Iraq
Multiple forces hit ISIS on all fronts
US, Iraqi, Kurdish, Turkish and Syrian rebel forces are closing the ring around ISIS—but in an uneasy alliance, with little plan for the future of seized territories.
Tag: Syria
North America
Amnesty blasts global ‘politics of demonization’
Politicians wielding a dehumanizing rhetoric are creating a more divided and dangerous world, warns Amnesty International in its new annual report.
Syria
Syria: chemical attacks on Aleppo claimed
Syrian regime forces carried out chemical attacks in opposition-controlled parts of Aleppo during the final month of the battle for the city, Human Rights Watch charges.
Syria
Syria: Idlib between jihadis and imperial air-raids
Idlib governorate, where evacuees from Aleppo were forced to flee, is dominated by jihadist factions that both threaten secularists and draw air-strikes from the US and Russia alike.
Syria
Bashar Assad: Trump’s Syria policy is ‘promising’
Dictator Bashar Assad told reporters he found Trump’s stance on Syria to be “promising,” and broached inviting in US troops to fight ISIS in a “rapprochement” with Russia.
Syria
Syria: 13,000 secretly hanged at military prison
An Amnesty International report exposes the “cold-blooded killing of thousands of defenseless prisoners” in a Syrian regime detention center.
North America
Trump’s Red-Brown alliance: don’t take the bait!
Anti-war icon Tulsi Gabbard, recently a visitor with Trump and Bannon at the Trump Tower, just returned from meeting with genocidal dictator Bashar Assad in Damascus.
Iraq
Can Assad (and Putin) reconquer all Syria?
Trump dramatically steps up US air-strikes along the Syrian border in Iraq, as Russia pitches the Kurds and Syrian rebels on a peace deal that will allow Assad to remain in power.
North America
Court issues stay on Trump immigration order
A Brooklyn federal judge blocked Trump's order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, as activists occupied JFK and several other US airports.
Syria
Trump’s Syria plan: ‘safe zones’ or kill zones?
Will Trump’s proposed “safe zones” become areas where hapless Syrians can be detained as the US, Russia and Assad regime alike bomb the hell out of the rest of the country?
Planet Watch
Doomsday Clock: 2.5 minutes of midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of its symbolic Doomsday Clock from three minutes to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight.
Syria
Syria: first joint US-Russian air-strikes?
The Pentagon denied Moscow’s claims of joint US-Russian air-strikes against ISIS, but the White House signalled its willingness to cooperate with Russia in Syria.