Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Al-Qaeda central leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, has issued a new audio tape. In it, he said that the only successful revolution launched in 2011 in the Arab world was the Syrian, because it followed the […]

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

Al-Qaeda Everywhere: US support for Oppressive Gov’t’s made Bin Laden’s Killing Moot

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US government has never understood insurgency for the most part. Smart USG officials with whom I’ve interacted have had a firm belief that leadership is a rare quality and that you can attrite an organization by killing its leaders. This theory is patently false. It […]

Internet

ISIL to Trapped people of Mosul: No TV or Internet for You!

contributors

Niqash.org | (Mosul) | – – The Islamic State has issued orders banning satellite TV because it spreads false news. They’re also demanding all Internet users’ names to find spies sending information for airstrikes. He began his conversation on Facebook in an unusually serious way. Abdul Hamid*, a man living in Mosul, the northern Iraqi […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

ISIL Digging in Against new US Troops in Syria

contributors

By By James Miller| ( RFE/RL ) | – – On June 29, 2014, when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gave a speech from the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq, announcing the formation of an Islamic caliphate, the newly proclaimed [so-called] "Islamic State" did indeed have many of the hallmarks of an actual state. It […]

al-Qaeda

Inclusive Governing key to preventing 5th Wave of Violent Radicalism

contributors

By Carl Bildt | (Project Syndicate) | – – STOCKHOLM – Muscular language has become increasingly prevalent in the debate about how to counter the threat of jihadist terrorism. Television talk-show hosts speculate about when control of Raqqa in Syria or Mosul in Iraq might be wrested from the Islamic State (ISIS), implying that these […]

Barack Obama

The Iraq War Never Ended: An Interview with Anand Gopal

contributors

By Charles Davis | ( TeleSur | – – The U.S. is at war with the same extremist group it claimed to have defeated five years ago, and it’s relying on sectarian extremists to "win" again. The United States is winning the war on terror, just as it always has. The Islamic State group is […]

Iraq

Daesh and Territorial Control Reconsidered

contributors

By Michael Degerald | ( History X ISIS ) | – – It might seem strange to open this essay by speaking about circulation and vitality in regard to Daesh [ISIS, ISIL]. Yet when we think of a nation-state, circulation is rarely the first thing that comes to our minds. Imagine a room where air […]

Iraq

Visualization: How ISIL vastly exaggerated its Influence and Everyone Bought it (The Atlantic)

contributors

By Kathy Gilsinan, Caitlin Cadieux, Daniel Lombroso | (The Atlantic Video Report) | – – “Americans are constantly being told that ISIS is a massive threat—but what does that mean? Are there ways to quantify how big the Islamic State actually is? Atlantic senior editor Kathy Gilsinan breaks down ISIS by the numbers, including the […]

Featured

Syria: Is al-Qaeda rising as ISIL is rolled Back? Is the US de facto Allied with it?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The cessation of hostilities in Syria never included Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) or al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front or Support Front), but it did include some of the de facto allies of al-Qaeda. The Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies, with Russian air support, have taken […]