Syria

Europe under threat
Europe under threat
The novel coronavirus Covid-19 dominates not only the media headlines in Europe but the everyday life of just about anybody. In the federalist European Union, it is still up to…
Syria: What the UN can do, and must do
Syria: What the UN can do, and must do
As the Syrian Government intensifies its offensive against Syria’s Idlib province, the final opposition stronghold in the nine-year old war, diplomats and UN officials are running…
Syria: The battlefield rules
Syria: The battlefield rules
The Syrian conflict has once again shown just how complicated it can be, along with the ramifications if one side seeks too much change to the status quo. Syrian government…
Middle East dispatch: A paper closes, a rift opens, Syria slips
Middle East dispatch: A paper closes, a rift opens, Syria slips
Out of print In the latest casualty of Lebanon’s ongoing political crisis, the country’s only national English-language newspaper, The Daily Star, has temporarily ceased…
Typology of Terror — The Backgrounds of Australian Jihadis
Reports
Typology of Terror — The Backgrounds of Australian Jihadis
In order to better understand what motivates Australian radical islamists to join or support a terrorist group it is first necessary to get a better understanding of who they are…
October in Syria: Podcast out now
October in Syria: Podcast out now
October 2019 saw two major new developments in Syria which have shifted the geopolitics of the region: US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from north-east…
The worrying precedent of Turkey’s “safe zone”
The worrying precedent of Turkey’s “safe zone”
There is a reason the Kurds say they have “no friend but the mountains”. Time and again human rights atrocities have been perpetrated against them, and they are not strategically…
Trump’s troop withdrawal and what’s next for Islamic State
Trump’s troop withdrawal and what’s next for Islamic State
Sceptical of US interests in the Middle East, averse to military deployments and non-committal to the value of alliances, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he will…
Turkey’s “safe zone” may prove costly
Turkey’s “safe zone” may prove costly
On 9 October, Turkey launched a military operation, code-named Operation Peace Spring, against US-allied Kurdish forces in north-eastern Syria. Ankara described the goal as…
The sharp shift on Syria
The sharp shift on Syria
Just last week, much of Washington seemed to reach consensus on the direction of US policy in Syria. The Syria Study Group, a bipartisan committee convened by Congress to examine…