Middle East 4 ChangeAfter ISIS
Friday, February 5, 2021
Patrick Cockburn Alend Shoresh is a Kurdish farmer and teacher from north-east Syria who was conscripted into fighting Islamic State in 2018: he joined the Syrian Democratic Forces…
Rojava: statelessness in a time of pandemic
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Anya Briy The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), commonly known as Rojava, has illuminated the plight of the stateless—even though statelessness in the AANES’s case…
Erdogan’s Ethnic Cleansing of the Kurds is Still Happening
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Patrick Cockburn Mass expulsion or the physical extermination of an entire ethnic or religious community – ethnic cleansing – is usually treated by the media in one of…
“Turkey Is Reviving Islamic State in Rojava”
Sunday, November 17, 2019
An interview with Rosa Burç and Kerem Schamberger The death of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi isn’t the end of the Syrian bloodbath — even in…
No to the invasion and occupation of northeastern Syria by the Turkish army
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
The Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists condemn Turkeys invasion of Northeastern Syria and its deadly assault on the Kurds. Last week, after U.S. president Trump…
Defend the women’s revolution in northeastern Syria
Friday, October 11, 2019
ROAR collective Since 2012, with the leading role of women, the people in North and East Syria have been building a social system that enables a peaceful, radical-democratic,…
Erdogan: Main enemy is at home … and abroad
Saturday, September 7, 2019
Esen Uslu. As the temperature rose to an unprecedented high at the beginning of August, the Turkish army was poised to invade Rojava in Syria. While this was…
Turkey’s Erdoğan: A vizier or a jester?
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Esen Uslu. The Turkish airforce base at Mürted near Ankara had an interesting history. The name means ‘renegade’, and it has been associated with the Battle of Ankara…
Stand with Rojava, oppose Turkey’s war
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Internationalist Commune of Rojava. The threat of yet another war looms over northern Syria once again. Turkish troops and their Islamist mercenaries are massing on the borders of…
Iran’s Policy In Post-US Syria Is To Block Kurdish Left
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Maysam Behravesh. US President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement last week of the withdrawal of American troops from Syria caught many people off guard, including his own administration officials. It…
Reflection of a Kurdish feminist
Monday, December 31, 2018
Dr Hawzhin Azeez If you want freedom you have to take it! You cannot appeal to the conscience of the imperialists, the colonialists, the oppressors, and the creators…
Syrian army says it has entered key city of Manbij after appeal from Kurdish fighters
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Bianca Britton and Gul Tuysuz. Syria’s army said Friday it had entered the northern city of Manbij for the first time in years after Kurdish fighters called on…
The Women of the Revolution: inside the Kurdish Rojava Revolution
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
David Pratt. A remarkable story is unfolding that defies the usual narrative about Syria. In contrast to the misogyny and anti-democratic values of the jihadists of the Islamic…
Turkey: A vindictive and pitiless regime
Monday, October 1, 2018
Esen Uslu. The Turkish army of the modern republican era has never withdrawn from any piece of land it has occupied on whatever pretext. A former British army…
Syria is not exceptional: interview with Joseph Daher | Part 2
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Joe Hayns & Joseph Daher. Posted on RS21 May 10, 2018. This is Part 2 of an interview with Joseph Daher, on revolution and counter-revolution in Syria. In…
The Syrian Revolution and the Emancipation of Palestinians and Kurds: Interview with Joseph Daher
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Joseph Daher and Ela Liberta. Posted on Alliance of Middle East Socialists May 19, 2018. Below, we reprint an interview which the Greek socialist collective Ela Liberta conducted…
Bread, water and roses: The guerrillas of Shengal (Sinjar)
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Marcel Cartier. Posted on The Region on April 4, 2018. Powerful, sobering and heart-wrenching images are once again to be seen from the Yazidi heartland of Shengal, otherwise…
Iran, Russia and Turkey plan Syria’s future as Trump seeks an exit
Friday, April 6, 2018
Erin Cunningham Posted on Washington Post on April 4. 2018 ISTANBUL — The leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey met Wednesday for high-level talks on ending the Syrian…
Survivors of the Syrian Wars
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Patrick Cockburn. Published in London Review of Books Volume 40 number 7 April 5, 2018. When I first visited Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria, early in 2015, it…
The Fall of Afrîn
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Güney Işıkara and Alp Kayserilioğlu. Posted on Jacobin 22nd March 2018. On January 20, the Turkish military launched its invasion of the Syrian-Kurdish canton of Afrîn in northwest…
Turkey: conflicts on many fronts
Monday, March 12, 2018
Esen Uslu. Posted on Weekly Worker, number 1193, March 8, 2018. Despite the popularity of Turkish actions in Syria, Cyprus and the Aegean, the ruling AKP is forced…
Turkish armed forces meet determined resistance
Monday, February 26, 2018
Esen Uslu. Posted on Weekly Worker Issue 1191 February 22, 2018. ‘Operation Olive Branch’ has given rise to increased repression and an intense outburst of chauvinism, writes Esen…
The Wounds of Afrin, the Promise of Rojava: an Interview with Nazan Üstündağ
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Nazan Üstündağ. Posted LeftEast Februry 14, 2018. LeftEast interviewed sociologist and feminist Nazan Üstündağ on Afrin, Rojava and the social stakes of the resistance to Turkey’s current military…
Female Kurdish Fighter Kills Turkish Troops in Likely Suicide Bombing in Syria
Monday, January 29, 2018
Rod Nordland. Posted on New York Times, January 28, 2018. QAMISHLI, Syria — A female Kurdish fighter carried out what appeared to be a suicide bombing attack on…
Showdown in Afrin: Turkey’s Attack on Syria’s Kurds Threatens That Country’s Most Democratic, Pluralist Force
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Meredith Tax. Posted on the Nation 26th January 2018. The Kurds have said they will fight to the death before they give up an inch of Afrin. Last…
The next Kurdish war is on the horizon – Turkey and Syria will never allow it to create a mini-state
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Robert Fisk. Posted on the Independent January 22, 2018. Syria cannot countenance Kurdish presence on its territory and Turkey cannot tolerate a Kurdish enclave along its southern…
Shifting Relations Between Turkey and the U.S. and the State of the Turkish Left
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Foti Benlisoy. Posted on Left Voice on January 4, 2018. Foti Benlisoy describes the rising authoritarianism in Turkey after the 2017 referendum, the role of Turkey in the…
Book review: War of All Against All
Friday, November 24, 2017
Lindsey Hilsom Posted on New York Review of Books, 23 November 2017 The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy by Yassin al-Haj Saleh, with a foreword…
Syria: Underground in Raqqa
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Patrick Cockburn. Published on London Review of Books October 2017, volume 39 number 20 pp15-17. Shortly before the siege of Raqqa began in June, Islamic State officials arrested…
Five Reasons America Should Not Fight Iran, Russia and Assad in Syria
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Richard Sokolsky and Aaron Miller. This article was first posted on Carnagie Endowment for International Peace on June 27, 2017. The idea du jour circulating inside the Trump administration and…