How to End Syria’s Sieges

Heart-rending images come out of the Syrian war with such regularity that one would almost be forgiven for becoming inured to their horror. This is how global callousness sets in, and there are reasons for it.

But a series of photographs which were propagated last month challenged this collective emotional hardness. They documented the young life of Sahar Dofdaa, a terribly emaciated infant born in East Ghouta, which has been under siege by forces loyal to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2012.

Defeating Daesh?

Despite the rhetoric, the campaign against the Islamic State group (IS) is not over. The international coalition is sounding almost triumphalist, giving developments a sunny gloss and frequently repeating claim that it is ‘defeating Daesh’.

This is true in a way, and success in one aspect – the protracted war which has pushed IS out of many cities and towns in Syria and Iraq – cannot be denied.

Lifting the Assad Regime’s Sieges Requires More Than Just Words

Syria’s war has been brutal even by the normal standards of a civil conflict.

Half a million are thought to have died, while many thousands have ‘disappeared’ into prisons which are known to be sites of mass murder; millions have fled Syria, and millions more have been internally displaced within the country.

Saudi Arabia’s King-In-Waiting Flexes His Muscles

Last Saturday, three events in Saudi Arabia caught the attention of the world.

The first was the remarkable news that the kingdom had intercepted and neutralised a missile over Riyadh. This was quickly determined to have been launched from Yemen, which was swiftly blockaded, with its sea, land and air ports abruptly closed.

Missing Man: On William Gerhardie

This is a story of one thing leading to another.

My parents set the foundations for everything I have read. From my mother, books about history and poetry; from my father, an introduction to contemporary novels. In the latter category, amid Amis, McEwan and Faulks, one cannot escape William Boyd.

Iraqi Kurds See Fortunes Reversed after Referendum

In less than a month the for­tunes of Iraqi Kurdistan, its leaders and inhabitants have reversed.

Iraqi Kurds voted over­whelmingly in favour of independence and optimism appeared to reign. The referendum, however, brought complications and immediate repercussions and illuminated systemic problems within the Kurdistan Regional Gov­ernment (KRG), including political and economic dysfunction and general social malaise.

Unhidden Genocide

Review – The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide by Azeem Ibrahim

This book was published more than a year ago, but it is only now that its true relevance has been demonstrated in the face of world events.