Tag Archives: Iraq

The podcast Caliphate explored the war on terror and ISIS on the ground in Syria and Iraq. In this March 12, 2020 photo, a man rides a motorcycle in northwestern Syria the current focus of the 10-year civil war. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Peter Klein, University of British Columbia The latest scandal to hit United States news media involves Rukmini Callimachi, …

People look at the remains of an exploded vehicle that the Islamic State used as a suicide bomb, on display in Iran in September 2020. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images Brian Glyn Williams, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth One common claim by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has been that his administration beat IS, or what’s formally known as the Islamic …

A surface coal mine in Gillette, Wyoming, photographed in 2008. Greg Goebel/Flickr, CC BY-SA Bradley Handler, Colorado School of Mines; Matt Henry, University of Wyoming, and Morgan Bazilian, Colorado School of Mines These are very challenging times for U.S. fossil fuel-producing states, such as Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota. The COVID-19 economic downturn has reduced energy demand, with uncertain prospects …

GettyImages Sioux McKenna, Rhodes University International rankings of universities are big business and big news. These systems order universities on the basis of a variety of criteria such as student to staff ratio, income from industry, and reputation as captured through public surveys. Universities around the world use their rankings as marketing material and parents and prospective students make life …

Paul Collins, University of Oxford Within days of Islamic State (IS) releasing a video showing their destruction of sculptures in the Mosul museum and the ancient city of Nineveh, reliable reports emerged that the obliteration of Iraq’s past had expanded to include the architectural treasures of Nimrud and, most recently, Hatra. Lying to the south of the modern city of …

Bamo Nouri, City, University of London Iraq’s recent wave of protests against poverty, a lack of basic services, unemployment, and the interference of Iran in the country’s domestic affairs showed a country at the end of its tether. Official figures put the number killed in the violent crackdown of protesters at 157. Since 2011, protests and popular movements that challenged …

This Assyrian winged bull is safe in Chicago, if far from home. How much else is safe? Trjames, CC BY-SA Eleanor Robson, UCL Iraq has a long and rich heritage, home for thousands of years to mighty empires – Assyria and Babylon, the Abbasid caliphate – that ruled the region once known as Mesopotamia, widely held as the cradle of …

Packed and ready to leave? Perhaps not quite yet. Capt. Robyn Haake/US Army/AFP via Getty Images Neta C. Crawford, Boston University Editor’s note: The Costs of Wars project was started in 2011 to assess the long-term consequences of the post-9/11 wars. Project co-director Neta C. Crawford, professor and chair of political science at Boston University, explains the major implications of …

Daviegunn/Wikimedia commons Zena Kamash, Royal Holloway London, Paris and New York are global cities: modern hubs for travel, technology and trade, their names and images echo around the globe, capturing our imaginations with their distinctive histories, famous residents and iconic landmarks. Cities, such as these, which connect with the wider world become mixing pots for a rich interplay of diverse …

Johan Franzen, University of East Anglia Following his capture by American troops, Saddam Hussein made a startling admission to George Piro, the FBI investigator tasked with interrogating him. The reason he had played cat and mouse with UN weapons inspectors for over a decade was not because he was trying to hide Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction from …