As the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to take action against Islamic State in Iraq, I was reminded of The Big Lebowski, one of my favourite films. Set in August 1990, the opening scene introduces…
US President Barack Obama announces the start of a campaign of allied airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Syria.
EPA/Win McNamee
Having secured some sort of tacit agreement with Damascus, the coalition bombing campaign inside Syria proper has begun in earnest. The US, France and an ambiguous array of allies is unleashing the bleeding…
The decision by President Obama to launch missile and air strikes against Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaeda affiliate “Khorasan” in Syria draws the United States ever closer to yet another prolonged…
The new laws would make it easier for authorities to prevent people fighting in foreign conflicts, as happened to this man arrested in December for allegedly attempting to travel to Syria.
AAP/Australian Federal Police
The Abbott government has today introduced the second tranche of its national security amendments – the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 – into the Senate. As its name…
The United States has commenced major air operations against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. Aircraft from bases in the Gulf, supported by air-to-air refuelling, struck a substantial range of targets…
Over it: Iranian president Hassan Rouhani (L) and his foreign minister Javad Zarif.
EPA/STR
Since Hassan Rouhani was elected Iran’s president in June 2013, relations between Iran and the United States have significantly improved – though they remain very fragile. To explain why, most analysts…
Australian women of different faiths gathered at Sydney’s Lakemba Mosque last month in a show of community solidarity.
AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy
From anarchists in the 1920s and radical leftists in the 1960s, to fringe, extreme-right Christian bombers or gunmen in the United States in recent decades, or radical Islamists such as Islamic State today…
A suspected IS convert is arrested in Indonesia.
EPA/Sakhiy Rifano
Governments around the world are trying to come to terms with the fact that their nationals – and young people in particular – are leaving to join extremist groups such as Islamic State. In response, ministers…
Since Defence Force chief Mark Binskin and Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the deployment of Australian warplanes, the confused ‘mission creep’ seen in the last Iraq war has begun.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Before committing more troops, the Australian government should be certain about the type of threat Islamic State (IS) poses and whether the Australian Defence Force has a clear and justified objective…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott, with Air Chief Marshal Mark Binski, announces Australia will send 600 military personnel to the Middle East.
AAP
How much has Australia committed to fighting Islamic State? Australia has pledged 600 military personnel and up to eight Super Hornets, which is expected to cost up to $500 million per year. There has…
The German army prepares arms for the Kurds in August.
Jan Woitas/EPA
An “initial gifting package”: the opaque label is wrapped around £1.6m worth of heavy machine guns and half a million rounds of ammunition, which has now reached the Iraqi town of Arbil courtesy of the…
Barack Obama’s speech to announce a strategy to destroy Islamic State had a familiar ring to it because it followed the script of the past half-century.
EPA/Saul Loeb/pool
A few years back, an honours student in linguistics at Macquarie University did a small study of American presidential oratory. The student chose four speeches, in which four different American presidents…
US president Barack Obama has at last outlined his strategy for responding to the challenge of Islamic State (IS). In an address from the Oval Office, just a few hours short of the 13th anniversary of…
This is as far as you go: refugees arrive in Jordan.
EPA/STR
Swamped as we are with media outrage and political rhetoric about asylum seekers “invading” Europe, we tend to forget that the vast majority of displaced people find refuge in countries far beyond EU borders…
Anti-aircraft defences have not been a factor in US airstrikes against IS in Iraq, but Syria is a different and higher-risk proposition.
EPA/Maurizio Gambarini
The expansion of airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) into Syria announced yesterday by US President Barack Obama marks a predictable, if necessary, escalation of coalition operations against the jihadist…
US President Barack Obama outlines his new four-point strategy to defeat Islamic State in a televised address from the White House.
EPA/SAUL LOEB / POOL
US President Barack Obama has announced a more aggressive strategy against Islamic State, including air strikes against its fighters “wherever they are”, even inside Syria – which he had previously ruled…
US President Barack Obama will today outline his strategy to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State in a televised address.
EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
UPDATED AT 4:30PM AEST: The most interesting part of US President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated televised address today was not the unsurprising news of increased allied strikes against Islamic State…
If refused re-entry, foreign fighters such as Australian Mohamed Elomar are likely to become professional jihadists for life.
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Prime Minister Tony Abbott has spent recent weeks attempting to rally support for mooted anti-terror laws that would block the return of Australian jihadists fighting alongside Islamic State (IS) in Syria…
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and US Secretary of State John Kerry after the annual Australia-US security talks in Sydney last month.
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Australia has announced that it will take its place among the US-led coalition of states in military operations against Islamic State in Iraq. Responding to a request from the US President, Australia has…
A protest against the killing of journalists by the Islamic State
Mast Irham/EPA
Over recent weeks there has been a constant background noise that Islamic State and its ideology are some sort of throwback to a distant past. It is often framed in language used last week by the deputy…
Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University