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Its fall was a massive blow to the Iraqi army, to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and to the US, who had encouraged his policy of relying on the official armed force

Their action so deep inside the Sunni heartlands would raise fears of sectarian repercussions.

But Sunni opinion is deeply split and troubled. Many are greatly concerned about the penetration into their areas of the Shia militias

The head of the main Shia political society in Bahrain has told the BBC that the opposition leadership is being systematically targeted by the state.

Khalil Marzook, is on trial for inciting youth violence and trying to overthrow the Sunni-led government.

"Khalil and the Wefaq party have always advocated a peaceful path to democracy and condemn violence," he insisted.

Donald Trump hasn't pulled his troops out of Iraq, despite his pledge to end America's grinding wars. It turns out he may not have to. The US is facing the possibility of being kicked out, and that would be a big win for Iran.

Tehran and Washington have competed for influence in Iraq since the US 2003 invasion, and in that battle, Iran is already winning. Its consistent and coherent strategy, which the US lacks, has allowed Tehran to gradually weave itself into the fabric of everyday life in Iraq.

"Iran is the most influential state in Iraq now," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "That power is only going to grow if the US leaves."

IS conflict: Dozens killed in Baghdad car bombings

At least 93 people have been killed in three car bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police and medics say.

he deadliest killed 64 people and wounded 87 in a market in the mainly Shia Muslim area of Sadr City.

When King Salman became Saudi Arabia’s ruler this year, few people expected much change. He was 79 and reputedly in ill health

But since taking the throne in January, Salman has shaken up Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy and the royal family’s succession plans.

He has launched a bombing campaign against Shiite rebels in Yemen and increased support for rebels in Syria, signaling a more assertive role for an oil-rich kingdom that traditionally relied on the United States for security. Salman’s goal, analysts say, is to guard Sunni Muslims against what he sees as the growing influence of Shiite Iran.

At least 45 Iraqi police officers have been killed in an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants in Anbar province, security officials say.

Anbar has been the scene of fierce fighting between pro-government forces and IS militants in recent weeks.

Security forces reportedly regained control of the facility from IS several days ago and were using it to launch operations aimed at cutting IS supply lines from Samarra, in neighbouring Salahuddin province, to Anbar.

Heavy fighting has erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, with both civilians and combatants killed.

Accusing Azerbaijan of air and artillery attacks, Armenia reported downing helicopters and destroying tanks, and declared martial law.Azerbaijan said it had begun a counter-offensive in response to shelling

The region is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenians.

n the days of tension that have followed the U.S. airstrike that took out Iran’s Gen. Qasem Soleimani, an old trope about the Middle East has reared its ugly head. On Wednesday on Fox News, former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland repeated it when she claimed that in “…the Middle East, they’ve been fighting for 4,000 years. It’s been an ethno-sectarian battle and psychodrama, and they’ve been killing each other for millennia. Their normal state of condition is war.”

This trope is frequently turned to by those who would have the world believe that war in the Middle East is somehow innate and inevitable. But a look at the history of the region reveals that it’s simply not true. People in the Middle East haven’t “been killing each other” at any rate that exceeds average human levels of conflict. Indeed, the region that lays claim to being the “cradle of civilization” had developed quite, well, civilized and complex systems of compromise and coexistence that allowed its diverse peoples, faiths and ethnic groups to live together over very long periods of time.

In fact, imperial systems like those that ruled the Middle East for most of its history — spanning vast swathes of the globe and encompassing an immense diversity of ethnicities, faith traditions and customs — have of pragmatic necessity had to develop systems of accommodation, ways to avoid war.

How Should Culture Affect Foreign Policy?

Think of all the arguments about the so-called Sunni-Shia divide, the alleged millennia of conflict between these two Islamic sects that purportedly shape politics in the Middle East today, or the “clash of civilizations” that Samuel Huntington first wrote about in Foreign Affairs in 1993.

It strikes me that it is worth asking if the dynamic interaction between Western cultural preconceptions of the region and Middle Eastern predispositions is a reasonable explanation for Washington’s failures in the Arab world.

Syrian rebels group, including Islamists formerly linked to al-Qaeda, launched a military offensive to break the government’s siege of Aleppo, the last major rebel-held city in Syria where 275,000 people have been trapped for months.

Russian and Syrian airstrikes have pounded the rebel-held eastern part of the divided city. Civilian targets, humanitarian convoys, and hospitals have been struck. The government controls the western portion of Aleppo

rebels fired missiles at al-Nayrab, in the east of the city, killing 15 people and wounding 100 others

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group has been committing a wave of atrocities around the Iraqi town of Mosul, according to the reports received by the United Nations, as Iraqi troops close in to capture the ISIL stronghold. The allegations, which remain "preliminary", have come from a range of civilian and government sources, who cannot be named for security reasons, the UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said on Tuesday.

The campaign to retake Mosul comes after months of planning and involves more than 25,000 Iraqi troops, Kurdish forces, Sunni tribal fighters and state-sanctioned Shia militias.

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Britain could have lived with a German victory in the first world war, and should have stayed out of the conflict in 1914, according to the historian Niall Ferguson, who described the intervention as "the biggest error in modern history".

Britain could indeed have lived with a German victory. What's more, it would have been in Britain's interests to stay out in 1914,

At least 48 female prisoners have been released by the Syrian government in one of the final stages of a complex three-way hostage deal, reports say.

Meanwhile electricity is slowly returning to Damascus after a rebel attack on a gas pipeline.

The rebels insisted their hostages were fighters with the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, and were demanding the release of women detainees in exchange.

As George W. Bush’s administration drew to an end, the brand of ambitious, expensive, Manichaean, militaristic foreign policy commonly dubbed “neoconservative” seemed on the verge of collapse.

Today, hawkishness is the hottest thing on the American right. With the exception of Rand Paul, the GOP presidential contenders are vying to take the most aggressive stance against Iran and the Islamic State, or ISIS. The most celebrated freshman Republican senator is Tom Cotton, who gained fame with a letter to Iran’s leaders warning that the United States might not abide by a nuclear deal. According to recent polls, GOP voters now see national security as more important than either cultural issues or the economy. More than three-quarters of Republicans want American ground troops to fight ISIS in Iraq, and a plurality says that stopping Iran’s nuclear program requires an immediate military strike.

What explains the change? Above all, it’s the legend of the surge. The legend goes something like this: By sending more troops to Iraq in 2007, George W. Bush finally won the Iraq War. Then Barack Obama, by withdrawing U.S. troops, lost it. Because of Obama’s troop withdrawal, and his general refusal to exercise American power, Iraq collapsed, ISIS rose, and the Middle East fell apart. “We had it won, thanks to the surge,” Senator John McCain declared last September. “The problems we face in Iraq today,” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal argued in May, “I don’t think were because of President Bush’s strength, but rather have come about because of President Obama’s weakness.”

Cheney and Rumsfeld may have provided the ideology that drove the United States to invade Iraq. But Bush provided the temperament. And that mattered even more.  

Bush 41 accuses Rumsfeld of “a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names.” But those same qualities describe Bush 43.

the common thread between Bush’s behavior before and after taking office was his penchant for high-risk moves based on his own instincts, irrespective of what anybody else thought

Iran, Emerging From Sanctions, Faces Crisis After Saudi Arabia Embassy Attack

a Saudi state executioner beheaded the prominent Shiite dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday

Within hours of the execution, nationalist Iranian websites were calling for demonstrations in front of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad

Syria conflict: Homs and Damascus bomb blasts kill 140

Bomb blasts in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus have left at least 140 people dead, monitors and state media say.At least four blasts struck the southern Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, killing at least 83 people, state media said.

Earlier in Homs, 57 people, mainly civilians, were killed in a double car bombing, a monitoring group reported.So-called Islamic State (IS) said it carried out the attacks in both cities.

Dozens die in Iraq suicide bombing

A suicide bomber has rammed an explosives-laden fuel truck into a security checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing dozens of people and wounding many more, officials said.

“The blast has completely destroyed the checkpoint and its buildings,” Falah al-Khafaji, a senior security official in Hillah, said as he stood at the edge of the blast site. “More than 100 cars have been damaged.