This week’s UN General Assembly highlighted the need for cooperation in the fight against ISIS and other Islamic terror networks. And that could extend to sworn enemies.
Tag: iraq
-Analysis- One year since taking office, Iran President Hassan Rouhani and his government are confronted with an extremely unstable geopolitical situation across the Middle East. Tehran had long been seen as the main beneficiary of the 2003 U.S. intervention in Iraq, but it must now face unexpected difficulties in its neighboring country and former sworn […]
CAIRO — Since the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared a caliphate, much has been written about the movement — but still more remains unclear. How seriously should we take their rise? How does ISIS define Islamic law, and how would it be implemented? There are also more basic […]
Thanks to a hidden supply of weapons seized from a Russian arms trafficker 20 years ago, Italy may be able to quickly help Kurdish fighters as they battle against the ISIS jihadist terrorists.
A year after a chemical attack killed nearly 1,000 civilians in the Syrian rebel stronghold of eastern Ghouta, new fears that the Islamist radical group is building its own chemical stockpile.
-OpEd- BERLIN — American Foreign Policy magazine’s home page is a little bit like a quotation board for security policy strategies. Here you see not only how various players evaluate the world’s conflicts but also how much support there is for their point of view, because the number of times the article has been shared […]
-Editorial- PARIS — On the Iraq crisis as well as on the others around the world, the European Union is in disarray, hiding its divisions behind a discreet veil of consensus. At an Aug. 15 emergency meeting called by France and Italy, the 28 foreign ministers congratulated themselves … for each other’s stubbornness. Because a […]
SAJE — Father Kriakosmi, the priest of the village Saje outside Dohuk, doesn’t complain about the inconveniences caused by masses of displaced people arriving here. As he undoes the top button of his black shirt, revealing his white collar, it’s not a sign of fatigue or defeat, simply a reaction to the suffocating heat in […]
The U.S. has a poor record on Iraq, but it’s optimistic that cooperation with the country’s new prime minister can help him win the war against terrorists and restore regional stability.
The jihadist movement is not only reshaping the situation in Syria — it might completely shift alliances across the region. Will Assad ally with Turkey, Iraq and even the West against ISIS?
BAGHDAD — Ten years ago, this was a park for children. The young boys of Adhamiya, a Sunni district in Baghdad, used to come here to play soccer. Now, this bare patch of land on the bank of the Tigris river is a makeshift cemetery. A forest of tombstones grew during the darkest years of […]
BEIJING — On June 27, after days of uncertainty and rumors, 1,260 Chinese workers who had been trapped in northern Iraq’s war-torn Saladin province were finally evacuated and transferred to Baghdad. Just like the 2011 emergency pullout of Chinese nationals from Libya and the recent evacuation of others in the anti-Chinese protests in Vietnam, this […]
QASYAR — Ahmed is wearing a Barcelona soccer jersey with Argentine superstar Lionel Messi’s name on the back. Rasheed has Rodrigo Palacio’s from Inter Milan, while Samad is sporting the Chelsea shirt of Brazil midfielder Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Junior. While their heroes compete in the World Cup on the other side of the world, […]
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Iraq’s Thirty Years War, And Counting
Since 1979, Iraqis have known only war and conflict, both from outside and within. With Islamist radicals advancing toward Baghdad, the future looks as grim as ever.
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In Kirkuk, Last Bastion For The Kurds
Facing advancing jihadist fighters, the Iraqi army fled without fighting, and the city of Mosul fell on June 10. Kirkuk, a multiethnic oil city, has been saved by Kurdish fighters. So far.
How did a city known for its ethnic and religious mix roll over for a band of Islamist radicals? In the wake of the ISIS conquest of Mosul, the spectre of it spreading to the capital looms.
As Islamists gain ground in Iraq and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeals for help, the U.S. says it will only help if he first resigns. But it’s not the only reason why his regime may fall.
The ISIS assault in Iraq is spectacular proof that the U.S. has failed in the Middle East. It’s time for a return to power politics and a bloc of former enemies to take on the extremists.
Abandoning Iraq and failing to act in Syria have left a vacuum that ISIS and other terrorist groups are filling. Obama’s criticism of his predecessor is no substitute for a real foreign policy.
ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham), the jihadist group wreaking havoc in Syria for more than a year, has gained control of the Nineveh province in its country of birth – post-US invasion Iraq. Reports late Wednesday said the extremists had taken control of the city of Tikrit. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki […]
BAGHDAD – Everywhere in the Iraqi capital is an off-limits “red zone” for Westerners except for the American invasion’s legacy known as the “green zone.” This central quarter in Baghdad, accessible only by the right identification document or special permission, is actually a sort of privileged prison for those with valuable blood. But I have […]
The competing sides, both globally and regionally, will never see Ukraine’s reality the same way, so deep are the historical and cultural divides. Analysis from Kiev.
Bashar al-Assad still in power in Syria, al-Qaeda still strong in Iraq. The West’s double failure, incapable of building a common strategy, is a sign of a now ‘post-American’ region.
More than 13,000 families have been evacuated from areas of Iraq no longer under government control, including the city of Fallujah. The Al-Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIS has gained control of strategic swathes of the country, actively seeking to create divisions among jihadist Syrian rebel groups. ISIS has earned a […]
Iraq’s rising death toll, a Nazi art stash recovery and other events of the past seven days are summed up by the numbers… (cover photo: Jorge Franganillo)
PARIS HOSTS IRAQ/ISIS CONFERENCEFrench President François Hollande opened an international conference in Paris this morning on the subject of battling Iraq’s ISIS terror organization, warning that “there is no time to lose” in fighting the jihadist group. At the same time, France announced it had joined Britain in carrying out reconnaissance flights over Iraq. NEW […]
A strange thing has happened on the way to the war in Syria: U.S. public opinion, like in Turkey, has lined up this time alongside Europe’s perennial reflex against intervention.
BBC, AL JAZEERA (Qatar), AFP Worldcrunch BAGHDAD — Coordinated bombings in Iraq’s capital of Baghdad killed at least 44 people and wounded 157 more Wednesday, the BBC reports. Aimed at the Shia Muslim community, bombs exploded during rush hour in most of the city’s Shia neighborhoods and in two mixed towns to its south. A […]
Though Kurdish Syrians have largely avoided any involvement in the country’s civil war, they are now caught in the middle and fleeing in droves. A visit to the refugee camp in Iraq.
Aug. 15, 2014 EU MINISTERS DISCUSS ARMING KURDSEuropean Union foreign ministers are in Brussels today for an emergency meeting about whether to arm Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga fighters against ISIS, which the U.S. and France are already doing, the BBC reports. A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that the UK would “favorably […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A wave of 13 car bombs has struck mainly Shia areas in and around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least 33 people and injuring more than 150, security and medical officials have said. The deadliest of Monday’s attacks occurred near a taxi terminal in the city of Kut, […]
BAGHDAD — On Fridays, you can get a taste of just how special Mutanabbi Street used to be. For a couple of hours once a week, this neighborhood in the Iraqi capital returns to its former glory when everybody who is anybody in the Baghdad’s art and culture scene is out on the famous “book […]
Friday, June 20, 2014 BATTLE RAGES AROUND IRAQ OIL REFINERY The Iraq army is still trying to push back ISIS jihadists, who are surrounding the country’s biggest oil refinery in Baiji. The Iraqi air force, meanwhile, claimed to have killed as many as 70 fighters in air strikes just north of Baghdad to prevent the […]
Friday, June 13, 2014 ISIS FIGHTERS GAIN MORE GROUND Islamist group ISIS gained more ground in Iraq overnight with the capture of two more towns east of Baghdad, where the government is reinforcing its defenses, Al-Arabiya reports. Yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama suggested that Washington might act. “I don’t rule out anything, because we do […]
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At Least 13 Dead In Iraq Bomb Attacks
BBC NEWS (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), AP, REUTERS Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A series of bomb attacks killed at least 13 and wounded dozens on Thursday morning in Iraq, in the latest surge of violence sweeping the country, officials told AP. According to the police, most of the attacks happened in Baghdad, including a car bomb […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), CNN (USA), REUTERS Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – At least 32 people have been killed and scores injured on Monday in a series of car bombs and shootings across Iraqi cities. Reports are still conflicting as to the number of attacks and casualties in this latest spate of violence plaguing the country. CNN reports […]
ISTANBUL – To understand the current stage of Turkey’s so-called “Kurdish problem,” rather than political analysis we are better off relying on the fundamentals of chemistry: The law of conservation of mass tells us that “nothing can be created out of nothing, and nothing can ever be completely destroyed.” Therefore, promoting the concept that “there […]
BBC NEWS (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), REUTERS, AP Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A wave of coordinated attacks Monday in Baghdad, Kirkuk, and other towns has left dozens killed and hundreds of injured across Iraq. The exact number of people killed in the bombings is still unclear, with Al Jazeera reporting at least 19 casualties and AP […]
Ten years after Saddam’s fall, Iraq’s richest city is rife with courruption and can’t even clean up after itself.
WASHINGTON POST (U.S.), BBC, SKY NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch LOS ANGELES – In his first speech since resigning in November, former CIA director David Petraeus has apologized to those he says he let down with the extramarital affair that lead to one of the most sudden and dramatic public falls from grace in recent memory. In […]