A UN report details severe impacts on civilians from the ongoing conflict in Iraq, with 19,000 non-combatants killed last year, 3.2 million displaced, and an estimated 3,500 held in slavery.
Prime Minister Erdogan exploited the ISIS terror attack in Istanbul for illogical propaganda against the PKK—as his military presses its bloody counterinsurgency in Turkey's east.
World War 4 Report offers its annual annotated assessment of Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing or escalating the apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism.
Amid counterinsurgency against Kurds in Turkey, Kurdish opposition leader Selahattin DemirtaÅŸ is received in Moscow—now executing a grisly counterinsurgency in Syria.
Ex-CIA director James Woolsey charged that the Obama administration has no strategy for dealing with "failed states" in Iraq and Syria.
The UN resolution on a democratic transition in Syria assumes this can happen under Assad's rule. The US is now openly blocking with Russia over support for the dictatorship.
Russian naval forces got in a confrontation with Turkish vessels in the Black Sea, with control of contested oil platforms off the Crimean Peninsula at issue.
The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, seeking autonomy for Iran's Arab minority, met in Copenhagen, drawing support from Syrian rebel leaders.
Turkey's prime minister accuses Russia of "ethnic cleansing" with air-strikes targeting Turkmen in Syria—as Ankara continues to attack Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq alike.
Kurdish strongman Masoud Barzani has invited a Turkish military force into his territory, with the apparent aim of driving the PKK from northern Iraq.
Patrick Cockburn's "briefing" to the House of Commons opposing British air-strikes on ISIS was a shameful betrayal of the Syrian democratic resistance—denying its very existence.
A growing split between secular and Islamist elements of the FSA is unfortunately mirrored by a breach between Kurds and Ankara-backed Arab and Turkmen forces.
