Australia’s human rights record isn’t perfect, but it still good. if Australians aren’t able to take some pride in that and be inspired to do even better, over-the-top criticism could backfire.
When not employing the description ‘death cult’, Prime Minister Tony Abbott prefers to use the name Da'esh because the group ‘hates being referred to by this term’.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The terrorist group now calls itself Islamic State, but the many names by which it is known reflect both its own evolution and the deliberate choices others make in how they refer to it.
Islamic State recruitment.
Karl-Ludwig Poggemann / flickr
The death of a New Zealand citizen who returned to Iraq has led some to query his status as a refugee. We need to be clear about what it means to be granted asylum and the rights of citizenship.
Italian aid worker Vanessa Marzullo freed after being kidnapped in Syria in 2014.
EPA/Giampaolo Magni
It’s in the public interest to allow families to pay ransoms for the return of their loved ones.
Families cross the Euphrates River seeking the relative safety of Baghdad as Islamic State fighters advance with the goal of creating such violence that people turn from the government to any force capable of restoring peace.
EPA/Ahmed Jalil
Islamic State is a project built on solid foundations by jihadist theorists with decades of experience. The savagery of terrorism precedes the next stage of a caliphate that delivers longed-for order.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the spiritual and political head of IS, is a clever theologian and Qur’anic artisan.
EPA/Islamic State Video
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the spiritual and political head of IS, is a clever theologian and Qur’anic artisan. We would do well to better our own interfaith theological understanding.
Foreign ministers Julie Bishop and Mohammad Zarif demonstrated a growing rapport between Australia and Iran in reaching agreement on some but not all fronts during her visit to Tehran.
EPA
Australia made progress on restoring trade and sharing intelligence on Islamic State in Iraq. Iran was less open to accepting the return of asylum seekers, which may prove a blessing in disguise.
Melbourne teenager Jake Bilardi was troubled and thus susceptible to Islamic State propaganda well before he joined them and died as a suicide bomber.
AAP/Twitter
The instinctive response to Islamic State propaganda is to counter it with more propaganda. But my analysis shows that’s not working. We should not play their game on their field with their ball.
Under the leadership of both Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda has failed to reproduce an event that has shaken the international order since 9/11.
EPA
Islamic State’s rapid successes in Syria and Iraq stand in stark contrast to al-Qaeda’s efforts at global jihad over the past decade.
Like their allies, New Zealand troops served in Afghanistan without the ‘Rolls Royce’ legal agreement now being demanded by some politicians for the upcoming joint mission with Australia in Iraq.
AAP/NZ Defence Force, CPL Sam Shepherd
Australia and New Zealand’s joint mission in Iraq is getting underway. But in NZ, the decision to send 143 troops to train Iraqis against Islamic State has faced a divided parliament and public.
Iranians, who celebrated in the streets of Tehran following this month’s nuclear agreement, are keen to rebuild relations with the West.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
By reaching out to Iran, Australia can help end a long stand-off with the West that prevented solutions to many of the world’s most dangerous problems, including Syria’s civil war and Islamic State.
Pictures of smiling young IS fighters on social media glorify their narratives to people back home.
Picture courtesy of author from IS supporters' social media page.
What does a century-old sci-fi novel have to do with the Vatican’s view of Islamic State?
Given Australia’s involvement in Iraq, Tony Abbott cannot dismiss human rights abuses by Iraqi security forces fighting Islamic State militants.
AAP/PMO
Australia has a clear obligation under international law to take action to stop abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law by the ISF and Shi’a militia.
A losing battle? Iraqi troops and Shia volunteers near Tikrit.
EPA/Baraa Kanaan
ISIS’s destruction of archeological treasures is horrifying but reflects a too-human history of obliterating the past of “enemy” cultures. Moreover, all is not really “lost.”