Terrorism

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-winning novelist, was repeatedly stabbed on Friday at a literary event at Chautauqua Institution in western New York, where he was arguing that the U.S. should give asylum to persecuted writers. Allegedly one Hadi Matar of New Jersey, wearing a black mask, leaped up onto the stage […]

Featured

Irony Alert: Amateurish Iranian attempt to hit John Bolton may derail Nuclear Negotiations Bolton wanted Derailed

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – An attempt to hire a hit man to kill former National Security Adviser John Bolton by an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was revealed by the Department of Justice at a delicate time in the negotiations to bring both the US and Iran back into compliance with […]

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

The End of the “Global War on Terror”: Biden takes out Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951-2022)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden announced on Monday evening that a CIA-operated drone had killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second leader of al-Qaeda after Usama Bin Laden, on Saturday while he stood on the balcony of a Taliban safe house in Kabul. He was allegedly hosted by the Haqqani clan, one of whose […]

Afghanistan

War as Terrorism: Conflicts We Can’t Win, Suffering We Don’t See

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com) – Anyone who grew up in my generation of 1980s kids remembers G.I. Joe action figures — those green-uniformed plastic soldiers you could use to stage battles in the sandbox in your backyard or, for that matter, your bedroom. In those days, when imagery of bombed-out homes, bloodied civilians, and police violence wasn’t […]

European Union

Could Europe/ NATO become Israel-Palestine if Putin Occupies parts of Ukraine for the Long Haul?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) | – We have to begin asking the question of what will happen if Russia succeeds in implementing a long-term occupation of the Donbass region and of other Ukrainian territories down to the port of Odessa, making a land bridge to Crimea. Such a Russian occupation of land claimed by a […]

Featured

Zelensky says Russia is the new ISIL: Top 3 Ways he may be Right

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an address on Tuesday to the United Nations Security Council, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky compared Russia to the ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) terrorist group that took over eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq 2014-2018. His immediate comparison was of the brutality of Russian troops toward the civilian population in Bucha and […]

Counter-Terrorism

US could have done more to prevent civilian casualties in Raqqa, report says

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – The United States could have done more to eliminate the chances of killing civilians in the campaign to capture the city of Raqqa in northern Syria three years ago, a newly-released report by the RAND Corporation has stated. The report released on Thursday acknowledged the impact of the US-led […]

Bashar al-Assad

This is Where We came in: Will Russia’s Syrian Mercenaries in Ukraine form a new Al-Qaeda?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Thursday, according to Alarabiya (quoting Tass) Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he would permit foreign fighters from the Middle East to aid the Russian war effort in Ukraine. At the same time, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that some 16,000 fighters in the Middle East had expressed […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

What responsibility do Western troops fighting ISIL have for the Children that Terrorists use as Human Shields?

The Conversation

By Beth Morrison and Shannon Zimmerman | – Islamic State recently staged their most sophisticated attack since 2019 – a prison break to release former IS fighters in an effort to refill their ranks once again. According to Save the Children, hundreds of boys and teenagers were allegedly used as human shields during the fighting. […]