Iraqi armed forces have regained full control of the northern city of Tikrit during a major offensive against Takfiri ISIL militants. Al-Iraqiya television network reported on Tuesday that the army succeeded in recapturing the strategic city after the Iraqi air force pounded the main ISIL strongholds in Tikrit, located 140 ...
Read More »Sunni and Shia British Imams denounce ISIS together in new video
Sunni and Shia Muslim leaders in the United Kingdom have come together to denounce the Islamic militant group ISIS in a video posted by a group called Imams Online, reports the BBC. A statement on the Imams Online website says, “Senior British imams have come together to emphasize the importance of unity in the UK and to decree ...
Read More »Pakistani terror group swears allegiance to Islamic State
Exclusive: Believed to be the first jihadi defection to the Islamic State outside of Middle East, move emphasis growing influence of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s self-declared caliph and the wanning hold of al Qaeda A Pakistani terror group has become the first in the region to break ranks and declare allegiance ...
Read More »Maliki removes Zebari as tensions with Kurds rise
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has dismissed Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as tension continues between Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). On Friday, the Iraqi premier appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani as a replacement for Zebari. The development came after Zebari, along with other Kurdish ...
Read More »What Do You Know About Ayatollah Sistani’s Fatwa?
Co-authored by Abbas Kadhim* and Luay Al Khatteeb** Before the security collapse in Mosul, the conventional wisdom among Iraq experts was that Iraq had two options to guarantee security when faced with challenges above the capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF): the United States and Iran. Following this thinking, ...
Read More »Would Iraq’s Sunnis want to be treated like Saudi Arabia’s Shia?
WASHINGTON, June 8, 2014 — As tension and unrest rise in Iraq, the Maliki government has been blamed for running a Shia regime that has “marginalized Iraq’s Sunnis.” Based on this premise, some have concluded that the marginalization is the reason Iraq’s Sunnis are supporting ISIS and welcoming them in ...
Read More »Kurds accuse Baghdad of blocking airline cargo flights
“Airlines have been ordered by Baghdad to stop cargo flights into the Kurdistan Region”, Kurdish airport officials said, as Baghdad denied any such decision. The directors of Kurdistan’s two main airports, in the capital Erbil and the second-largest city Sulaimani, said there had been no official word from Baghdad, but ...
Read More »18 charged with ISIL affiliation, terrorism in Lebanon
A military judge in Lebanon has charged 28 terror suspects with belonging to the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group and planning terrorist operations in the country. The 28 terror suspects, seven of whom were apprehended in security raids on hotels in Beirut, were charged ...
Read More »The role of oil and gas in the Syrian conflict
With the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front in control of several oil fields in Syria, the two radical Islamist groups entered the “oil exporters’ club,” with Western enablement. This, in addition to the closely anticipated hydrocarbon discoveries in Syria’s territorial waters and other pertinent developments, ...
Read More »Ayatollah Raadhi: Religious edict has brought the Islamic seminary into the front lines in Iraq
Ayatollah Aal Raadhi, one of the respected teachers from the Islamic seminaries in Iraq, during his class on jurisprudence and its principles, spoke about the importance of the religious edict of Ayatollah Sistani in special reference to the relationship between the Islamic seminary and the government. The respected teacher stated: ...
Read More »