Month: October 2016

KAZIR, IRAQ —  “Of course we are afraid there are bombs planted in our homes,” said Badirkhan Moussa, who fled his home on foot two years ago when Islamic State militants stormed his village. “But we won’t be happy again until we go home, and […]

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has formally rejected a bid from Turkey to participate in the military push to retake the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State extremists. Abadi, speaking Saturday, said the existing alliance would handle the battle without Turkey’s help. Abadi […]

BARTELLA, Iraq (AP) — The Iraqi army pushed into a town near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul on Saturday, a day after dozens of IS militants stormed into the northern city of Kirkuk, setting off two days of clashes and killing at least 80 […]

KIRKUK, Iraq (AP) — Islamic State militants launched a wave of pre-dawn attacks in and around the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday, killing at least 14 people and setting off fierce clashes with Kurdish security forces that were still raging after sundown. The […]

Amidst the bloody revolution to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, a defiant music scene emerged from the dust of war. After 42 years of non-Arabic music being banned, Benghazi suddenly resounded with a melodic fury, with hip-hop, heavy metal, rock, blues, and even country music echoing around […]

In this week’s UpFront, we talk to the former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who still maintains the NATO-led air campaign against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya was a “model intervention”. In the Reality Check, Mehdi Hasan explains how, although the refugee crisis in Europe may […]

Heavy clashes erupted between regime and rebel forces in Syria’s divided city of Aleppo after a unilateral ceasefire announced by Russia expired, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said. The first Syrian or Russian air strikes on Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before the […]

Iraqi army troops on Saturday stormed into a Christian region that has been under Islamic State control since 2014 as part of U.S.-backed operations to clear the entrances to Mosul, the militants’ last major city stronghold in Iraq. The advance took place as U.S. Defense […]

The Russian Ministry of Defense says that the US-led coalition is responsible for striking mourners in the Iraqi city of Daquq on Friday, killing dozens of civilians, including women and children. The coalition jets apparently identified the mourning procession as Islamic State terrorists, said General […]