Tag: Syria

INFOGRAPHIC: Who Are the Kurds?

An at-a-glance infographic to offer some clarity about the Kurds, who have introduced both stability and tension to a geopolitically delicate Middle East

(This article originally appeared at Philos Project)

It was three years ago – July 4, 2014 – that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stood in the pulpit of the Al Nuri Grand Mosque in Mosul to declare the creation of an Islamic State caliphate. What followed has been a brutal campaign of blood and destruction across Iraq and Syria.

Today, the caliphate is crumbling – at least geographically. Iraqi and coalition forces have recaptured Mosul and what is left of the Grand Mosque. In Syria, the United States-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have all but liberated the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa.

To be sure, the victories against ISIS belong to many, but at the heart of some of the fiercest fighting has been one steadfast group: the Kurds, a diverse and dispersed people with no sovereign state but a pervasive presence in the Middle East. In Iraq, the Kurds have functioned as a semi-autonomous state since the end of the first Gulf War. In Turkey, a large Kurdish faction has been branded as terrorists. In Syria, Kurdish militias have been key players in the fight against the Islamic State.

The Kurds have introduced both stability and tension to a geopolitically delicate Middle East.

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ARTICLE: If Not Assad, Then Who?

(This article originally appeared in The Philos Project)

If the days of Syria’s brutal dictator are numbered – and following last week’s airstrikes by the United States, the whispers have returned – who might be the alternative leader after six years of bloodshed and destruction? It is in the interest of the U.S. to identify and influence Assad’s successor sooner rather than later.

Last week’s strike on the Shayrat Airbase in Syria by American forces was applauded by many international observers as long overdue and morally appropriate. President Donald Trump ordered the targeted military strike on the airfield from which President Bashar al-Assad had launched a deadly chemical weapon attack that killed dozens of his own people.

In remarks following the strike on April 6, Trump seemed to signal a shift in what many believed would be a solid, non-interventionist foreign policy agenda: “Tonight, I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types.”

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BOOK REVIEW: Christianity on the Brink: They Say We are Infidels

Mindy Belz chronicles the persecution of Iraq’s indigenous Christian community in her newly released, first-hand account, They Say We Are Infidels.

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

The door for Christians in Iraq is closing. That is the grim message received from Knox Thames, U.S. Department of State’s Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia, speaking on the systematic campaign by ISIS militants to eliminate ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East. A new urgency may be attached to this headline, but persecution of Iraq’s indigenous Christian community has been building for more than a decade. Mindy Belz chronicles this in her newly released, first-hand account, They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

A seasoned war reporter and editor of World magazine, Belz provides more than a sterile accounting of the atrocities meted out against the Christian community in Iraq and Syria after more than a decade of war. They Say We Are Infidels introduces the real faces of conflict, the human predicament attached to a region afflicted by deeply rooted sectarian hatred and violence.

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