Baghdad bridles at Turkey’s military presence, warns of ‘regional war’

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has warned Turkey that it risks triggering a regional war by keeping troops in Iraq, as each summoned the other’s ambassador in a growing row. Relations between the two regional powers are already broadly strained by the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State militant group. Turkey’s […]

ISIS’ Al-Bayan Radio Station in Mosul is Bombed Into Silence by Iraqi Jets

A radio station used by ISIS to spread extremist ideology in one of the cities it conquered has been bombed out of operation, officials said Monday. The Al-Bayan radio station was “one of the strongest” propaganda tools for the militants inside Mosul, a spokesman at Iraq’s Joint Operation Command told NBC News. Broadcasting stopped Sunday […]

Pentagon Paid for Fake ‘Al Qaeda’ Videos

The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda program in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal. Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the […]

Kurds grab Islamic State held land

It seemed like just a matter of time before Iraq started looking towards a future without the Islamic State. Now that the Kurds have seized land previously held by ISIS, Iraq is forced to make a choice. The Iraqi government can either negotiate or face a large Kurdish population full of experienced fighters. If the Kurds can hang onto the […]

The Iraqi housewife who ‘cooked the heads’ of ISIS fighters

“Shut up and stay still,” the woman in black fatigues and a black headscarf snapped over her shoulder at the armed men behind her as she sat down for an interview. Immediately they went quiet, each adjusting his weapon and standing up straight as if he’d been called to attention. This is a woman who […]

Kurds won’t have friends as ISIL fades to the background

The Kurds ought to be our focus in the Middle East. They’re legitimately our friends. At this point, it’s clear we don’t know the Middle East better than Middle Easterners. But, we do know who has performed and helped us in the past. We ought to give the Kurds some measure of solidarity, because once […]

Blasts kill at least 17 in Baghdad: police, medics

Three blasts killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 50 in predominantly Shi’ite Muslim districts of Baghdad on Tuesday, police and medical sources said. A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest in a commercial street in the eastern Baghdad al-Jadida area of the Iraqi capital, killing nine people and wounding more than 30, […]

Peshmerga 9th Brigade: “no more volunteers…”

A Kurdish Peshmerga commander of the infamous 9th Brigade based out of Daquq, a city just south of Kirkuk released a statement today via his Facebook page addressing his English speaking followers, “At this time no more volunteers will be accepted into the 9th Brigade. The volunteers currently on staff are the final volunteers to the […]

Clinton, Trump, Iraq, and Libya

Over the last two months, the British public has been engaged in a debate about war that has been largely absent from the U.S. presidential election. On Wednesday, a parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom released a report condemning the government of former Prime Minister David Cameron for its role in the 2011 military intervention […]

Watch: Iraqi Security forces liberate strategic ISIS held city of Shiqat, Iraq

On Tuesday, Iraqi security forces liberated the city of Shirqat from ISIS control. Shirqat is a small city on the west bank of the Tigris river, along the main road into Baghdad, 60 miles south of Mosul, and was the last major city between Iraqi security Forces and a Mosul offensive. The operation to retake Mosul […]

The ISIS war has a new commander — and ISIS may be the least of his worries

It’s going to be a long year for Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, who on Sunday became the seventh American general since 2003 to assume command of war operations in Iraq. And his mission might be the toughest one yet. As the head of Operation Inherent Resolve, Townsend’s objective is to eliminate the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate […]