By Tara McCormack
Western foreign policy has deepened the conflict in the Middle East.
What is the British ‘national interest’? That phrase often gets thrown around by politicians, with no explanation as to why a particular policy is actually in the ‘national interest’. This is especially true of our foreign policy, which some might be surprised to hear supports and funds barbaric jihadists in the name of ‘democracy and human rights’. (Or, in plain terms, in the pursuit of regime change in the
One would think that the United States would have learned by now, that it is never a good idea to arm terrorist groups in different parts of the world, due to the inevitable “blowback” which eventually ensues after these violent groups determine that the USA is no longer in support of them, or when the USA wants to deny that they have any relationship with them.
We have seen this paradigm unfold countless times before, over the past few decades, with groups like Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, La
As 2017 draws to a close, it is difficult to be optimistic about what will be coming in the new year. The American President, whose margin of victory was certainly based on his pledge to avoid unnecessary wars, has doubled down on Afghanistan, refuses to leave Syria even though ISIS has been defeated, and is playing serious brinksmanship with a psychopathic and unpredictable regime in Pyongyang. The White House has also bought into the prevailing largely fabricated narrative about a Russia
One of the striking characteristics of the past week of protests in Iran is the apparent lack of a leadership organization behind them. The Green Movement that lead the protests against the tainted presidential election of 2009, mostly made up of the reformist faction, has remained absent this time around, with the reformist leaders mostly distancing themselves from the protesters. There doesn’t appear to be a government-in-waiting that those who dream of "regime-change" in Tehran can install
Sources close to security bodies have said of over 500 people arrested during the disturbances in different cities in Iran, more than 80 percent have admitted receiving money and ordered from outside the country to misuse the people’s protest against price rises and high unemployment.
This comes against the backdrop of a declared scheme by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to bring unrest to the streets of Iran. The plot seems to have untraveled in the form of sporadic feats of sabotage
A political analyst based in London hailed Iran’s “critical role” in the collapse of the Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group in the Middle East and said Iranians proved, with their blood, their commitment to fighting terrorism.
“Iran has played a very critical role in the fight against Wahhabism in Syria and in Iraq,” Marcus Papadopoulos said in an interview with the Tasnim News Agency.
“The Iranian Government and the Iranian people have proved, with their blood, their commitment to fighting
There are some great duties which need to be carried out. You honorable gentlemen came up with some solutions and specified certain responsibilities in this congressional meeting. I too would like to mention two, three tasks that cannot be ignored: one is the formation of a scholarly, rational, and comprehensive movement, by ulama from all Islamic denominations, with the purpose of uprooting the takfiri orientation. This movement should not be confined to certain denominations. All the
President Donald Trump’s airstrikes in Afghanistan are making it easier for the Taliban to recruit new members to attack U.S. troops, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban said.
In an interview posted on the Taliban’s website, spokesman Muhammad Yusuf said there is a direct link between an increase in civilian casualties in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s ability to recruit new members.
“Civilian losses and casualties increased significantly due the indiscriminate bombing, artillery shelling and
A UK report on modern slavery identifies its various manifestations – sexual exploitation, labour exploitation and domestic servitude – concluding that increased awareness results in an increase in detection and reporting. But, with trafficking at the root of much modern slavery it is clearly a worldwide phenomenon, not limited to the west or to any particular country.
Modern Slavery is usually a hidden phenomenon, it goes on behind closed doors and can be hard to detect. Victims are
It was a few weeks after the rains failed in the winter of 2009 that residents of Shirqat first noticed the strange bearded men.
Circling like vultures among the stalls of the town’s fertilizer market in Iraq’s northern Salahaddin governorate, they’d arrow in on the most shabbily dressed farmers, and tempt them with promises of easy riches. “Join us, and you’ll never have to worry about feeding your family,” Saleh Mohammed Al-Jabouri, a local tribal sheikh, remembers one recruiter
On Nov. 7, Albania's High Criminal Court changed the sentences of two Muslim Albanians from prison to house arrest. The detainees, Xhezair Fishti and Medat Hasani, who are Salafists, were arrested in November 2016 by Albanian counterterrorism units on suspicion of planning an attack on the Israeli national football team, which was scheduled to play Albania on Nov. 12, 2016.
These Salafists were two of some 150 Muslims who the Albanian police detained that month. Albanian authorities, who
The RAND Corporation’s recent piece titled, “Al Qaeda in Syria Can Change Its Name, but Not Its Stripes,” all but admits what was already suspected about designated terrorist groups operating in Syria – that they are undergoing a transition in an attempt by their state sponsors to bolster their legitimacy and spare them from liquidation amid the shifting tides on the battlefield.
The piece, written by Colin Clarke described by the RAND Corporation as a “political scientist at the RAND
A number of recent terror operatives and fighters for the Islamic State hail from that landlocked nation and some of its Central Asian neighbors. Why?
The alleged assailant in the New York terror attack, Sayfullo Saipov, has brought back to global attention Uzbekistan, the resource-rich, desperately poor, and wildly corrupt Central Asian state that has been largely hidden from view for over a decade.
A number of recent terror operatives and fighters for the Islamic State hail from that
Chatting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November 2016, Barack Obama mentioned Indonesia, where he spent part of his childhood back in the 1960s. The country, he noted, was a changed place. Where Muslims once adopted elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, and animism, a more austere version of Islam had taken hold once Saudi Arabia began pouring money into Wahhabist madrassas in the 1990s. Where women had formerly gone about with
by Tom Engelhardt
Honestly, if there’s an afterlife, then the soul of Osama bin Laden, whose body was consigned to the waves by the U.S. Navy back in 2011, must be swimming happily with the dolphins and sharks. At the cost of the sort of spare change that Donald Trump recently offered aides and former campaign officials for their legal troubles in the Russia investigation (on which he’s unlikely to deliver) — a mere $400,000 to $500,000 — bin Laden managed to launch the American war on
Across the western world, countries have succumbed to pressure and incrementally introduced the paraphernalia of a security state. Albeit without the promised security and massive breaches of privacy and other hard won human rights. The rise of the security state has implications across the planet from austerity measures, the militarisation of police forces and copious amounts of tax dollars funnelled into the Military Industrial Complex. This, we are told, is needed to fight the farcical
If you want to change a group of terrorists who have killed American overseas into something that appears to be much more benign, all you have to do is pay off the right people in Washington. With enough money, you can even open a nice plush lobbying office on Pennsylvania Avenue in the District of Columbia, not too far from the White House and Capitol Hill.
One-time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been rightly blamed for the ill-conceived and badly bungled “regime change” in Libya in
The US’ only answer to terrorism is violence against violence, but that’s like trying to eradicate diseases by killing patients; a more constructive approach is needed, says Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research.
A report released under the Freedom of Information Act shows the US has been simulating an invasion of West Africa in response to an imaginary terror attack on American soil.
The latest Pentagon project was designed to train those who
A strong smell of blood and flesh permeated the Imam Zaman mosque in Kabul on Saturday hours after dozens of Shia worshippers were slaughtered by a suicide bomber during evening prayers.
Broken glass and dust covered the red carpet, soaked in the blood of the men, women and children who had been praying on Friday when the attacker blew himself up, causing carnage in the cavernous prayer hall.
At least 56 people were killed and dozens wounded in the assault claimed by the Islamic State group
Howard Dean was never one of us. Dean, a former governor, first became famous as a progressive hero in 2004, before serving as the Democratic National Committee Chair from 2005 to 2009. What has he done since then? Why, turned lobbyist. The last several years have been kind to Dean’s bottom line, but not his followers. The former Governor and DNC honcho opposes single-payer and called the Iranian Revolution Guard a terrorist organization. What can we make of such a decreased paragon?
We
By Tara McCormack
Western foreign policy has deepened the conflict in the Middle East.
What is the British ‘national interest’? That phrase often gets thrown around by politicians, with no explanation as to why a particular policy is actually in the ‘national interest’. This is especially true of our foreign policy, which some might be surprised to hear supports and funds barbaric jihadists in the name of ‘democracy and human rights’. (Or, in plain terms, in the pursuit of regime change in the
