ISIS

The US and Russia have committed to a ceasefire beginning Monday at sunset, which is to last for a week over the Eid holiday. The US-backed rebel groups are supposed to cease attacking government-held areas, although it appears increasingly likely that some rebel groups will refuse to implement the deal. The Assad government has agreed to allow humanitarian supplies into Aleppo.

It is very significant inside and outside Syria because it is between the US and Russia, the most powerful players in the Syrian conflict, who can put pressure on their allies and proxies to comply. It is important too because it is the sign of a change in the international political landscape: Russia is back as a superpower – certainly in the Middle East and perhaps

The US and Russia’s landmark agreement may drastically reduce the violence that has characterised the last five years in war-ravaged Syria, but as Patrick Cockburn writes from Damascus, much still depends on defeating jihadist rebels and pressuring local allies to comply

TURKEY’s president revealed yesterday that the US had proposed a “deep” invasion of Syria to capture the Islamic State (Isis) stronghold of Raqqa. Turkish media reported comments by Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he flew home from the G-20 summit in China. He said his US counterpart Barack Obama had broached the subject at the meeting.

A terrorist for the Israelis, Khaled was a symbol throughout the world for the Palestinian armed struggle, following her participation in one of the four simultaneous hijackings of September 1970, inspiring songs, films and works of art internationally. These hijackings were part of the Palestinian “response” to the ignominious defeat they suffered with the

Sadly, it’s a classic Middle East moment, when regional players’ mistrust of each other overwhelms their common interest in fighting the terrorist Islamic State. And, equally sadly, it’s a moment that illustrates the frailty of the United States’ Syrian policy, which has built its military plans on the treacherous fault line of Turkish-Kurdish enmity.

Islam Karimov is one of the two heads of the former Soviet states who had been ruling the country since independence in 1991. The other one is the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev (age 76). After Karimov’s death, a country where power was centralized in one man, risks falling into destabilization.

The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction. A weak but functioning IS can undermine the appeal of the caliphate among radical Muslims; keep bad actors focused on one another rather than on Western targets; and hamper Iran’s quest for regional hegemony.

« Islamisation de la radicalité » ou «radicalisation de l’islam»? C’est pour avoir soutenu que la radicalité des jeunes Occidentaux candidats au djihad préexiste à leur islamisation, qu’Olivier Roy est l’objet d’une âpre controverse. Gilles Kepel lui a en effet récemment consacré dans «Libération» une tribune assassine ironiquement titrée «“Radicalisations” et

Turkish forces intervened in Northern Syria, officially “against terrorists” (it is a custom now for nearly everybody operating in Syria, to do it under pretext of combating terrorism). But for most observers, the real aim of the operation is to stop the advance of Kurdish forces to the west of the river Euphrates.