Experts tell us the North American shale oil boom is responsible for low prices despite Middle East unrest. But the price slump serves Western aims of weakening Russia and Iran.
Kurdish forces made further gains against ISIS at Kobani in the final days of 2014, while the Peshmerga are preparing an offensive to drive the jihadis from Kurdish lands in Iraq.
With regime bombardment intensifying, Syrian rebel factions in Aleppo announced a new "Shamiyya Front"—a further consolidation of "moderate" Islamist forces.
An outbreak of motorist attacks on pedestrians in France is spun exclusively in terms of Islamist extremism, leaving out the critical factor of car culture.
Backed by US air-strikes, Peshmerga forces liberated the last remaninig Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar. But the Yazidis' home town of Sinjar remains occupied by ISIS.
US ground troops fought their first direct battle against ISIS as the jihadists launched an attack on a base in Anbar that housed mixed US, Iraqi and tribal forces.
A supposed ISIS flyer circulating on social networks has warned 18 writers and poets in Gaza against what it calls criticizing Islam, stating that ''apostates will be punished."
Internet and media slueths scramble to identify the faction behind the jihadist flag raised by the militant in the Sydney hostage crisis—which follows Austrailian air-strikes on ISIS.
Despite—or perhaps partly because of—threats and deadly attacks from ISIS militants, a record 15.5 million Shi'ite pilgrims have converged on Karbala for Arbaeen.
The Russian policy establishment is hypothesizing an ISIS hand in the bloody attack by Chechen insurgents in Grozny—and implying that the West is in turn behind ISIS. (Map via La Croix International)
Gen. David Rodriguez, head of US Africa Command, said that ISIS has set up training camps in eastern Libya, and that the Pentagon is closely monitoring the situation.
Syrian rebels announced formation of a new Revolutionary Command Council at a meeting in Turkey—dominated by conservative Islamists but excluding Nusra Front and ISIS.
