Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

By Mohammadbagher Forough | (The Conversation) | – – Iran experienced its first major ISIL attack on June 7, as armed men and suicide bombers targeted two symbols of the Islamic Republic in Tehran: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum and the Iranian parliament. At least 12 people are reported to have been killed and 42 wounded. […]

Donald Trump

How Trump should have responded to London Attacks if he were Normal

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald J. Trump 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue/ Mar-a-Lago Florida (Golf Course) Dear Prime Minister May and Mayor Khan: I was devastated to learn that so many people were killed or wounded on London Bridge Saturday night. The special relationship between my country and the United Kingdom is […]

Featured

Baghdad and Manchester: Let’s Commemorate ISIL Victims in Both

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) lashed out at the civilian population in Iraq on Tuesday with three bombings and over 60 casualties. With its signature warped sadism, the organization sent a suicide bomber with a truck into a crowded square in the upscale, largely Shiite shopping district of […]

Iraq

Mosul curses ISIL corpses: “Beguiled by promises of Virgins, you’re Garbage now”

contributors

Special Correspondent | (Mosul) | (Niqash.org) | – – NIQASH’s Mosul correspondent left the city shortly after the extremist Islamic State group took over. But most of his family remained. After 34 months, he returned home. This is what he found. When I left Mosul on July 1, 2014 – fearing for my life because […]

Copts

Who are Egypt’s Coptic Christians, ISIL’s latest Victims?

contributors

By Paul Rowe | (The Conversation) | – – Coptic Christians in Egypt have been attacked while traveling on pilgrimages and bombed while praying on Palm Sunday, amid an accelerating series of attacks over the last decade. The interrelated challenges of violence, economics and discrimination have led to the increasing departure of Christians from the […]

Donald Trump

Terror and Geopolitics: Manchester 2017 and 1996

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Manchester, UK, was hit with the deadliest bomb attack on Monday since a June Saturday morning in 1996, when a massive 3000 lb. Provisional Irish Republican Army blast leveled the city center shopping district to rubble and left 200 wounded. The toll at the Ariana Grande […]

Featured

What will new French President Macron do about Syria & ISIL?

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Now that Emmanuel Macron is president of France, it is worthwhile asking what sort of foreign policy he would be likely to pursue. The French presidential system is more centralized than the American. I once did some consulting at the Quai D’Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry, […]

Iraq

Power, Water, Music: Mosul comes back to Life

contributors

Special Correspondent | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – Locals in the parts of Mosul, from which extremists have been pushed out, are celebrating small signs of returning life: For one thing, the chance to pour a glass of water in a well-lit room. Some hope is returning to the locals in Mosul, after several […]

Donald Trump

Trump sends US Troops to Patrol Turkish-Syrian Border as Ankara Threatens US Allies

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Only one fighting force in Syria is practically speaking taking on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on the ground, and that is the Syrian Democratic Forces, the bulk of whose fighters are leftist Kurds of the “People’s Protection Units” (YPG). They are joined by some rural Arab clans […]