The United States’ reluctance to become decisively committed to the complex quagmire in Syria is understandable. However, its plan to insert a US-trained-and-equipped “moderate rebel” force into the mix…
Ministers from 21 countries gathered in London on January 22 to discuss the fight against Islamic State (IS). They had their photo opportunity and issued their statements. US secretary of state, John Kerry…
One million words, languishing in a filing cabinet.
David Cheskin/PA Wire
The news that the publication of the findings of the official Iraq war inquiry is once again to be delayed has outraged MPs and the families of the soldiers involved. Familiar accusations of a whitewash…
A French soldier on the ground in Mali.
EPA/Nic Bothma
The brutal attack on the staff of Charlie Hebdo has rightly led to powerful calls to protect freedom of expression, with large demonstrations of support in Paris and other French cities, complemented by…
A harbinger of things to come? VP Joe BIden up close and personal with Brazil’s President Rousseff
Ricardo Moraes/Reuters
The New Year always provides an opportunity for both introspection and speculation. So it seems a good time to consider what the big stories are likely to be this year. Some of the five major stories I…
The UK’s detainee abuse scandal was more than a matter of bad apples.
EPA/Nigel Iskander
The report published by the al-Sweady Inquiry has found that charges of murder levelled at a number of British troops by Iraqi prisoners were “without foundation”, but that nonetheless there were instances…
US-run prisons were a recruiting office for Islamic State militants.
EPA/Reuters pool/Kevin Lamarque
The controversy over the CIA torture report has moved on to calls for the UK government to be open about its own involvement. The arguments have also been widened to include other elements of CIA activities…
The fence at Abu Ghraib prison, 2006.
EPA/Wathiq Khuzaie
Among the litany of abuse documented in the War on Terror, the revelations in the US Senate’s recent “torture report” on the treatment of detainees held in CIA “black sites” -secret overseas prisons where…
An Israel F-15I takes to the skies.
EPA/Abir Sultan
News reports circulated last week that Israeli warplanes had bombed targets in Syria, leading to widespread fears of yet another knot in an already nightmarishly tangled conflict. This is not the first…
Masoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, and Peshmerga on the border.
Rudaw News Agency
After overrunning Mosul in June 2014, Islamic State (IS) hastily and brutally occupied soft targets in poorly protected areas of ethnic minorities – the villages of Kurds, Christians, and Yezidis on the…
From the Turkish side of the border, residents watch an attack on Islamic State positions in the Syrian town of Kobane.
EPA/Sedat Suna
As the Kurdish town of Kobane continues to defy Islamic State (IS) forces, many pundits have condemned Turkey’s unwillingness to help the People’s Protection Units (YPG) keep the forces of “evil” at bay…
President Barack Obama said that allied forces need “to train and assist Iraqi security forces” so they could go on the offensive against ISIL.
EPA/WANG ZHAO / POOL
Some Australian special forces have entered Iraq but more than half the contingent is still to do so. As US president Barack Obama said on Monday he was having conversations with Australia and other Coalition…
A military campaign against Islamic State forces will offer no long-term resolution to Iraq’s extremist problem.
YouTube/VICE News
To explain the disaster befalling Iraq, as well as the rise of Islamic State (IS), you have to go back a century – before modern Iraq even existed. That’s not to discount the shared culpability of Iraq’s…
During his October visit to the UK, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani had to fight to convince the British government that Qatar stands firmly against Islamic State (IS). Despite his efforts…
A specter continues to haunt the Arab world – the specter of regionalism. The idea that illogical national boundaries, drawn by colonial overlords divided what should have been a pan-Arab region has been…
Female members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) helped patrol the outskirts of Makhmur, a northern Iraqi town that was seized back from Islamic State militants in August.
AAP/Eddie Gerald
Women and girls living in Syria and Iraq have been subject to gross sexual violence, economic strife and the psychological trauma of a war that, to them, seems endless. But women in these countries are…
Most media outlets lined up behind the ‘coalition of the willing’ last time around. This time seems no different.
The US Army
A year after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a postmortem of the media coverage of the so-called “Iraq war”. The conference included academics, journalists…
This’d better work.
MC1 Chad J. McNeeley via Wikimedia Commons
America prefers its wars short, sharp and decisive – unfortunately, what some are already calling the third Iraq war is likely to be long, murky, and indecisive. With his September 2014 announcement of…
The Ottoman Chief Eunuch was an influential figure. In this and other caliphates, eunuchs supervised the harem, the princes, the financial affairs of the palace and the mosques, as well as controlling access to the ruler.
Photo postcard 1912
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed Islamic State (IS) as a Muslim caliphate on June 29, 2014, with himself as caliph, a term reserved for a successor to the prophet Muhammad (PBUH). His would be the newest…
Locking up convicted extremists does not prevent marginalised and angry youth from being radicalised.
AAP/Julian Smith
The dreadful events in Iraq and Syria and counter-terrorism raids in Australia have alarmed Australians, including the 500,000-strong Muslim community. These incidents represent a new episode of the “third…