ISIS

One YPG member told me about a Daash fighter he shot four times with a Dragonov sniper rifle. The jihadist went down but kept trying to get back up.

Prepare for a smart-ass answer to this question. Memes and rumors spread like wildfire via social media, and the most dubious sources are claiming that ISIS is encouraging their supporters to go out and specifically target U.S. military veterans. First off, any idiot on an anonymous Twitter account can post anything they want. A Twitter post does […]

Virtually every YPG fighter has a rule: Save the last bullet for yourself. In the war against ISIS, which they call the Daash, it is far better to choose your own way out rather than be captured by the jihadists and their so-called Islamic State. One source on the ground in Rojava (Kurdish-held Syria) told me […]

Special thanks to Patrick Collins for writing this guest post. -Jack In the mid 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) faced a boiling communist inspired insurgency that sought to overthrow the existing government that was led by the descendants of European settlers. The Rhodesian Bushwar would last over fifteen years, coming on the […]

I heard the 12.7mm gunshots reverberate across the abandoned buildings throughout the morning and into the afternoon. Shot after shot rang out from the lot outside the abandoned warehouse next to the apartment building I stayed in with the YPG. Eventually, curiosity got the best of me. It did not appear to be one of […]

As the SUV bounced down the rocky slope towards the Tigris river, the truck’s headlights illuminated a small inflatable boat churning through the current towards us.  I dumped my bags on the ground and waited for my turn to make the clandestine river crossing from Iraqi Kurdistan into the newly liberated region of Kurdish Syria […]

The contemporary global security climate is entering an extremely complex and equally alarming phase. Extremist political, religious, and ethno-nationalistic enablers of modern terrorism have found no shortage of ecumenical audiences in which to spread their brutal and lethal messages to. There also appears to be no shortage of individuals willing to carry out indiscriminate acts […]

As the U.S. and allies falsely advertise restraint for a boots-on-the-ground initiative in Iraq and Syria, we can be assured that much more is going on behind the scenes—preparations are undoubtedly in the works for a full-scale operation. Currently, there are approximately 1,500 U.S. troops in Iraq aiding the Iraqi military in objectives as far-reaching as the ISIS-controlled […]

Rumors have been flying around the Internet over the last week about Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the self-styled “Caliph Ibrahim” of the Islamic State, being caught in a Coalition airstrike against Daash leadership. Daash’s own media have acknowledged that he is wounded, and the waters were further muddied on November 10 by a report put […]

The public’s focus on the seemingly endless number of human-rights abuses and territorial gains of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has left al-Qaeda somewhat on the margins of the debate over the strategic objectives of the international Islamist movement. This summer, as ISIS surged into Iraq and the conflict in Syria finally […]

Kurdish protests have been taking place recently in Turkey regarding the country’s inadequate response against ISIS, and the lack of support for Kurdish fighters in the town of Kobane, Syria. The protests were peaceful in contrast with the riots of October, which resulted in the death of more than 30 civilians—most killed by protesters fighting with […]

Short answer: Probably not. Even as it appears more and more inevitable that a renewal of Western involvement in the ground war in Iraq is coming, there are no indicators that it would be anything other than a repeat of the later stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That means lots of heavy, high-profile armored vehicles […]