With ISIS terror reigning in Palmyra, where treasured Roman ruins are at risk, reflections on a fascinating if less ancient part of its history: the Zenobia Cham Palace Hotel.
Tag: isis
BLACK MONDAY IN CHINA Photo: Zhang Yixi/Xinhua/ZUMA Chinese stocks plunged 8.5% today after their worst trading day since the beginning of the 2007 financial crisis. What Xinhua described as “Black Monday” saw the Shanghai Composite index’s entire gains for the year wiped out after weeks of free fall, despite strong government intervention. The crisis intensified […]
ALEPPO — With Syria’s civil war now its fifth year and showing no sign of ending, virtually all sides have been recruiting and training children to kill. Situated in the opposition-controlled outskirts of Aleppo, the Abdul Razzaq Military Academy is one of the most organized programs for preparing youngsters for the battlefield. Established by Sergeant Abdul Razzaq, a Syrian army defector, the academy’s instructors train some 150 children from surrounding areas on the grounds of an abandoned school in the village of Ehtemlat for two hours a day. Other than saying that the academy is “the achievement of his lifetime,” […]
BANGKOK BOMBER STILL AT LARGE Bangkok police are still looking for a man in a yellow T-shirt who was shown on CCTV footage dumping a backpack Monday at the scene of the Bangkok Erawan shrine bombing that killed at least 20. VERBATIM “Is it even possible that four men can rape a woman? It’s not […]
GREECE APPROVES THIRD BAILOUT After what the newspaper Kathimerini describes as “a tempestuous night of debate,” Greek lawmakers this morning approved the deal reached with international lenders for a third Greek bailout. It will now go to the Eurozone’s finance ministers, who are due to meet later today, and all eyes will focus on the […]
ISIS CLAIMS BAGHDAD ATTACK ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack in Baghdad that killed at least 76 people and wounded 212 this morning. A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up inside the popular Jamila food market in Sadr City, a predominantly Shia neighborhood. It represents one of the biggest acts of violence in […]
Syria Deeply had a rare opportunity to hear from Palestinians facing violence and starvation in the Yarmouk refugee camp in southwestern Syria.
ISTANBUL — The end of the ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK (The Kurdistan Worker’s Party) is a development that will undermine both sides’ bigger plans in the region. The Turkish government may be hoping to gain the nationalist vote and weaken the legal pro-Kurdish party (The People’s Democratic Party or HDP) by going after […]
The ordeal of the Yazidis ethnic minority began one year ago, escaping an impending ISIS massacre in northern Iraq. Tens of thousands fled to Turkey. But what happened next?
After last month’s border attack, some hard Syrian lessons for Ankara, which has finally opened a key air base for attacks against ISIS positions.
Locals in the Syrian city of Idlib were happy when rebel forces overturned regime forces. But now the rebels are enforcing their own version of military rule.
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Modern Islam And The Disease Within
Even a country like Turkey can’t find its way into the modern era. What remains is a negative, aggressive “discount Islam” that creates problems around the world
Photo: Hamza Turkia/Xinhua/ZUMA NATO DISCUSSES TURKEY BORDER CRISIS In an emergency meeting in Brussels today, NATO is holding talks to discuss Turkey’s campaign against both ISIS and Kurdish forces across its border in Syria.Reuters reports that both NATO and Turkey are downplaying the idea of a call for military help from the alliance. “Turkey requested […]
TIKRIT — A line of vehicles has formed in front of the checkpoint at the southern entrance to Tikrit. The nine members of the Mouslah family, their personal goods and some food are stuffed into their overcrowded car. As policemen give instructions, the father, Nasser, fills out a form on the hood of the car […]
Photo: Hani Ali/Xinhua/ZUMA TURKEY “CHANGING REGIONAL GAME” Recent Turkish strikes against both ISIS in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party militants in northern Iraq have “changed the regional game,” Hürriyet quotes Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as saying. But he insisted Turkey wouldn’t use ground troops in the fight against ISIS. According to The New York Times, […]
Photo: T. Pyle/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA/ZUMA TURKEY TARGETS ISIS IN SYRIA In a major escalation in the fight against ISIS, Turkey returned fire early today for the first time, sending F-16 fighter jets to bomb ISIS positions across the border with Syria, killing at least 35 ISIS militants. The retaliation comes after yesterday’s clashes near the […]
Turkey is mourning the victims of this week’s suicide bombing in the city of Suruc, along the border with Syria. “Turkey cried,” Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet headlined in its Wednesday edition, along with heartbreaking images from the funeral the day before of 28 of the 32 people who died during a meeting of young Kurdish […]
BRUSSELS — Moved by the dramatic situation of the Christian population in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, a group of Belgian activists, with support from the government, orchestrated a remarkable rescue operation to save nearly 250 Syrian Christians. In Aleppo, the Christians were under continuous assault by ISIS, the al-Qaeda-aligned al-Nusra front and the Assad regime. […]
In Ain Shams’ side streets and clandestine mosques, diehard members of the Muslim Brotherhood are ready to battle police.
Photo: Li Jing/ZUMA TURKEY TO BOOST SECURITY POST ISIS ATTACK The Turkish government is set to bolster its security along the border with Syria after a suspected ISIS bombing in the town of Suruc killed 30 people, mostly students, yesterday. At a news conference, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said “measures on our border with […]
GREEK BANKS REOPEN Photo: Marios Lolos/Xinhua/ZUMA Greek banks reopened today for the first time in three weeks, marking the return of some semblance of normalcy for the bankrupt country. VERBATIM “The conditions of the agreement, however, are positively alarming for those who still believe in the future of Europe,” former International Monetary Fund director Dominique […]
QAMISHLI — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad“s smiling face beams down from a large billboard on the central artery of Qamishli, a city in northeast Syria. But further down the road towards the city’s eastern suburbs, what looks imposingly over the avenue is a portrait of a triumphant-looking Abdullah Ocalan, the anointed leader of Turkey’s Kurdish […]
ANKARA — Turkey is still struggling to form a coalition government weeks after the Parliamentary elections that denied an outright majority to the ruling AKP party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But in the meantime, another pressing question has been raised in the halls of Ankara: Will Turkey enter Syria to create a so-called “buffer […]
Locals in the city of Palmyra speak out as ISIS threatens the treasured ancient ruins of their city, after destroying its notorious Assad regime prison that scarred so many.
Photo: Panayiotis Tzamaros/ZUMA GREECE TALKS RESTART IN BRUSSELS Eurozone leaders and Finance Ministers are meeting today in Brussels to reopen negotiations on the fate of cash-strapped Greece, two days after a resounding “No” to austerity from Greek voters. Angela Merkel declared that “time is running out” and gave Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hours to […]
President Erdogan is raising the tone about a “buffer zone” needed along the Turkish-Syrian border to halt a supposed Kurdish push for independence.
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Tsipras Says Oxi, Egypt v ISIS, Guac Wars
Photo: Li Muzi/Zuma EUROZONE RULES OUT TALKS BEFORE GREEK VOTE Finance Ministers of the Eurozone have ruled out any negotiations over a third Greek bailout before Sunday’s referendum, but divisions are starting to show between Germany and France, Le Monde reports. French President François Hollande said yesterday that an agreement had to be found “now, […]
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Tsipras Blinks?, Sinai Attacks, US-Cuba
Photo: Haryono/Zuma TSPIRAS COULD MAKE CONCESSIONS Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has reportedly offered new concessions to the country’s financiers, even as Greece failed to meet the IMF payment deadline Tuesday night. According to a letter to creditors obtained by the Financial Times, Tsipras is ready to accept most conditions that were proposed before talks […]
Seifeddine Rezgui, perpetrator of last Friday’s attack in Sousse, often prayed at the “God’s Mercy” mosque in Kairouan, Tunisia. A look inside.
Photo: Anup Kaphle/Twitter FRENCH FACTORY HIT BY TERRORIST ATTACK A gas factory in central France was the target Friday morning of what is being described by French media and law enforcement sources as an Islamist terrorist attack. DOZENS KILLED IN ISIS ATTACK ON KOBANI ISIS fighters have killed at least 146 civilians in their attack […]
GREECE IS GIVEN FINAL ULTIMATUM Fruitless talks between the Greek government and its international creditors to obtain a new rescue funding plan resumed yesterday and lasted through the night, ending in the lenders giving Greece an ultimatum to offer a new reforms proposal this morning, To Vima reports. NATO TO RETHINK NUCLEAR POLICY Tensions between […]
Too many nations and peoples with too many grievances. A wealth divide that grows deeper. A new (new) world order is needed, with the U.S. and China firmly in charge.
We shine the spotlight this week on Iran: IRAN MINISTER: ISIS + USA Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli made an incendiary claim this week during a joint appearance with the Syrian interior minister, connecting ISIS objectives with those of the West. He said that ISIS doesn’t just discredit Islam but also poses a danger […]
-OpEd- Caliphate, Islamic State, ISIS, Sunnistan, Jihadistan … Whatever name we give it, an entity is emerging in the heart of the Middle East, a sprawling swath of territory located between Mosul and Baghdad (Iraq) in the east, and Aleppo and Damascus (Syria) in the west. Inside this zone, as borders are disappearing and populations […]
Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza, is now facing a challenge from Islamic State insurgents and growing disenchantment with its leadership.
La Stampa takes on big questions in Muslim world with Sunni Islam’s highest authority, who was at a conference in Italy, his first trip to Europe since taking his post in Cairo.
U.S. STEPS UP ISIS FIGHT WITH MORE TROOPS TO IRAQ The White House is readying to send 500 more troops to Iraq to train and support the Iraqi army in the counteroffensive against ISIS, The Wall Street Journal reports. The additional troops will be sent to a new military base in the Anbar province. This […]
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G7 Wraps Up, HSBC Layoffs, French Kisses
O “COMPLETE STRATEGY” YET FOR ISIS “We don’t yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis as well, about how recruitment takes place, how training takes place,” President Barack Obama told the G7 summit yesterday, speaking of U.S. efforts to combat the ISIS terror organization. His comments come […]
SENIOR FIFA OFFICIALS ARRESTED IN CORRUPTION PROBE Swiss police have arrested at least 14 senior FIFA officials on charges that include “racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy,” the AFP reports. The charges follow an FBI investigation and allege “widespread corruption in FIFA over the past two decades, involving bids for World Cups as well […]
IRAQ BEGINS ANBAR LIBERATION OPERATION Iraq announced the start of a military operation today aimed at liberating the western Anbar province from ISIS terrorists, Reuters reports. The first city expected to be targeted is Ramadi, the capital city of the province that fell to the terrorist organization on May 17, Al Jazeera reports. Iraqi forces […]