The Underrated Saudi Connection
by Patrick Cockburn
[This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, with special thanks to his publisher, OR Books. The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch.]
There are extraordinary elements in the present [...]
via LobeLog
by Mitchell Plitnick
The saga of the three kidnapped Israeli youths in the West Bank took a tragic, if expected, turn today, when their bodies were discovered near Hebron. None but the most starry-eyed optimist thought the young men would be found alive after all this time. But the story is [...]
via LobeLog
by Thomas Lippman
Has King Abdullah backed away from his longstanding refusal to have anything to do with an Iraqi government that includes Nouri al-Maliki? Reporters who were in Jeddah when Abdullah met with Secretary of State John F. Kerry Friday seemed to think so, based on a background briefing by the [...]
via LobeLog
by Derek Davison
The resurgence of “Salafi-jihadist” terrorist groups is once again at the forefront of national security thinking in Washington. A report released this week by the RAND Corporation, “A Persistent Threat: The Evolution of al Qa’ida and Other Salafi Jihadists,” explains why.
There were 20 active “Salafi-jihadist groups” around [...]
via LobeLog
by Wayne White
Last week, Jasmin Ramsey pointed out how problematic the recent US decision to deliver attack helicopters to Egypt is in terms of US human rights policy. The move also portrays the US as actively taking sides in a conflict pitting a repressive regime against armed opposition, with potentially [...]
via LobeLog
by Aurélie Daher
As the Syrian uprising against the Baathist regime enters its fourth year, it is clear, given the changing balance of power on the ground, that predictions about the imminent collapse of the Assad dynasty, which constituted conventional wisdom from 2011-12, are far from the mark. Once derided [...]
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