Group items tagged

Strategic Retreat The self-proclaimed Islamic State has lost at least three Syrian cities and towns in the past six weeks, including one over the weekend, each time by walking away from the fight. And yet the Pentagon is not sure whether to celebrate ISIS's losses or brace for even bigger fights against the group than it already anticipated for key ISIS cities like Mosul and Raqqa. Isis has learned over the course of their history in Syria that they must choose their battles, and defend key properties that they must have to survive.

Even before the Houthi revolt, Yemen has had a history full of conflict. Yemen used to be two separate states that were each separately controlled by the Ottoman Empire and Britain.

It's one key piece of evidence authorities are looking at as they search for suspects after two explosions at the Brussels airport and another at a busy metro station in the Belgian capital Tuesday killed at least 30 people and wounded 230 others. This explosion and attack was said to be caused by ISIS in their latest message to the western powers.

This footage provides evidence that could explain what happened in the airport at Belgium. At least one of the bombings was a suicide bombing.

This article provides a detailed outline of the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria through the use of maps, charts, and photographs to allow readers to visualize areas where fighting is taking place. Several maps provide locations of ISIS controlled territory, locations of airstrikes, and locations of ISIS controlled oil refineries. It was really helpful to see different maps outlining this information because I often hear about this conflict on the radio or television programs and it can be hard to understand the scope of the conflict without any visual aids. I really appreciated the effort to show in detail the specific locations.

This article outlined the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq providing detailed maps, charts, and photos to present a more clear picture of where violence and air strikes are occurring.

ISIS is currently upping their game in terms of destruction in a key Syrian town. They are mainly battling against Kurdish militiamen.

Syria's allies, Russia, Iran, and China, all stand by them despite western powers opposing the Syrian government. There are different reasons to why these powers seem to stay with Syria such as Russia's ideologies, Iran's strategy, or China's trading. Either way, these government will stand by them until there is nothing left to lose. 

Women's rights are still on the path to improvement. Many wonder what will happen. In this article this is discussed along with other important points about women being involved in the Arab Spring and still not given equality.

Women's rights are still on the path to improvement. Many wonder what will happen. In this article this is discussed along with other important points about women being involved in the Arab Spring and still not given equality.

Not only is Russia aligning with Syria, but it is also getting closer to Egypt and its government. Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi believes that its relationship with Russia is a "strategic alliance" which is what other middle eastern countries, such as Syria, believe. 

Members of the Islamic State are being smuggled into Western Europe to plan attacks there. This is a very being problem because of what could happen if they enters these countries. According to the US intelligence sources, this is going to be very hard to control since they mix in with the refugees as well as they carry fake European passaports.

In Iraq, Kurdish militiamen fighting the group that calls itself the Islamic State are key American allies. In Syria, some Kurdish fighters battling the very same Islamic State are considered part of a terrorist group, according to the U.S. government. What gives?

Democracy was the key word during the Arab Spring demonstrations of 2011. Rather than violent uprisings, they were protests calling for free elections, parliaments and, more generally, a stake in society for millions kept alienated and impoverished.

After the ousting of the Gaddafi regime the country pivoted into civil chaos. Because of the deficiency of structure and state autonomy, armed militias have become the dominant force in determining Libya's future governmental system. While the UN has internationally recognized the NTC as the interim government to ultimately turn the country into a democratic one, militias have taken things into their own hands tipping the country towards the brink of civil war. General Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign accusing congress of allowing terrorists flourish in Libya and vowed to wipe them out, gaining much support from the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. The opposition to Haftar insist that his attacks are aiming for a military coup. This article was helpful in highlighting the armed groups and dividing them by Pro-Haftar and Pro-Congress sections. 

A group of scholars meet to discuss transition into post-assad Syria. focuses include human rights, and whether or not to completely abolish existing regime.

This article contrasts communication techniques of Al-Qaida and ISIS. It outlines how ISIS communication strategy uses more dominant forms of social media such as facebook, youtube, and twitter while Al-Qaida still uses web pages, forums, and their own magazine they publish to speak to their audience.

Baghdad must make unsavory choices as the U.S. sits out a key battle to retake a strategic town from the Islamic State group. President Barack Obama's refusal to be dragged back into another messy land war has forced a desperate Iraqi government to accept the help of its eastward neighbor as it attempts to beat back the Islamic State group, which now occupies as much as a third of the country.

This piece is about the education reform K-12 in Qatar. The program has started to use local education supplies to create a better community attitude toward education. Their have been efforts to create a universal curriculum and higher evaluation and testing.