Black-clad fighters, suffering refugees and Western warplanes overhead – these are the mainstays of Iraq and Syria coverage as the Islamic State (IS) continues its campaign. Notably absent from debates…
The Islamic State’s campaign across Northern Iraq and Syria has entered Lebanese territory for the first time. Long affected by the spillover of refugees fleeing its war torn neighbours, the brief battle…
If we apply Karl Marx’s dictum that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”, then the Gaza Strip is one of the longest-running tragicomic productions in the world today. It is not hard…
US president Barack Obama has confirmed that the US military made targeted airstrikes and carried out a humanitarian operation in Iraq, marking the deepest US engagement in the country since US troops…
Iraq previously had one of the most multicultural societies in the Middle East. A broad diversity of religions, races and cultures flourished in Iraq, united by common heritage, culture and traditions…
Tragically, the 72-hour ceasefire brokered between the Israeli Defence Force and Hamas collapsed within two hours – just as shops in Gaza were opening and the fishing fleet setting out to sea for the first…
Was it only 20 years or so ago that Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the ‘end of history’? Fukuyama may have one of the biggest brains on the planet, but he was spectacularly wrong about the idea that Western-style…
The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a tiny, spiky package of fat, proteins and genes that was first found in a dying man in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2012. Since then, we…
The breakdown of an initial ceasefire between Israeli forces and Hamas last weekend played out to a familiar soundtrack: the wail of air-raid sirens and the menacing hiss of incoming rocket fire, followed…
Iraqi Kurds are in a unique position to declare independence in defiance of a seemingly powerless central government in Baghdad following the rapid disintegration of Iraq in the face of the Islamic State…
One of the main features of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza is an explosion of emotive, poorly informed claims and counter-claims – finger-pointing attempts to excuse today’s violence by recourse to…
Jill Stuart, London School of Economics and Political Science
The United Arab Emirates has announced plans to launch a mission to Mars by 2021. A first for the Arab world, the mission and accompanying Space Agency are a big deal for the UAE – scientifically and politically…
The prospect of another Israeli-Gazan conflict is upon us with the beginning of Israeli ground operations in Gaza. There have been suggestions that the Israeli action will be limited to the destruction…
The world was no longer watching – at least, that was what both Israelis and Palestinians seemed to feel when I visited Jerusalem and the West Bank late last month. Yet the people on both sides of the…
Without the bloodshed and destruction associated with the Islamic state jihadis, one of Iraq’s constituent pieces is moving quietly towards establishing itself as a free-standing political entity. Massoud…
After a month of fighting in Iraq, the ISIS insurgency has made considerable progress, even if there is now something of a stalemate as Shi’a militias organise themselves and the weak Iraqi Army gets a…
The conflicts in Syria and Iraq are attracting many westerners, including young Australians, as jihadi fighters. Last December, Australian intelligence agencies reported that they were aware of at least…
The jail sentences handed down to Australian journalist Peter Greste and his Al Jazeera English colleagues have deeply shocked supporters in the west. While spending a few years in an Egyptian prison is…
The Sunni rebels in Iraq have made further gains, taking control of important border crossings with Syria and Jordan, the Rutba truck-stop on the main road from Baghdad to the Jordan border and two towns…
Saad Jawad, London School of Economics and Political Science
The fall of several Iraqi cities to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, or Da’ish as it is known in Arabic), was a shocking turn of events – shocking, but not totally unexpected. Whatever Tony…
Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at RUSI; Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations; Deputy Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCL