Policy Analysis

September 26, 2017 A 2015 report estimated that in addition to an extensive network of local women, 550 Western women left their homes to travel to Syria and Iraq in order to join the Islamic State. A separate study in 2016 revealed that an average of 17 percent of as

July 12, 2017 The conventional wisdom in Washington has long been that the United States and Saudi Arabia have important mutual interests that sustain their bilateral relations, but they do not adhere to the same core values. That assumption is in need of reassessment. Over the past two decades, Saudi

June 15, 2017 Does Qatar fund terrorism? Certainly. It is an argument based on an accusation that is applicable to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Russia, and the United States. As long as there is no agreed-upon definition of terrorism, any and all governments that provide

June 13, 2017 At the beginning of May, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein expressed concerns over Egypt’s policies to combat extremism, highlighting that a state of emergency, the massive numbers of detentions, and arbitrary arrest facilitate radicalization. Meantime, the Libyan President Fayez al-Sarraj and General

June 13, 2017 “I just want to let everybody know that we are strongly supporting President Sisi; he has done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We stand with Egypt, and we support the people of Egypt.” With these words, the U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed his Egyptian

More than two weeks after the launch of the Muhammad Rasallah II operation, the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs, or al-Hashd al-Shabi) reached the Syria-Iraq border west of Mosul on May 29, 2017. Hadi al-Ameri, leader of the Badr Organization and one of the most influential PMU commanders, announced from the

The Kurdish question in Syria has long been a point of contention between the United States and Turkey. Throughout former president Barack Obama’s time in office, the primary determinant shaping U.S. strategy against ISIS was a reliance on Kurdish forces. This furtive reliance existed despite Turkish refusal to allow the

The emergence and legitimization of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU or Hashd al-Shaabi) represent a continued phenomenon in modern Iraqi history: a weak state and divided armies. For democracy to emerge, the army has to be united and neutral so that it can provide a space for competition among various

The escalation of conflicts, whether in nature or number, has captured the attention of major international powers, especially the United States. In the aftermath of 9/11, the ‘War on Terror’ became the most important theme of international security cooperation in the United States and the defining feature of its national

February 14th, 2017 The Islamic State’s (ISIS) credentials substantially improved after their conquest of Mosul in 2014. In only two years, this al-Qaeda splinter group has spread into most Middle Eastern countries, the Islamic Maghreb, South and Southeast Asia, and has established cells and inspired individual attacks in Europe and

February 7, 2016 When the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) stormed northern Iraq and took over Mosul in the summer of 2014, it ran a parallel campaign of genocide against the minorities of the Nineveh Plains. For many of these groups, including Christians and Yezidis, this was the

Pakistan, a country with an unprecedented youth bulge, could be a massive recruitment pool for ISIS. Several Islamist terrorist organizations have already taken advantage of the country’s fragile situation.

The inevitable outcome in Aleppo shows how the Syrian revolution has been betrayed first and foremost by Islamism in all its expressions, particularly international jihadism.

Why is Turkey suddenly passionate about helping fight Da’esh?

The devastation of Aleppo, Idlib, and Tikrit may motivate the Sunni leaders in Mosul and Raqqa to think and act politically rather than violently.

What is striking today are the historical similarities between the first Ottoman venture in Northern Iraq and the current deployment of Turkish troops in Bashiqa and other areas of Iraqi Kurdistan.

In order to start a “holy war” against the West, al Qaeda tried to lure Western countries into the Middle Eastern military quagmire. ISIS’ goal, however, is to create a social conflict in the West in order to weaken it, since a weakened enemy is an easier target in the long run.

The author would like to thank Dr. Jacob Olidort for his assistance and support on this piece. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has a much more effective online media program than its jihadi neighbors and predecessors: it recruits and radicalizes supporters while provoking and terrorizing enemies. Yet

People around world are prone to oversimplify the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Some say, for example, that they are no more than a transitory or incidental phenomenon. Others posit that they are merely a gang of mercenaries who can be eliminated through military effort alone. Yet, regardless of

On the shore of Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, where July’s Bastille Day attack killed 85 people, a photograph of a woman removing a layer of clothes with French police officers standing over her went viral. The image exposed the irony of a country that classifies itself as a “secular” republic