Congress fuels Christian rivalries with bid to arm Iraqi militias

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Bryant Harris Posted on al-Monitor on September 15, 2017. A little-noticed provision to arm Iraqi Christians in the House version of a must-pass defense bill is inadvertently fueling unrest…

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Global Burden of Disease 2016

Sunday, September 17, 2017

The medical journal Lancet (volume 390, number 10100, Sep 16, 2017, p 1083​-​1464) has published a series of articles on global health 2016 that shows the changing pattern…

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Sketching war: the writer who depicts Middle East conflict – in watercolour

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Kilian Fox Posted on The Guardian/Observer on September 10, 2017 Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s drawings have helped him cope with reporting from the frontline. Now they will illustrate…

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Endtimes in Mosul: eyewitness account of the costs of retaking of the city

Friday, August 18, 2017

Patrick Cockburn. Posted on London Review of Books vol 39 no 16, August 17, 2017 . On 22 May, Ahmed Mohsen, an unemployed taxi driver, left his house…

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Mosul: Oppression from all sides

Monday, August 14, 2017

Haifa Zangana, First posted on Weekly Worker on 10th August 2017. Firstly, a few words about the recent history of Mosul, so we can understand the context of…

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Assad’s Secret Ingredient? The Iraqi Military’s Unknown Invasion Of Syria

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Omar Sabbour. Posted Huffington Post 22 July, 2017 In the past year or so, much has been made of the Assad regime’s victories in different areas of Syria….

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A Shameful Silence: Where is the Outrage Over the Slaughter of Civilians in Mosul?

Monday, July 31, 2017

Patrick Cockburn. First posted on Counterpunch on July 24, 2017. The catastrophic number of civilian casualties in Mosul is receiving little attention internationally from politicians and journalists. This is in…

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The Baghdad Road: eyewitness in Mosul

Friday, June 9, 2017

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. This article frist appeared on London Review of Books volume 39, number9, May 5, 2017. On the morning of 5 March a group of soldiers belonging…

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Iraq: US military admits failures to monitor over $1 billion worth of arms transfers

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Posted Amnesty International May 24, 2017. The US Army failed to keep tabs on more than $1 billion worth of arms and other military equipment in Iraq and…

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Paradise Lost: The Rise and Fall of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Friday, April 21, 2017

Tam Hussein, Joshua Landis blog. Posted by Tam Hussein on Friday, April 14th, 2017 @tamhussein I entered Najiyeh, a small town of no consequence, without their permission. The…

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The Genealogy of Daesh-ISIS

Monday, April 10, 2017

Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Al-Jumhurya. Even though the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or Da’esh) emerged in Syria in 2013, its structure can be traced back to…

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How will Abadi handle Iraq’s Shiite militias Popular Mobilization Units (PMU)?

Monday, April 3, 2017

Ali Mamouri, Al Monitor. Some factions of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) are less than satisfied with the visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to Washington on March 19-23,…

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Trump and the Middle East: A talk with Ardeshir Mehrdad

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Mehdi Kia: In an earlier interview with Barabari television station you talked about the apparent change of direction in Trump administration’s foreign policy which you called “going beyond…

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Iraq and beyond: hidden, secret wars from air, land and drone

Friday, March 17, 2017

Paul Rogers. This report first appeared in Open Democracy on March 10, 2017 The west’s military focus has shifted towards covert use of special forces. Both the human…

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Will the re-launch of the Mosul battle by the Iraqi PM reverse Trump’s hostile stance?

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Zaid Alisa, Open Democracy. This article first appeared in Open Democracy on March 10, 2017. The highly unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections sent…

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The Arab ruling classes in the 1970s – Mohammad Ja’far

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Mohammad Ja’far, Libcom.org. Text of a talk by Mohammed Ja’far on the development of the Arab ruling classes during the 1960s and 1970s, their integration into the world…

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Who supplies the news? Patrick Cockburn on misreporting in Syria and Iraq

Monday, January 30, 2017

Patrick Cockburn, London Review of Books. The nadir of Western media coverage of the wars in Iraq and Syria has been the reporting of the siege of East…

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Russia Is Not Iraq (and Neither Was Syria)

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Charles Davis, Pulse. With right-wing authoritarians ruling in Moscow and Washington, leftists should find it easy to oppose these evil empires — but some, poisoned by pre-election contrarianism,…

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Between Iraq’s colonialist and Islamist quagmire a ‘third way’ is hard but possible

Friday, December 9, 2016

Ardeshir Mehrdad. This article first appeared in iran-bulltin-Middle East Forum in November 2004. Despite its age, the arguments laid out are equally valid to day in the context…

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Syria: understanding the anti-war position

Saturday, November 19, 2016

David Bush, Counterfire. However confusing the situation in Syria, the anti-war movement provides political clarity, argues David Bush in his latest online post. There is major disorientation on…

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Aleppo, Mosul and Imperialist Hypocrisy

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Alan Woods, In Defence of Marxism. The saying goes that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. To this list we must add diplomacy, which is lying raised…

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Iraq: Mosul offensive poses new questions amid Western hypocrisy

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Tony Iltis, Green Left. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of an assault to recapture Mosul, the most important Iraqi city held by ISIS, on October…

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Green Gold: How ISIS Is making as much money from wheat as from oil

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Annia Ciezadlo, Souciant. As ISIS comes under increased attack in some of the region’s most fertile lands, Middle East agriculture researcher Eckart Woertz discusses how the militant group…

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Islamic State v al-Qaida: Book review

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Owen Bennet-Jones, London Review of Books. Isis: A History by Fawaz A. Gerges Princeton; Isis: Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, Regan Arts;…

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The ‘War’ against Islamic State: A Military Strategy Doomed to Political Failure

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Joseph Daher, New Politics. The last terrible terrorist attack by the so-called “Islamic State” (also known as Daech) killed at least 300 people in Baghdad’s central shopping district…

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The Kurdish Question Then and Now

Friday, October 14, 2016

Semir Amin, Monthly Review. The political chaos that has recently dominated the scene in the Middle East is expressed, among other ways, by the violent resurgence of the…

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First ISIS, then Iran: Kurdish-Iranian leader has eyes on Iran

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Kim Dean, Middle East Eye. Erbil, Iraq – A small range of hills outside of Kirkuk has been the frontline with the Islamic State since the group fled…

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Proxies and politics: Why Iran funds foreign militias

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Karim El-Bar, Middle East Eye. In wake of Arab Spring, Iran’s backing of foreign militias has drawn much attention. Why is this support so central to Iranian foreign…

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Fight or Flight: The Desperate Plight of Iraq’s “Generation 2000”

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

International Crisis Group, Jadalyya. Beset by political dysfunction, endemic corruption and a jihadist threat, Iraq is squandering its greatest asset: its youth. By failing to provide a vision…

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Leila Khaled on ISIS and Islamism, Syria and the Palestinians

Monday, September 26, 2016

Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, Defend Democracy Press. ISIS is a criminal organization which was created, and is used, by the USA. As for Syria, it was not only the intervention…

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