By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The White House’s announcement on Friday that the US will keep “less than 50” special ops troops at an HQ of the Kurdish YPG in northeast Syria for the purposes of training and strategic counseling raised concerns in some quarters that Russia might inadvertently bomb US […]
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Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
Why Russia Fears ISIL: Panic over Domestic Terror Plots & Wave of Arrests
By Joanna Paraszczuk | ( RFE/ RL ) | – – Russia appears to be cracking down on Muslims and labor migrants in response to what it says are domestic terror threats from the Islamic State (IS) extremist group with reports of mass arrests of “IS-linked suspects” last week. The apparent crackdown comes amid heightened […]
More of Iraq’s Kurdish Women Training to Fight Extremists
Shalaw Mohammed | Erbil | ( Niqash.org ) | – – Increasing numbers of Iraqi Kurdish women are training to become soldiers; they want to join their men in the fight against the extremist Islamic State group. Silaf Muslih doesn’t believe there should be any difference between males and females on the battlefields of Iraq. […]
ISIL, al-Qaeda in Syria call for Holy War against Russia
By Joanna Paraszczuk | ( RFE/ RL Both the [so-called] Islamic State (IS) group and Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front, this week called for attacks against Russia, as Russian air strikes in Syria continue — though not against IS targets. IS broke two weeks of silence on the Russian air strikes in Syria on […]
Syria: Will US arming of Kurdish-led Northeast Rebels Provoke Turkey?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The intrepid Anne Barnard and Karim Shoumali at the NYT have a piece on how Saudi-supplied TOW anti-tank weapons to rebels in Hama and Idlib are creating a US-Russian proxy struggle in northwest Syria (the CIA is actually the source of the weapons, with Saudi intelligence […]
Does Obama have a Syria Strategy? Putin Does.
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In his “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday President Obama made some remarks on Syria, but do they add up to a policy? Obama said: 1. He is giving up on a Pentagon plan to train thousands of “moderate” Syrian fighters to take on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). […]
The Mideast’s New Cold War: Why Russia won’t Defeat Iraq’s Extremists
By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – Since the announcement of a new military alliance including Russia, locals have been trading arguments. Could Iraq become the stage for a new “Cold War”? And how effective can this coalition really be? For many Iraqis, the news that came last week of an alliance […]
In final Failure for Bush/Cheney, many in Iraq seek Russian Alliance
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Iraqi government in Baghdad, threatened by Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) and frustrated by the Obama administration’s foot-dragging in taking it on, seems increasingly tempted by a Russia alliance. Leaders of the Iraqi Shiite militias visited Moscow this week to seek Russian airstrikes against Daesh, according to […]
As Russia Strikes, Arab Twitter Wars over call for Jihad against “occupation” of Syria
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russian plans hit 20 targets in Syria on Tuesday according to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. Among them were a training camp for terrorists in the countryside around the city of Idlib, and another facility in the outskirts of the port city of Latakia. The […]
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