Worldcrunch
MOSUL — Leila Khaled hadn’t felt well that morning. It was the end of August, when the Iraqi summer sun had hit the walls and windows hard, like the wind in the middle of a powerful storm. Mosul was still in the clutches of ISIS. The war was still far away; it was being raged […]
MOSUL — Ziyad loaded his wife and three children in the big German sedan that used to serve as his taxi between Baghdad and Mosul. That was in June 2014. The jihadists had just captured Iraq’s second-largest city and Ziyad, built like a late-career wrestler, with a big smile and spoiled teeth, was fleeing towards […]
NABLUS — The historic West Bank city of Nablus spreads out in front of Mount Gerizim, also known as Jebel et-Tur in Arabic. Through his binoculars, Israeli Army Major Elitsur Trabelsi gazes from the mountain’s peak at the sprawling urban area below — home to almost half a million people. “Do you notice anything? There […]
Invoking religion against one’s enemies is a sure way to perpetuate resentment and war. It stretches from the Crusades to the internet where you are reading right now.
France has long been the only country in continental Europe to invest in its military. Though others are now reacting to new threats, it may be too little too late.
‘We wondered how we should react until they told us they’d been wounded by the regime forces and had nowhere else to go …’
-Analysis- With the violence that ISIS has sown in the West, it’s sometimes easy to forget about Boko Haram, another Islamist terror outfit, which while pledging allegiance to ISIS has confined its horrors to western Africa. There, it has killed an estimated 20,000 people since 2009, with methods of murder that have included using young […]
-Analysis- WARSAW — In Poland, hatred is clearly fueling violence. But after six racist attacks were registered in a four-day period, this was the reaction from the country’s Interior Minister: “”There is no racism in Poland.”” The victims of these attacks are foreigners from the Polish cities of Wrocław, Legnica. Lublin and Ozorków. Four kebab […]
-Analysis- CAIRO — It’s delusional to believe that simply announcing the names of the perpetrators of the St. Peter and St. Paul Church attack, or that they’ve been sentenced, will prevent a repeat of the massacre. It’s delusional to think campaigns in the media, or an official funeral, will contain the anger that is rising […]
PARIS — The victory of the Russians, Iranians and of the Syrian regime in Aleppo is a strategic turning point in the organization of international relations. It marks the West’s fading out and the return of power politics in the Middle East. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the war. Here are four […]
ISTANBUL — The New Year’s Eve terrorist attack at a popular nightclub in an upscale neighborhood of Istanbul has left 39 dead and dozens wounded. As Turkish authorities continue their search for the suspect, the terror group ISIS claimed responsibility Monday for the attack at the Reina nightclub, which some have noted came after loud public debates about the celebration of Western secular holidays. Here are seven questions and answers to better understand what happened, as well as the broader context in Turkey, and beyond. 1. What is the symbolic meaning of the nightclub Reina? Reina may be out of […]
In Iraq, near Mosul, ISIS was running a sophisticated operation to make guns and explosives. A new report has found much of the material used came from facilities in Turkey.
[dailymotion //www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x55f778 expand=1] Goodbye 2016: A Zapping Video Year In Review by Worldcrunch
After the fall of Aleppo, various alliances of convenience will be put to the test, as the scenario suddenly gets more complicated for both Damascus and Moscow.
GAZIANTEP — “The nightmares only started when I left Aleppo,” says 30-year-old Mahmoud, a Syrian activist and journalist now living as a refugee in Turkey. “Before — even after my best friend was killed next to me when we were filming a battle against the regime — I felt sad but I never had nightmares,” he said, speaking in late September in a southern Turkish border town. Mahmoud lost a finger that day in 2013, and his friend’s skull was shattered. Over years of reporting in Syria, Mahmoud faced much danger and personal loss. But it wasn’t until six months […]
De Telegraaf, Dec. 12, 2016 Deadly blasts in major cities around the world returned, seemingly in sync the past two days. Dutch daily De Telegraaf“s Monday front page reads: “Weekend of attacks’ above two pictures of crying women, one in Istanbul where 44 people died Saturday, the other in Cairo, where at least 25 were […]
After two years of occupation by terror group ISIS, the largest Christian city in Iraq, Qaraqosh, was recently freed by government forces.
ALEPPO — In his smoke-filled office in western Aleppo, Tarif Attoura holds a copy of the draft agreement to let the rebels leave the eastern part of the city, under siege for three months. “It was the Russians who drew up the document in their Center for Reconciliation at the Khmeimim air base, near Latakia,” […]
As he embarks today on what is expected be his last major trip abroad as president — with stops in Greece, Germany and Peru — Barack Obama might find himself thinking back to that remarkable visit he made to Germany in August 2008 as Democratic nominee. It was an unprecedented event that included a jam-packed […]
The election of Donald Trump is a shocking event for millions of Americans. And not only Americans. The man set to move into the White House has spent the past 18 months crossing lines of both basic decency and what we still like to call modern democracy. Beyond any fair debate on points of policy, […]
BAGHDADI, MAKING IT PERSONAL IN MOSUL Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, is back on your screen. After almost a year of public silence, and amid rumors that the self-proclaimed “caliph” might be dead, ISIS released what it claims is a 31-minute audio recording of its leader. In his message — which was recorded […]
The reach of American power, of both the hard and soft varieties, seems to know no limits. People across the planet are affected in real ways by what happens in the United States — from which movies get made in Hollywood to how Facebook builds its algorithms to who earns the keys to the White […]
This is supposed to be the week that Canada and the EU ink their landmark Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) after seven years of painstaking negotiations. Hopes are fading, however, due to last-minute objections from Belgium’s Wallonia region. The French-speaking area’s 3.6 million people represent less than 1% of the EU’s total population. Yet […]
In southern Italy, mob clans have entered into an unlikely alliance with the Islamic terror group, exchanging Kalashnikovs for ancient artifacts pillaged in war. One reporter went undercover looking to make a deal.
It has finally begun. More than two years since ISIS conquered Iraq’s third-biggest city, a coalition of local ground forces, supported by U.S. air power, has launched a coordinated attack to recapture Mosul. “The time of victory has come and operations to liberate Mosul have started,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a televised […]
The worst fear in the capital is a lasting truce between Russia and the United States, which they believe would halt the Assad regime’s offensive and delay the total victory.
JAKARTA — Teuku Akbar Maulana, 17, is from the westernmost Indonesian province of Aceh. He was a brilliant student and was offered a scholarship to study in Turkey. Akbar left for the Turkish city of Kayseri in 2013 to attend the International Imam Khatip High School but grew tired of it after a few months. “We were studying something that I had learned before so I wasn’t getting what I wanted,” he says. Bored, Akbar, who was 15 at the time, started to spend more time on social media, including Facebook. His feed was flooded with brutal videos of what […]
Next to the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra lay several funerary towers known as the Valley of the Tombs. You can see them in the background of this photograph, as my wife Claudine walks among local ethnic Druze. Sadly, we know that the first-century necropolis was destroyed by ISIS terrorists last year. Some Druze villages, […]
Investigators assume that ISIS instructors are looking for new candidates for becoming potential terrorists on the Internet. Chat protocols reveal how they proceed.
In the scenic Loire Valley southwest of Paris, a town was designated to accommodate the first center of “deradicalization” of Islamic extremists in France. Since then, the community in Indre-et-Loire has been consumed by anger and fear.
New York is again testing the limits of its status as “the city that never sleeps.” A week after marking the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks at Ground Zero, an explosion a bit farther uptown Saturday injured 29 people. And now, even as the investigation continues into that attack in the Chelsea […]
MISRATA — This Libyan coastal city is bearing the brunt of the ongoing offensive to defeat the Islamic State in its nearby stronghold of Sirte. Flooded with hundreds of injured people streaming in from the fighting, its recently renovated central hospital is buckling under the pressure. With only 120 beds, two operating rooms, and a […]
The days without reports of a terrorist attack, somewhere in the world, have become rare. And no, today is not one of them. Details are emerging this morning of three veiled women attacking a police station in the Kenyan city of Mombasa, reportedly wounding two officers before they were shot dead. What stands out in […]
At first, most thought it was another earthquake. But the 5.3-magnitude rumble coming from the northeastern corner of North Korea was a potentially much more frightening event: Pyongyang had set off its most powerful nuclear weapon test ever. World leaders were quick to react to this latest act of defiance. South Korea denounced Pyongyang leader […]
PARIS — Ten months after the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan concert hall, it is now possible to virtually “conquer” the tragic music landmark thanks to the latest distasteful twist to the augmented-reality mobile game Pokémon Go, which sends players to find and catch more than 100 […]
All signs say this is the end of the line for Dilma Rousseff. Both O Globo and Folha de S. Paulo, two of Brazil’s main newspapers, report that she will lose today’s vote in the Senate and will be impeached. Many are hoping the decision, which arguably has more to do with Dilma’s perceived ability […]
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — Turkey’s government and the media that support it have an odd attitude when it comes to violent acts carried out by ISIS: It’s as if the “cultural/ideological dialects” of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government somehow malfunction. For starters, the government has a hard time condemning the vicious massacres carried […]
-OpEd- As I walk through central London, I see many women wearing burqas passing me by. And as I’ve always felt in that sort of situation, I was uncomfortable. Physically and morally uncomfortable. They say you’re not supposed to feel such things. Nor to write about them. What right, indeed, do I have to impose […]
Although conventional warfare makes headlines, a more insidious conflict also warrants attention. Cyber warfare, in its many forms, is arguably still in its infancy. But the new-age combat is a growing concern — so much so that the latest NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland, chose to focus on cyber defense. The list of government agencies, […]