![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/region-middle-east.jpg)
Latest Articles about Iraq
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Islamic_State_militants_-_EDM_May_1__2015.jpg)
Tajik Government Hypes the Islamic State Threat, Uses it to Control Population
The government of Tajikistan has long sustained a shaky narrative purporting that Central Asia is in imminent danger of being overrun by militant forces. Long menaced by the specter of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the government has more recently added a new group... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Twitter_profile_picture_of_Umm_Irhab__a_female_jihadist_who_has_joined_the_islamic_state_Source_Twitter.jpeg)
Western Women Who Join the Islamic State
On February 17, three British teenagers left their East London homes and boarded a plane for Turkey. Soon afterwards, they crossed into Syria, where they are believed to have joined the Islamic State militant group (al-Jazeera, February 21). This event has put female radicalization in... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Logo_of_the_Popular_Mobilization_Forces_in_Iraq_Source_Wikimedia_user_Hashima20.jpg)
A Short Profile of Iraq’s Shi’a Militias
The Islamic State’s sudden capture of much of northern Iraq, including the country’s third largest city of Mosul, and the resulting collapse of the Iraqi Army, in June 2014, was a turning point for Shi’a militias in the country. Formerly sidelined, these groups have now... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Kurdish_Mullah_Shwan_al-Kurdi_who_now_fights_with_the_Islamic_State_source_Twitter_account__vvanwilgenburg.jpg)
Islamic State Develops New Strategies to Destabilize the KRG
In recent months, the Islamic State militant group has started using ethnic Kurdish militants in operations against the security forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq and in its propaganda materials. Some Kurdish Islamic State militants have taken part in videoed killings. For... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Salman_bin_Abdull_aziz_December_9__2013_source_DoD_Flickr.jpg)
To Topple the Throne: Islamic State Sets Its Sights on Saudi Arabia
The meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has since styled itself the Islamic State in an affirmation of its broader aspirations of dominion over a self-declared caliphate beyond the territories where it exercises control, has aggravated the Middle East’s already... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Stolen_funeral_busts_from_Palmyra_Source_Directorate_General_of_Antiquities_and_Museums.jpg)
Islamic State Loots Archaeological Sites for Cash
By late 2013, more than 90 percent of Syria’s cultural sites lay in regions affected by fighting and civil unrest, leaving them open to plunder. In addition, regions of Iraq now under the control of the Islamic State militant group and its allies include roughly... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Zawahiri_Baghdadi.jpg)
‘Fight Them Until There Is No Fitnah’: The Islamic State’s War With al-Qaeda
Recent events have raised fresh questions over the relationship between the Islamic State militant group and al-Qaeda. For instance, militants from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group’s Yemen-based franchise, are reported to have coordinated the multiple jihadist attacks in... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/6A1C1B99-0871-4D13-AF6D-EE5388144111_cx0_cy3_cw0_mw1024_s_n_r1.jpg)
Russia Stirs the Pot in the Middle East
While attention in the Middle East has focused mainly on the Islamic State or on Israel’s relationship with the United States, Russia has been busy trying to advance its own position in the region, chiefly at the US’s expense. Over the course of January and... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Hamid_Taqavi_source_ABNA.jpg)
Iran’s Man in Iraq – A Post-Mortem Analysis of the Career of IRGC Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi
On December 28, 2014, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced the death of Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi in Samarra, Iraq. The Islamic State has since accepted responsibility for the killing of Taqavi (AFP, December 29, 2014). Taqavi was killed while on an advisory mission... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Alireza_Moshajari_of_the_IRGC_first_Iranian_killed_in_Iraq_Source_Hezbollah_Cavalcade.jpg)
Iranian Intervention in Iraq against the Islamic State: Strategy, Tactics and Impact
A deliberately gory June 2014 report on the Shi’a Ahl al-Bayt website, no doubt intended to arouse emotions, shows a photo of the bloodied face of Alireza Moshajari. It describes him as the first of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to have become a “martyr”... MORE