In the last week there have been mass graves discovered in Iraq. There is little detail on who the 400 people found buried are, why they were executed or what group they belonged to, but just that they were victims of ISIS and their location. This story and many linked to the atrocities in Iraq […]
The Economist published a piece this week on the actions by Iraqi forces against Kurdish interests in the Kurdish region of Iraq after a referendum for independence from Iraq took place recently. With dwindling ISIS control of territory in Iraq and Syria, the interests of those who have allied themselves with Iran, Saudi interests and […]
Taking back Mosul would be a key victory for the Iraqi Army and coalition forces and a disastrous defeat for the Islamic State.
ISIS’s increased activity abroad is a sign of weakness rather than strength: the group has lost around 20% of its territory in Syria and over 40% in Iraq since its peak expansion in August 2014.
The multiplicity of Kurdish national movements throughout the Middle East adds an additional layer of complexity in the fight against ISIS.
Much has been written and discussed about Kurdistan and its place (literally and figuratively) in the Middle East. Yet it’s challenging to see through rhetoric and conjecture, and learn what it is actually like to be in Kurdistan.
Iraqi Kurdistan is protected by its fierce and respected military forces, the peshmerga. Yet, each of the two main political parties in Kurdistan controls its own peshmerga regiments, using them to gain influence over other political agencies.
With two new armed forces opposing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Iraqi politics and security continues to get even more complicated.
It essentially was an accident. Saddam Hussein had been whipped in the 1991 Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush called on Iraq’s Kurds and Shia to rise up. They did — but Bush was all talk; there was no U.S. military help and they were slaughtered. So as Kurdish refugees clung to the freezing […]