Tag Archives: ISIL

Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office Sunday night, attempting to steady fears after a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.

The ISIL is getting foothold in Afghanistan whose weak government has no counter-terrorism strategy to deal with the emerging threat, warns one Afghan analyst.

For the first time, a European country has used military force to carry out the premeditated killing of a specific individual outside the context of regular hostilities. Apart from the issue of whether targeted strikes are an effective or wise policy against terrorism, the UK’s latest move raises huge legal questions.

The “great shakeout” taking place in the Middle East is a state shakeout by conservative states with conservative ideologies. Iran is not an outlier in this company. Certainly rivalry and competition are better than the wars, ethnic cleansing, flight, killing, rape, malnutrition and barbarism of the past five years.

Three men of Central Asian descent have been arrested in New York on the charges of conspiracy to provide material support to the ISIL terrorist group.

Currently, ISIL does not seem to be operating in Afghanistan or Central Asian countries; yet, all necessary measures should be taken by the regional governments to take away the hope of ISIL surviving in the region.

The Paris attack is touching the nerves of European politicians, as if to test their patience and maturity regarding Muslim communities in their countries. The attack could antagonize the European stance regarding not only the radical Islamist groups, but also all Islamic communities, even in their own countries.

Americans may reasonably ask if some Middle Eastern countries with estimated armies of around 3 million are unwilling or incapable of marshaling forces sufficient to defeat 30,000 ISIL fighters, why should America put “more boots on the ground”?

Once the IS problem is defused, though, the conundrum of what to do with Assad will return. It is doubtful that the international community is really willing to pursue regime change in Damascus, so Turkey may have no choice but to soften its rhetoric and seek a diplomatic exit strategy from the Syrian quagmire.  Otherwise, the civil war could conceivably go on for years to come and continue to destabilize the entire region.

The reason that Turkey supports ISIL and al-Nusra's war against the Kurds is that it seeks to prevent a Kurdish autonomous region on its southern border with Syria. By eliminating "Rojava," the Kurdish appellation for "West Kurdistan," Turkey also hopes to further weaken the Kurdish nationalist movements, especially the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its politically affiliated organizations.