The United States is increasing support of its Iraqi and Kurdish allies and escalating attacks on its jihadist enemies. Islamic State's long-term plan, though, remains on track.
ISIS and Al-Qaeda—which includes ISIS rivals the Al-Nusra Front in Syria—are competing over the same ‘talent pool’ of marginalized and angry Arab and Islamic youth, and ISIS is winning hands down.
The new PM, known hardliner against Sunnis and Kurds, has been a staunch supporter of Maliki policies. Iraq’s jigsaw puzzle, forced together by the power of empires and ruthless dictators, cannot be governed from a central location without widening its rifts irreversibly.
While the annihilation of religious minorities in Iraq is being systematically enacted, we cannot ignore how the intersection of religious affiliation, gender and geographic location are influencing both the nature of violence perpetrated and its outcomes. Feminists cannot remain silent on the atr
Sometimes states exaggerate the threat posed by violence from non-state forces. With ISIS in Iraq and Syria, however, the opposite is true: its onward march threatens the region and the international community.
A military escalation in Iraq depends on Washington's assessment of the Islamic State's power and intentions. But the jihadis are also thinking hard about their next target.
On 29 June, after the spectacular takeover of Mosul and other Iraqi cities, the Islamic State (IS) declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. How can the sudden rise to power of IS be explained? What is the future of the caliphate, and of the region as a whole? Romain Caillet provides an assessment.
US strikes against Islamic State fighters heading towards Erbil will not make a significant impact against a group that can fight across multiple fronts in multiple countries.
Behind the Arab rhetoric of unity over Gaza - and Syria or Iraq - lie deep and dangerous fractures.
Iraq's fragmentation and Syria's implosion are the long-term outcome of the follies of their Ba'athist and other Arab nationalist leaders.
As the Islamic State has consolidated its hold in Mosul, those who do not share its extreme fundamentalism have been subjected to brutal treatment—for which those who visited the war on Iraq bear an historic responsibility.
Led by the self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (b.1971), ISIS promotes itself in Iraq and globally as a purified expression of original Islam.
