Pope Francis urges religious tolerance on rare Turkey visit
By Laura Smith-Spark and Arwa Damon, CNN Ankara, Turkey (CNN) — Pope Francis called Friday for religious tolerance and dialogue to counter extremism in the Middle East as he met […]
700 migrants’ harrowing sail ends
BY NICHOLAS PAPHITIS | AP ARABNEWS.COM Published — Friday 28 November 2014 IERAPETRA, Greece: More than 700 people, most fleeing Syria, were disembarking Thursday on the Greek island of Crete […]
With incentives and brute force, IS subdues tribes
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 […]
Islamic State Lacks Funds to Keep Control of Iraqi, Syrian Territory: Experts
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 […]
Qatar runs covert desert training camp for Syrian rebels
by Amena Baker, The Daily Star, Lebanon Summary At a desert base, Gulf state Qatar is covertly training moderate Syrian rebels with U.S. help to fight both President Bashar Assad and ISIS and may include more overtly Islamist insurgent groups, sources close to the matter say. The camp, south of […]
War with Isis: Islamic militants have army of 200,000, claims senior Kurdish leader
Exclusive: CIA has hugely underestimated the number of jihadis, who now rule an area the size of Britain PATRICK COCKBURN IRBIL Sunday 16 November 2014 The Islamic State (Isis) has recruited an army hundreds of thousands strong, far larger than previous estimates by the CIA, according to a senior Kurdish […]
Isis in Syria: The militia that has transcended tribal divisions to fight Islamic State
BY ROBERT FISK Sunday 16 November 2014 Militias worry me. No rules, no guidelines, no punishments. The Israelis used an undisciplined mob called the South Lebanon Army. The Americans used their infamous Awakening groups to murder al-Qaeda members in Iraq who were themselves killing American soldiers. The Hezbollah is Iran’s […]
Abdul-Rahman Kassig killing is pure evil, says Obama
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 […]
Islamic State to Mint Gold Coins
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 […]
Archaeologists dig at ancient site next door to Islamic State
By Mohammed Rasool and Deb Riechmann The Associated Press GAZIANTEP, Turkey —Archaeology and war don’t usually mix, yet that has been the case for years at Karkemish, an ancient city […]
War with Isis: The forgotten, plucky Kurds under siege in their enclave on Syria’s border with Turkey
Robert Fisk visits Rumeilan, where its people strive to extract oil, produce asphalt and continue the struggle against the Islamist militants The skies are grey-black from the oilfields and refineries […]
Isis in Syria: In the shadow of death, a few thousand Christians remain to defy militants
BY ROBERT FISK, THE INDEPENDENT Just 15 miles from the frontline of Isis, which persecutes their faith, the Christians of Qamishli gathered in the Church of the Holy Virgin for the wedding of Malek Aissa and Ilana Hacho. The bride was a priest’s sister, the bridegroom a computer engineer, and […]
Isis in Syria: The story of the martyred soldiers who fought ‘to the last bullet’ to avoid the fate of captured comrades beheaded by militants
By Robert Fisk, The Independent No one knows who Haj Badr was, but his white-painted tomb lies in a small sanctuary atop an ancient “tel” where potsherds thousands of years old lie scattered down the hillside. And it is from this windswept outpost south of Qamishli – for many years […]
Unwitting accomplice
The Daily Star Monday’s announcement that President Bashar Assad will study a proposal by the U.N. envoy to Syria to “freeze” fighting in Aleppo should generate skepticism rather than optimism. […]
What does Isis look like from the air? I buckled up my seat belt and found out From the air, the Isis heartland stretches out in a grey-black desert while smoke plumes from the sky
by Robert Fisk, The Independent Syrian Arab Airlines flight RB131 took off from Damascus International Airport to far-away Qamishli at 8.35am for its journey over Isis country, flying at an altitude of 17,000ft. Just how an airline can still function amid Syria’s tragedy – it has five working airbus A320s […]
The Lost Children: France Takes Stock of Growing Jihadist Problem By Julia Amalia Heyer
Sometimes Séverine Mehault climbs the stairs to the second floor for no reason at all. She walks along the hallway, past her son’s room and into her daughter’s bedroom. Then […]
Why Can’t the Pentagon Kill the Islamic State’s Top Commanders? The U.S. military takes out terrorist leaders around the world, but it’s been unable to cut the head off of the Islamic State.
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. […]
Massacres ignored
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 […]
After shipwreck, refugee finds despair in Europe
Summary After shipwreck, refugee finds despair in Europe It has been a year since the ship went down, and still the memories torment the Syrian refugee:The father flailing in choppy […]
Syrian Hajis eye Kingdom asylum
Haj pilgrims from Syria have refused to return home after completing the pilgrimage citing the ongoing political unrest and have appealed for asylum in the Kingdom. With the deadline for […]