Footage has surfaced online depicting flatbed tracks laden with American armored military vehicles passing through Syria, with conflicting commentary claiming that the materiel was bound for use by either US-backed Syrian militant groups or US troops themselves fighting Daesh in the city of Raqqa. The photos and videos were uploaded by Syrian Kurdish activists who are …
Continue reading American Armored Vehicles are Pouring into Raqqa, But Who are They For?
More than 40,000 civilians were killed in the devastating battle to retake Mosul from ISIS, according to intelligence reports revealed exclusively to The Independent – a death toll far higher than previous estimates. Residents of the besieged city were killed by Iraqi ground forces attempting to force out militants, as well as by air strikes …
The central event of the G20 summit in Hamburg was the meeting between Putin and Trump. The Russian and American presidents, among other things, agreed on the situation in southwest Syria. The heads of the Russian Federation and the USA did not discuss the crisis in the Persian Gulf after the Saudi Arabia, the UAE, …
Given impetus after the September 11th attacks in New York in 2001, the technology of “colour revolutions” as an element of fourth generation warfare has become the primary method of hijacking the functions of a foreign sovereign State. This is partially due it being both economically cheaper and less risky than a military incursion, but also …
Continue reading The Crossed Wires of the “Syrian Revolution”
Iraqi security forces kill ISIS prisoners because they believe that if the militants are sent to prison camps they will bribe the authorities in Baghdad to release them. “That is why Iraqi soldiers prefer to shoot them or throw them off high buildings,” says one Iraqi source. A former senior Iraqi official said he could …
Continue reading Why ISIS Fighters are Being Thrown Off Buildings in Mosul
We've reached half-time in what has been a very eventful year. It's revealing to compare the stories that have made the headlines in the western media in the first six months of 2017, with those that haven't. There's been saturation coverage of alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election — and Russian state "hacking" in general — even though …
Continue reading The Top Ten Underreported News Stories of 2017
US-backed Arab-Kurd alliance last week sealed off Islamic State militants’ last escape route. US-backed fighters pierced militant-held Raqqa from the south for the first time on Sunday, crossing the Euphrates River to enter a new part of the Syrian city, a monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have spent months closing in on the …
Continue reading US-Backed SDF Forces Enter Syria’s Raqqa from South
Over the years, I’ve almost lost count of the priceless treasures of art and antiquity which I’ve seen with my own eyes – and which now lie in pieces. Fourteen years ago, racing across Mosul to see the building where US forces had just shot dead the sons of Saddam Hussein, I glimpsed the “hunchback” minaret of the …
Continue reading Culturecide in Mosul: the Destruction of the al-Nuri Mosque
Here we go again... "US warns Syria over 'potential' plan for chemical attack" was the dramatic news headline which greeted me when I checked out the BBC News website first thing Tuesday morning, June 26. A White House statement said that the US had "identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that …
Continue reading Iraqi WMDs All Over Again: The Latest US Threats to Syria
