Greater Middle East

Syria: civil wars in the civil war

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.

Greater Middle East

Opening shots of new Russo-Turkish war?

The situation in northern Syria is escalating amid Russo-Turkish brinkmanship, with Turkmen villages coming under intense Russian bombardment.

Greater Middle East

Russian warplane down: heightened contradictions

After Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane over Syria, Vladimir Putin openly accused Ankara of backing ISIS—echoing a charge Kurdish forces have been making for months.

Europe

Cold War déja vu in NATO mega-maneuvers

NATO is just winding up its biggest military exercise since the end of the Cold War—Operation Trident Juncture, involving 36,000 troops from over 30 countries.

Europe

Obama’s nuclear upgrade: Euro-missiles redux?

Revelation of Washington's plan to station missile-capable nuclear warheads in Germany was met with a Russian threat to deploy ballistic missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

Greater Middle East

Lines drawn in imperial scramble for Syria

The US and Russia each groom their own rival proxy forces to fight ISIS and the Nusra Front—which in turn pledge to turn Syria into "another Afghanistan."

Greater Middle East

Syrian Kurds as pawns in Turko-Russian game?

With tensions high between Turkey and Russia, Moscow's intervention risks drawing the Kurds into the geopolitical game and escalating divisions within the Syrian resistance.

Greater Middle East
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David Venegas Reyes

Just over a year after Trump's air-strikes on an Assad regime airbase in response to a chemical attack, we witness a repeat of this episode—although this time the air-strikes were on wider targets, and carried out in conjunction with British and French forces. In response to last week's chemical attack on Douma in Syria's besieged Eastern Ghouta enclave, missiles and warplanes from the USS Donald Cook in the eastern Mediterranean carried out the first Western strikes on targets around the Damascus area. The targets were chemical warfare and military facilities, with no deaths or civilian casualties yet reported. "Anti-war" hypocrites who were silent during Trump's massive bombardment of civilians in Raqqa and Mosul, silent during the Assad-Purtin destruction of Aleppo, and silent (at best) over the Douma chemical attack, are now protesting air-strikes on Assad's machinery of death. Such "anti-war" depravity is part of the problem. (Image: Syria Solidarity NYC)