Terrorism

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) in the Sinai Peninsula made a big deal of claiming they shot down a Russian airliner Saturday morning. They did not. The plane was at 30,000 feet when it got into trouble. Anti-aircraft weaponry like Manpads can’t reach those altitudes. This kind of […]

Featured

Syria: US Boots on Ground risks Conflict with Turkey, not Russia

Juan Cole

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 […]

al-Qaeda

Syria: On eve of Vienna Summit, Has Russia changed the facts on the Ground?

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Writing in al-Hayat [Life] this week, columnist Walid Choucair outlined the successes he sees Russia to have had in its Syria campaign, and the goals for which it is reaching. Choucair is the Lebanese affairs bureau chief of this pan-Arab, Saudi-owned London daily, which has a […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Why Russia Fears ISIL: Panic over Domestic Terror Plots & Wave of Arrests

contributors

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 […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

More of Iraq’s Kurdish Women Training to Fight Extremists

contributors

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. […]

al-Qaeda

American Hypocrisy: Against Muslim Sharia law at home, Calls it “Moderate” in Syria

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I just watched the 5 pm news hour on CNN anchored by Wolf Blitzer, and the editors had clearly decided that the lead was that Russian bombing in south Aleppo risks creating a new wave of refugees. They also stuck to the cover story that the […]

al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda in Syria Leader: Kill Alawite Minority, Russians; Christians fear West Backs Him

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The leader of al-Qaeda in Syria, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, has called for an escalation in attacks on the population centers of the Alawite Shiite minority. The president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and other leading members of the ruling Baath Party belong to this folk sect of […]

Afghanistan

Still underestimating al-Qaeda & Taliban despite 1500 Military Analysts

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – That figure stunned me. I found it in the 12th paragraph of a front-page New York Times story about “senior commanders” at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) playing fast and loose with intelligence reports to give their air war against ISIS an unjustified sheen of success: […]

al-Qaeda

ISIL, al-Qaeda in Syria call for Holy War against Russia

contributors

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 […]