In an exclusive interview, The Cradle speaks to former Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who reveals the challenges, foreign conspiracies, and controversies that defined his truncated two-year tenure, amidst political and economic turmoil that shook the nation. Adil Abdul-Mahdi, prime minister of Iraq from October 2018 to May 2020, emerged …
Read More »An uncertain future for Idlib as Assad is welcomed back to the international stage
Despite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad being welcomed back onto the international stage, all is not well at home. His country is broken into three parts, which, at best, are in a state of uneasy coexistence and at worst are stuck in a low-intensity active conflict. In the country’s northwestern Idlib …
Read More »Can the US disrupt Syria’s lucrative Captagon drug empire?
The Biden administration will soon submit an interagency strategy to Congress on combating Syria’s illicit Captagon drug trade, which comes hot on the heels of the diplomatic rapprochement between Damascus and Arab states. The administration will unveil this strategy in the coming weeks, said US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State …
Read More »The Arab League’s gamble on Assad won’t pay off
To most Syria observers, the accelerated Saudi-led drive to rehabilitate the Assad regime is not a surprise. After all, the Saudis and the other allied Arab regimes in the region did not have essential contradictions with the Syrian regime in 2011, when the anti-Assad uprising broke out. The involvement of …
Read More »Taqiyya: Iran Actually Boasts About Deceiving the West in Nuclear Talks
Iran’s Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “used the Islamic concept of ‘Taqiyya’ to describe the regime’s decision to accept the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with the West. Taqiyya means the permissibility to deny or conceal one’s real beliefs to secure a worthy goal.” — iranintl.com, May 20, 2023. “Khamenei’s emphasis …
Read More »Blinken urges coalition partners to repatriate Islamic State fighters in Syria
At a gathering in Riyadh of the global alliance to defeat IS, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked partners to repatriate their detained citizens and announced new funding for stabilization work in Iraq and Syria. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged countries to take responsibility for their citizens …
Read More »Islamic State women use children as ‘sex tools,’ Syrian Kurdish officials say
Officials in northeast Syria tell Al-Monitor that women in Islamic State internment camps are forcing young boys to impregnate women as part of an alleged IS campaign to “go forth and multiply.” Sitting on a classroom chair, his fingers drumming nervously on a tablet, a young boy slowly raises his …
Read More »US troops launched 38 missions against ISIS in Iraq, Syria in May
US troops conducted a total of 38 missions against ISIS in Iraq and Syria during May, according to US Central Command. 21 of those missions took place in Iraq, and 17 were conducted in Syria, all with partner forces, Task & Purpose reported. 31 suspected ISIS operatives were detained, and …
Read More »US, Saudi top diplomats urge repatriation of detained IS recruits
The United States and Saudi Arabia urged countries to take back citizens captured in the fight against Islamic State, with the kingdom’s top diplomat saying it was “absolutely unacceptable” that wealthy countries skirted that responsibility. “I would say to those countries, you must step up,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal …
Read More »3,000 Iraqi terrorists detained in Syria brought back to Iraq
The Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuad Hussein, confirmed on Thursday that 3,000 Iraqi terrorists detained in Syria have been returned to Iraq, where the majority of them have been tried, according to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Al-Sahaf. During his speech at the ministerial meeting …
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