliki’s stationing of his troops at the Green Zone, checkpoints and bridges in Baghdad on late Sunday backfired on him with Iraq’s parliamentarians. Nearly half of the members of his Islamic Da`wa Party (Islamic Call or Mission Party) in parliament defected from him. Most of the […]

Iraq

Nightmare in Iraq

contributors

Joe Stork via Human Rights Watch Fearing for their lives, more than 150,000 Yezidis fled Sinjar and surrounding villages to mountains north of the city on August 3, 2014 when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attacked the area. Some young and elderly are dying from the harsh conditions. I visited a Yezidi […]

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Iraq: Is al-Maliki Preparing to Make a Coup?

Juan Cole

Nouri al-Maliki, who is seeking a third term as prime minister of Iraq in the teeth of widespread opposition, abruptly began acting like a strongman on Sunday night. He went on television to denounce President Fuad Masoum for not having appointed a prime minister yet, even though Sunday was the constitutional deadline for him to […]

Iraq

The US intervened again in Iraq in Part to Save the Yazidis: Who are They?

contributors

By Petr Kubalek via RFE/RL Islamic militants this week encircled thousands of members of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, prompting the Obama administration to carry out humanitarian air drops to the refugees who fled their homes to Mount Sinjar. Here are answers to six questions about the Yazidi people, religion, and history. Who Are […]

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The Cruel Jest of American “Humanitarian Aid” to Iraq

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The United States of America has no claim on the language of “humanitarian aid” to Iraq after what it did to that country. It is rather as though Washington should send Meals Ready to Eat to the good people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One is happy that the US has dropped food […]

Iraq

Iraq: Tribes and other Sunnis begin Splitting from so-Called “Islamic State”

contributors

By Shalaw Mohammed | Kirkuk | via Niqash.org The Sunni Muslim extremist group that has taken over parts of Iraq recently is dependent on support from locals in the areas it wants to control. Recently one group of locals tried to leave – they wanted open roads, prisoner releases and a truce with their neighbours. […]

Christianity

New Wave of Christian Refugees as “Islamic State” Takes Iraq’s Largest Christian Town

contributors

By Middle East Eye “Christians have fled from the largest Christian city in Iraq as the militants of the Islamic State took control. They were given a choice of death, fleeing, conversion or taxation, after IS over powered the much vaunted Kurdish peshmerga.” Middle East Eye: “Christians flee Qaraqoush in Iraq as Islamic State takes […]

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Why is Obama bombing Iraq, Really?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Al-Zaman reports that a US drone hit mortar emplacements and F-18s struck artillery arrays and armored vehicles deployed by the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) in Kuwair east of Mosul on the way to the Kurdistan capital of Irbil, and near a major dam, some ares of which are controlled by the IS […]