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mcooka

The conviction of Radovan Karadzic has lessons for Syria's war | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • Thursday saw the closure of a long and drawn out story for the victims of Bosnia’s bloody civil war as the guilty verdict was finally delivered in the trial of Radovan Karadzic.
  • of a 40-year jail sentence for Karadzic for genocide and war crimes.
  • Memory and justice are two themes
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  • So much of the strife afflicting Europe and the Middle East today has its roots in the Bosnian conflict, yet scant attention has been paid to the country in the years following the war.
  • Up to 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnia conflict between 1992 and 1995 when, following a referendum to secede from Yugoslavia, the country was plunged into an inter-ethnic war between Serbs, Croats and Muslims (or Bosniaks).
  • Karadzic and his Serb forces have long been considered the worst perpetrators of the violence - which nevertheless saw atrocities on all sides - and culminated in the brutal Srebrenica massacre in which over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in 1995 in full view of the UN peacekeeping forces. 
  • n forging notions of global Muslim solidarity and identity which has played such a major role in the conflicts of the Middle East.
  • Much as in Syria today, hundreds - potentially thousands - of foreigners travelled to Bosnia to join the mujahideen and protect Bosnian Muslims from the Bosnian Serb forces
  • It's hard not to draw parallels between such language and the language of anti-Muslim demagogues in Europe, India, Myanmar and America today.
  • When the dust settles in Syria, and should the war criminals survive long enough to be put on trial, the long-term work of reconstruction and reconciliation will begin
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    This article looks at the trial of the Bosnia war criminal. He was persecuted and given 40 years in prison after 20 years of being chased and waiting for trial. The Bosnia war has roots of strife which still exist in the Middle East today. 
Briana S

Ben Affleck's Attack on 'Islamophobia' Inspires One Muslim Woman To Write An Open Lette... - 0 views

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    After the heated argument Ben Affleck had with Real Time host Bill Maher, people are still debating the topic of Islam in the world. A Muslim woman named Eiynah has entered the discussion, and directed her opinion of the often archaic nature of Islam in an open letter to Affleck, which was posted on Pakistan Today : Dear Ben, I am writing to you today as a woman who was born and raised in Islam. This topic is interesting because liberals in the West are so annoyed by the rhetoric that comes from bigoted sources; while Affleck was standing up for what he believes in, the writer suggests he should have gone about it in a different way. It's just also unfortunate that many are quick to judge and condemn a faith even though other faiths have had just as many problems (and have supported immoral practices) throughout history. However its still important to bring up and try to make solutions for human rights crisis that take place based on Sharia law.
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    After the heated argument Ben Affleck had with Real Time host Bill Maher, people are still debating the topic of Islam in the world. A Muslim woman named Eiynah has entered the discussion, and directed her opinion of the often archaic nature of Islam in an open letter to Affleck, which was posted on Pakistan Today : Dear Ben, I am writing to you today as a woman who was born and raised in Islam. This topic was interesting because liberals in America have to deal with bigoted rhetoric all the time and its frustrating. While the author of the letter was proud of Affleck for standing up for Islamic people and what he believes is right, she suggests he just go about it in a different way because discussions of human right violations in the Middle East should still be called out.
alarsso

Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • xtreme temperatures
  • drought from 2006 to 2011
  • 2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 “significant” dust storms.
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  • lessening of rainfall
  • as of the last year before the civil war, only about 13,500 square kilometers could be irrigated
  • agriculture
  • 20 percent of national income
  • employed about 17 percent
  • Syria’s oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine
  • densely populated
  • less than 0.25 hectares (just over a third of an acre) of agricultural land per person
  • population/resource ratio is out of balance.
  • So it is important to understand how their “social contract”—their view of their relationship with one another and with the government—evolved and then shattered.
  • threw the country into the arms of
  • Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser
  • or three and a half years
  • part of the United Arab Republic
  • A fundamental problem they faced was what it meant to be a Syrian.
  • 1961 Syrians were thrown back on their own resources
  • The majority of those who became Syrians were Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims
  • seven and eight in 10 Syrians saw themselves as Muslim Arab
  • being a Muslim Arab as the very definition of Syrian identity.
  • Nationalists took this diversity as a primary cause of weakness and adopted as their primary task integrating the population into a single political and social structure.
  • Israel
  • Looming over Syrian politics and heightening the tensions
  • A ceasefire, negotiated in 1974, has held, but today the two states are still legally at war.
  • or Hafez al-Assad, the secular, nationalist Baath Party was a natural choice: it offered, or seemed to offer, the means to overcome his origins in a minority community and to point toward a solution to the disunity of Syrian politics
  • bridge the gaps between rich and poor
  • socialism
  • Muslims and minorities
  • Islam
  • society
  • hould be modern
  • secular
  • defined by a culture of “Arabism”
  • the very antithesis of
  • Muslim Brotherhood
  • military, which seemed
  • o embody the nation.
  • help the Syrian people to live better provided only that they not challenge his rule
  • his stern and often-brutal monopoly of power
  • foreign troublemakers
  • Hafez al-Assad sided with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war
  • During the rule of the two Assads, Syria made considerable progress.
  • locked into the cities and towns
  • they f
  • had to compete
  • Palestinians
  • Iraqis
  • Syria was already a refuge
  • March 15, 2011
  • small group gathered in the southwestern town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them
  • government saw them as subversives.
  • He ordered a crackdown
  • And the army,
  • responded violently.
  • Riots broke out
  • attempted to quell them with military
  • what had begun as a food and water issue gradually turned into a political and religious cause.
  • interpretation of Islam
  • the Syrian government is charged with using illegal chemical weapons
  • All observers agree that the foreign-controlled and foreign-constituted insurgent groups are the most coherent, organized, and effective
  • astonishing as they share no common language and come from a wide variety of cultures
  • slam has at least so far failed to provide an effective unifying force
  • all the rebels regard the conflict in Syria as fundamentally a religious issue
  • pwards of $150 billion
  • a whole generation of Syrians have been subjected to either or both the loss of their homes and their trust in fellow human beings.
  • How the victims and the perpetrators can be returned to a “normal life”
  • First, the war might continue.
  • Second, if the Syrian government continues or even prevails, there is no assurance that,
  • t will be able to suppress the insurgency.
  • Third,
  • Syria will remain effectively “balkanized”
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    This article captures Syria's geography, history, and all events leading up to the state Syria is in today.
petergrossmanseu

Terrorists' supply routes from Turkey cut off during army offensive in northern Syria -... - 0 views

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    This is an article from Russia today that talks about supposed gains that the Syrian government has made with the support of Russian air power. It has an accompanying video of the Syrian Armed Forces fighting against rebels. Overall a piece of propaganda, but interesting footage nonetheless of Syrian Armed Forces using a variety of US and Russian-made weapons.
petergrossmanseu

Syrian army makes gains in Daraa with local militia support (VIDEO) - RT News - 0 views

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    A Russia Today article on the current counterattack that the Syrian Armed Forces are attempting in both the northern and southern fronts of the conflict. With their goal being of pushing Al-Nusra out of Daraa, all of this with the support of local militia groups.
irede123

The Saudis Turn Up the Heat on Hezbollah - 0 views

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    "The Saudis have initiated a major campaign to undermine Iran's ally Hezbollah, which they believe is vulnerable today. Riyadh is likely to have considerable but not complete success. It's a characteristically risky strategy. The Saudis branded Hezbollah a terrorist organization earlier this year and then persuaded their Gulf Cooperation Council allies to do the same on March 2. Then Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef pressed a summit of Arab interior ministers to join in lambasting Hezbollah in Tunis in early March. The Arab League formally agreed to label Hezbollah a terrorist group at a Foreign Ministerial in Cairo later in the month. Only Iraq and Lebanon abstained. "
mcooka

Gender equality? It doesn't exist anywhere in the world - LA Times - 1 views

  • t's been more than 100 years since the world began observing International Women's Day, and yet no country has achieved full gender equality.
  • But in Yemen, the country that ranks lowest according to the same data,
  • About two-thirds of countries in the developing world have achieved gender equality in primary education according to U.N. data, but the progress is less substantial at the secondary school level.
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  • In Africa and South Asia for example, boys remain 1.55 times more likely to complete secondary education than girls, according to World Bank data.
  • Even when girls make it into the classroom they still “continue to face particular risk in chaotic conflict settings,”
  • n Pakistan, for example, the Taliban has declared war on girls' education, and frequently attacks educational institutions
  • “They don’t translate into greater equality in the labor market,” said Sarah Gammage, director of gender, economic empowerment and livelihoods at the International Center for Research on Women. “Around the world women have disproportionately been part of the informal economy.”
  • hey are typically responsible for providing care services for family members, Gammage said. Other duties include child rearing, cooking, and other household chores. It is work for which they are not paid. Women perform three times more unpaid work than men, according to the U.N.’s 2015 Human Development Report.
  • eing able to make decisions, such as voting, owning land, and deciding whom to marry “is where we see the most significant difference between the least developed and developed countries,” said Varia.
  • In Saudi Arabia, women are not permitted to drive and cannot open bank accounts without their husbands' permissio
  • Uganda forbids women to gain permanent custody of children after a divorce,
  • Honor killings, the traditional practice that allows the slaying of a family member who is believed to have brought dishonor on a family, claims thousands of women’s lives every year in South and Central Asia.
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    This article is a response to International Women's Day, saying that gender equality doesn't exist in the world. In the middle of the article, they show a chart of the gender gap between men and women. Egypt is last in the chart.
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    This article goes into depth about the inequality in the Middle East which extends to today. This looks at the ideas of democratization which would promote higher education. Greater rights for women. and improve infant morality rates 
cbrock5654

Danger closer, extreme measures taken: Erdoğan - 0 views

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    This is an article for Hurriyet Daily News, an online newspaper based in Istanbul.On October 5, many neighborhoods on Turkey's border with Syria were evacuated. I thought this news article was interesting because it quotes a speech by Turkey's president in which he addresses his viewpoint on the PKK. The organization has been banned in Turkey and is considered a terrorist organization. He says that ISIS/ISIL and the PKK are equivalent groups, and that the PKK is using the current conflict with ISIS to manipulate public opinion.
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    This is an article for Hurriyet Daily News, an online newspaper based in Istanbul.On October 5, many neighborhoods on Turkey's border with Syria were evacuated. I thought this news article was interesting because it quotes a speech by Turkey's president in which he addresses his viewpoint on the PKK. The organization has been banned in Turkey and is considered a terrorist organization. He says that ISIS/ISIL and the PKK are equivalent groups, and that the PKK is using the current conflict with ISIS to manipulate public opinion.
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    The news today says that ISIS has all but taken a Syrian Kurdish border city with Turkey, called Kobane. Not surprised that Erdogan would conflate the two groups, while the US is trying to activate Kurdish militants to resist ISIS. I was chatting with another student in my office today and we were wondering if the duty and suffering that have devolved onto the Kurds in this crisis might reinvigorate their push for a nation-state of their own.
alarsso

Profile: Syria's ruling Baath Party - BBC News - 0 views

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    A brief overview of the beginnings of the Baath Party and summarization of where it stands today.
fcastro2

Iraq and Syria are 'finishing schools' for foreign extremists, says UN report | World n... - 0 views

  • Iraq and Syria have become “international finishing schools” for extremists according to a UN report which says the number of foreign fighters joining terrorist groups has spiked to more than 25,000 from more than 100 countrie
  • monitoring UN sanctions against al-Qaida estimates the number of overseas terrorist fighters worldwide increased by 71% between mid-2014 and March 2015
  • problem had increased over the past three years and the flow of foreign fighters was “higher than it has ever been historically
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  • risen sharply from a few thousand … a decade ago to more than 25,000 today
  • The report said just two countries had drawn more than 20,000 foreign fighters: Syria and Iraq. They went to fight primarily for the Islamic State group
  • ited the “high number” of foreign fighters from Tunisia, Morocco, France and Russia, the increase in fighters from the Maldives, Finland and Trinidad and Tobago, and the first fighters from some countries in sub-Saharan Africa which it did not name. The groups had also found recruits from Britain and Australia.
  • A military defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq could have the unintended consequence of scattering violent foreign terrorist fighters across the world
  • while governments are focusing on countering the threat from fighters returning home, the panel said it was possible that some may be traumatised by what they saw and need psychological help, and that others may be recruited by criminal networks.
  • The number of countries the fighters come from has also risen dramatically from a small group in the 1990s to more than 100 today — more than half the countries in the world
  • foreign fighters who travelled to Syria and Iraq were living and working in “a veritable ‘international finishing school’ for extremists”, as was the case in Afghanistan in the 199
  • an urgent global security problem” that needed to be tackled on many fronts and had no easy solution
  • With globalised travel, it said, the chance of a person from any country becoming a victim of a foreign terrorist attack was growing “particularly with attacks targeting hotels, public spaces and venues
  • It said the most effective policy was to prevent the radicalisation, recruitment and travel of would-be fighters.
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    The fighting in Syria and Iraq has expanded and gained more foreign fighters from many more countries around the world. 
alarsso

What caused Syria's civil war? - 0 views

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    Christian Syrian Reverend Nadim Nassar (director of UK based Awareness Foundation) talks about underlying causes of the Syrian civil war and the state of Syria today.
nfyffe

Helly Luv- Risk it All - 1 views

shared by nfyffe on 21 Oct 14 - No Cached
micklethwait liked it
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    In the Risk it All music video's description box Helly Luv dedicates the song to Kurdistan: FINALLY AFTER SO MANY MONTHS CREATING THIS VIDEO IT'S FINALLY DONE TODAY!!!!! I COULD NOT BE MORE IN LOVE AND PROUD OF THIS VIDEO. FIGHTING FOR YOUR DREAMS AND RISKING EVERYTHING FOR WHAT YOU LOVE IS WHAT I BELIEVE IN. THIS VIDEO WAS INSPIRED BY MY STRONG BEAUTIFUL KURDISH PEOPLE. WHO NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR OUR COUNTRY AND INDEPENDENCE. TOGETHER WE CAN FIGHT FOR THIS DREAM. TOGETHER WE CAN BECOME ONE. TOGETHER WE CAN RISK IT ALL. THANK U EVERYONE WHO WAS PART OF THIS FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART, ESPECIALLY ALL THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE AND THE SYRIAN CAMP THAT MADE THIS VIDEO COME ALIVE. ALSO, GOLDEN SCREEN THAT CREATED THIS ART PIECE WITH ME. I AM TRULY CRYING TEARS OF JOY TODAY! LONG LIVE KURDISTAN!!!
ajonesn

Egyptian Youth Innovate to End Violence Against Women | Egyptian Streets - 0 views

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    A group of young men and women in Egypt are getting together to put matters into their own hands. The UNDP is developing programs and solutions to help solve the major problems of women's rights in Egypt today. This is a great article to see what the younger population is doing compared to the older generation and government.
fcastro2

A daring plan to rebuild Syria - no matter who wins the war - Ideas - The Boston Globe - 0 views

  • The first year of Syria’s uprising, 2011, largely spared Aleppo, the country’s economic engine, largest city, and home of its most prized heritage sites. Fighting engulfed Aleppo in 2012 and has never let up since, making the city a symbol of the civil war’s grinding destruction
  • Rebels captured the eastern side of the city while the government held the wes
  • , residents say the city is virtually uninhabitable; most who remain have nowhere else to go
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  • In terms of sheer devastation, Syria today is worse off than Germany at the end of World War II
  • ven as the fighting continues, a movement is brewing among planners, activists and bureaucrats—some still in Aleppo, others in Damascus, Turkey, and Lebanon—to prepare, right now, for the reconstruction effort that will come whenever peace finally arrives.
  • In a glass tower belonging to the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a project called the National Agenda for the Future of Syria has brought together teams of engineers, architects, water experts, conservationists, and development experts to grapple with seemingly impossible technical problems
  • It is good to do the planning now, because on day one we will be ready,”
  • The team planning the country’s future is a diverse one. Some are employed by the government of Syria, others by the rebels’ rival provisional government. Still others work for the UN, private construction companies, or nongovernmental organizations involved in conservation, like the World Monuments Fund
  • As the group’s members outline a path toward renewal, they’re considering everything from corruption and constitutional reform to power grids, antiquities, and health care systems.
  • Aleppo is split between a regime side with vestiges of basic services, and a mostly depopulated rebel-controlled zone, into which the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front have made inroads over the last year
  • The population exodus has claimed most of the city’s craftsmen, medical personnel, academics, and industrialists
  • It took decades to clear the moonscapes of rubble and to rebuild, in famous targets like Dresden and Hiroshima but in countless other places as well, from Coventry to Nanking. Some places never recovered their vitality.
  • Of course, Syrian planners cannot help but pay attention to the model closest to home: Beirut, a city almost synonymous with civil war and flawed reconstructio
  • We don’t want to end up like Beirut,” one of the Syrian planners says, referring to the physical problems but also to a postwar process in which militia leaders turned to corrupt reconstruction ventures as a new source of funds and power
  • Syria’s national recovery will depend in large part on whether its industrial powerhouse Aleppo can bounce back
  • The city’s workshops, famed above all for their fine textiles, export millions of dollars’ worth of goods every week even now, and the economy has expanded to include modern industry as well.
  • Today, however, the city’s water and power supply are under the control of the Islamic State
  • Across Syria, more than one-third of the population is displaced.
  • A river of rubble marks the no-man’s land separating the two sides. The only way to cross is to leave the city, follow a wide arc, and reenter from the far side.
  • Parts of the old city won’t be inhabitable for years, he told me by Skype, because the ground has literally shifted as a result of bombing and shelling
  • The first and more obvious is creating realistic options to fix the country after the war—in some cases literal plans for building infrastructure systems and positioning construction equipment, in other cases guidelines for shaping governanc
  • They’re familiar with global “best practices,” but also with how things work in Syria, so they’re not going to propose pie-in-the-sky idea
  • If some version of the current regime remains in charge, it will probably direct massive contracts toward patrons in Russia, China, or Iran. The opposition, by contrast, would lean toward firms from the West, Turkey, and the Gulf.
  • At the current level of destruction, the project planners estimate the reconstruction will cost at least $100 billion
  • Recently a panel of architects and heritage experts from Sweden, Bosnia, Syria, and Lebanon convened in Beirut to discuss lessons for Syria’s reconstruction—one of the many distinct initiatives parallel to the Future of Syria project.
  • “You should never rebuild the way it was,” said Arna Mackic, an architect from Mostar. That Bosnian city was divided during the 1990s civil war into Muslim and Catholic sides, destroying the city center and the famous Stari Most bridge over the Neretva River. “The war changes us. You should show that in rebuilding.”
  • Instead, Mackik says, the sectarian communities keep to their own enclaves. Bereft of any common symbols, the city took a poll to figure out what kind of statue to erect in the city center. All the local figures were too polarizing. In the end they settled on a gold-colored statue of the martial arts star Bruce Lee
  • “It belongs to no one,” Mackic says. “What does Bruce Lee mean to me?
  • is that it could offer the city’s people a form of participatory democracy that has so far eluded the Syrian regime and sadly, the opposition as well.
  • “You are being democratic without the consequences of all the hullabaloo of formal democratization
  • A great deal of money has been invested in Syria’s destruction— by the regime, the local parties to the conflict, and many foreign powers. A great deal of money will be made in the aftermath, in a reconstruction project that stands to dwarf anything seen since after World War II.
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    While it is still unclear as to who will win the Syrian conflict, there are people who are already looking towards the future and a better Syria. Plans are being made but, of course, these plans will entirely depend on who wins the war. 
jshnide

Hamas vs. Fatah: The Palestinian Civil War | Foundation for Defense of Democracies - 0 views

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    In 2007, the Palestinian Civil War took place and the fighting between Fatah and Hamas caused much destruction. This war makes peacemaking extremely difficult for the nation today.
kbrisba

Tunis Bardo Museum attack: Thousands join protest march - BBC News - 0 views

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    The people of Tunisia responded to the attack on the museum with an anti-terrorism march. The people walked around the streets chanting "'Tunisia is free! Terrorism out!'". Political leaders supported the people on this one. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said, "' The Tunisian people proved today that they do not bow to terrorism, and that as one man and one woman, they defend the nation. When Tunisia is targeted, the whole nation stands as one'". The march was to show that they are democratic people, Tunisians are moderate and there is no room for terrorists here. Some leftist political groups chose to boycott the rally because they feel it is a participation of an Islamist party and they are the ones accountable for the rise of Islamic extremism in the country.
petergrossmanseu

Spoils of war: Arms giants see stocks rocket after Syrian airstrikes vote - RT UK - 0 views

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    Russia Today article on the rise in stock prices for a bunch of major arms suppliers in the Syrian conflict
mkulach

Egypt's revolutionaries - where are they now? - BBC News - 0 views

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    These are some snaps of where activists and protestors from Egypt's revolution are today. Many of them are in prison, some have fled abroad and others are restricting their activism. Some still have hope for change, but many see that Egypt actually is more oppressed today than under Mubarak.
mwrightc

ISIS trail of Terror | Is ISIS a Threat to the U.S.? - ABC News - 0 views

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    This is another article that describes the group ISIS and how it started as a small part of Al-Quaeda into one of the most notorious terrorist groups today.
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    This is another article that describes the group ISIS and how it started as a small part of Al-Quaeda into one of the most notorious terrorist groups today.
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    By Lee Ferran and Rym Momtaz Born from an especially brutal al Qaeda faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has grown from relative obscurity in recent years to overshadow its extremist patrons. It now terrorizes large swaths of Syria and Iraq, has become the target of the largest U.S.
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    Should the United States fear ISIS as a possible threat? This interactive learning site gives an understanding of who ISIS is, their history, and what their mission is.
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