Greater Middle East

Erdogan-ISIS pincer against Kurds

The Turkish army is shelling and burning Kurdish villages in the country's east, while just across the Syrian border ISIS continues to harass Kurdish towns with suicide attacks.

Iraq

Kurdish diva wages culture war on ISIS

Kurdish-American pop singer Helly Luv is facing death threats from ISIS after travelling to the frontline in northern Iraq to produce a music video cheering on the Peshmerga.

Iraq

Syria war toll passes quarter million

Nearly a quarter of a million people have died in Syria's war since March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—over a third civilians.

Greater Middle East

Turkey slips toward internal war

As Turkey continues to bomb Kurdish anti-ISIS fighters in Iraq, violence is quickly spreading within Turkey itself—with bombings and armed clashes from Istanbul to the Kurdish east.

Iraq

PKK-aligned Yazidi militia battles ISIS

Young Yazidis—including women—are returning to Iraq's Mount Sinjar from which they were "cleansed" by ISIS last year, fighting to reclaim their homeland from the jihadists.

Greater Middle East

Suez Canal expansion amid regional war

Egypt formally opened an expansion to the Suez Canal amid pomp, spectacle—and a massive troop presence. The new trade hub opens as a jihadist insurgency mounts in the Sinai.

Iraq

Turkey continues to bomb anti-ISIS forces

The US and Turkey have reached an agreement to keep Kurdish forces out of the northern Syria "buffer zone" as Ankara expands its air-strikes in both Syria and Iraq.

Iraq

US betrays Rojava Kurds (inevitably)

Washington has given Turkey a green light to crush the revolutionary Kurds—in Turkey, Syria and Iraq alike—as the price of Ankara's cooperation against ISIS.

Iraq

Turkey launches Syria intervention

With US support, Turkey is moving to seize its "buffer zone" in Syria—ostensibly against ISIS but actually against the Kurdish forces that have been the most effective against ISIS.

Greater Middle East

Turkey in new crackdown on ISIS —and PKK

As Turkey opens Incirlik Air Base to US warplanes, it has launched sweeps against supporters of both ISIS and their enemies in the PKK and allied leftist forces.