What Will Become of Iraq’s Hawija after ISIS?

The northern Iraqi city of Hawija represents the last Islamic State (ISIS) stronghold in the country. After the gruelling battle for Mosul and the rapid victory at Tal Afar, the Iraqi state is on the verge of winning its immediate war against ISIS. Hawija and the nearby area are surrounded by Iraq state- and Kurdish-controlled territory, forming what might ap­pear to be a tight seal.

The World Is Wrong to Let Mass-Murderer Assad Remain in Power

With the defeat of the Islamic State group imminent, the future of Syria is beginning to take shape – and many nations have sought to promote their preferred visions for the country through covert or explicit intervention.

Necessary Acts Are Never Popular – So Politicians Have Done Nothing about Iran or North Korea

The situation on the Korean peninsula has not been good for a long time. But the ceasefire agreed in the 1950s, following years of open warfare, seems more strained now than at any moment in recent memory.

How the Iraqis Won at Tal Afar

It was a swift victory, one all the more remarkable for being so unexpected.

After the fall of Mosul, which had taken many months and cost innumerable lives, the attention of the Iraqi state and the international coalition, and the watching world, fell on Tal Afar. It was one of the Islamic State’s last major urban territories in Iraq.

Life under the Islamic State

Review – The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from ‘Islamic State’ by Samer

The Syrian war has produced a great deal of writing, but little of real permanence. Most of its derivative works are journalistic accounts and dry geopolitical analyses. It has yet to produce a new novelist, poet, or memoirist of note, rather than simply providing new material for old hands. Some day, a great book about the Syrian civil war will be written – something that draws deeply from the conflict and sets the tone for a changed nation, region, and world. Such an era-defining conflict will have that effect.

Clouds of Uncertainty Hover over Iraqi Kurdistan’s Future

The decision by Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to call a referendum on the future of Kurd­istan has alarmed the rest of the country and the region.