BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities are holding a daughter and an ex-wife of the head of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the interior minister said. It was initially reported that a wife and son of the self-proclaimed “caliph” had been arrested last month. The woman, who has been named as […]
We love the wives of our favourite monsters. And the rumours which surround them. Fresh from spitting out our hatred of Madame Asma al-Assad and making fun of the late […]
BEIRUT — The Islamic State (IS) group is employing multiple tactics to subdue the Sunni Muslim tribes in Syria and Iraq under its rule, wooing some with gifts — everything from cars to feed for their animals — while brutally suppressing those that resist with mass killings. AP JORDAN TIMES […]
LONDON: Islamic State (IS) militants may ultimately lose the war in Iraq and Syria because they do not have enough money to run the territory under their control, despite holding assets worth more than $2 trillion, international terrorism experts said. The cost of running an entire administration – paying civil […]
Messynessychic.com It was Iraq’s ‘Garden of Eden’; unique wetlands in southern Iraq where a people known as the Ma’dan, or ‘Arabs of the marsh’, lived in a Mesopotamian Venice, characterised by beautifully elaborate floating houses made entirely of reeds harvested from the open water. These little-known architectural wonders are known as a […]
BBC News: US President Barack Obama has condemned the killing of US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig as “an act of pure evil”. The Islamic State (IS) militant group released a video showing a masked man standing over a severed head, which the White House confirmed was Mr Kassig. His parents […]
By Erik Holm and Siobhan Gorman The Islamic State is getting into the gold-coin business. The “Treasury Department” of the jihadist group that is now occupying large portions of Syria […]
by Jordan Times | Nov 10, 2014 AMMAN — Upon the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah, the Supreme Commander of the Jordan Armed Forces, the army on Monday dispatched a military aircraft laden with humanitarian assistance, including various supplies and blankets, to Iraq. The consignment, which is part of […]
BBC News: President Barack Obama has said the deployment of 1,500 more US troops to Iraq marks a “new phase” against Islamic State militants. He told CBS TV that the new troops, although non-combat advisers, could help Iraq go on the attack against IS. A US-led coalition has been helping […]
The United States and its coalition partners have conducted close to 800 airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, hitting command-and-control facilities, training compounds, armored vehicles, oil refineries, supply trucks, artillery pieces, and bunkers. But there’s a notable absence from the target list: the Islamic State’s top leaders. […]
The Daily Star Lebanon Events this week in Iraq and Syria offer dramatic proof of how weak the international campaign against ISIS is, as if any proof were required. When a foreign hostage held by ISIS is paraded before the camera, or later executed, the world learns his name. In […]
By Ralf Hoppe, Maximilian Popp, Christoph Reuter and Jonathan Stock SPIEGEL.DE The headquarters of one the world’s mightiest terrorist organization is located in the mountains northeast of Erbil, Iraq. Or […]
David Ignatius| The Daily Star Jalal al-Gaood, one of the tribal leaders the U.S. has been cultivating in hopes of rolling back extremists in Iraq, grimly describes how his hometown in Anbar province was forced to surrender this week to fighters from ISIS. The extremists were moving Wednesday toward Gaood’s […]
by Rami G. Khouri, The Daily Star, Lebanon Summary The conviction in a Washington court Wednesday of four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards for their roles in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead and 17 other wounded is a small, symbolic and perhaps significant act […]
WASHINGTON: The Islamic State has become the world’s wealthiest terror group, generating tens of millions of dollars a month from black market oil sales, ransoms and extortion, officials said Thursday. […]
‘We want everyone to know that a woman is no different to a man when it comes to defending her country.’ That is the message from a group of incredibly brave women who have signed up to fight for the Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Unit (YPG) against the self-proclaimed Islamic State […]
By Dan Vergano National Geographic PUBLISHED OCTOBER 15, 2013 War and occupation directly and indirectly claimed the lives of about a half-million Iraqis from 2003 to 2011, according to a […]
US military aircraft have dropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies to Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State (IS) militants in the key Syrian town of Kobane. US Central Command said C-130 transport aircraft had made “multiple” drops of supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq. US air strikes have helped push […]
By Arie W. Kruglanski October 16, 2014 REUTERS It is easy to look to religion for an explanation of why young men — and some women — become radicalized. But it is psychology, not theology, that offers the best tools for understanding radicalization — and how best to undo it. […]
It is not only Western agendas that benefit by groups like the Islamic State; Arab and regional agendas are equally served, writes Ramzy Baroud What if the so-called Islamic State (IS) didn’t exist? In order to answer this question, one has to liberate the argument from its geopolitical and ideological […]