Today is the eighth anniversary of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia, but in lieu of celebrating, plenty of Kosovars in Pristina opted to mark the day by demanding their government's resignation: Thousands of protesters marched through Kosovo's capital Wednesday on the eighth anniversary of independence from Serbia, calling for the government to step down … Continue reading Eight is enough

A car bomb targeting Turkish military personnel driving through Ankara earlier today killed at least 28 people and left another 60+ injured. While there's been no claim of responsibility as far as I can tell, and you can never rule out ISIS as a perpetrator, it looks probable that a Kurdish group was behind the … Continue reading Ankara bombing kills at least 28; suspect is Kurdish

The violence that marked Bahrain's response to the Arab Spring has gone relatively unnoticed by the rest of the world. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, in comparison with the chaos and/or violence that followed the Arab Spring in Syria, Libya, or Egypt, Bahrain's violence has been relatively minor. For another thing, … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: Bahrain’s Bloody Thursday (2011)

Sorry for the sparse posting today. I actually had a social engagement that required me to leave the house, if you can believe that. I did have a nice long piece that I wrote this morning about recent reports that ISIS is using a new currency these days. Maybe you recognize it: But I liked … Continue reading ISIS’s play money

The case that there is no such thing as a "Palestinian" finally got a supporting argument worthy of its intellectual heft last week, when an Israeli parliamentarian named Anat Berko uncovered the Truth about the Arabic language: The name “Palestine” is a borrowed term, Ms. Berko said, presumably referring to the ancient Greek “Palaistine” and … Continue reading Finally, somebody spells out the truth

At least one of Libya's parliaments is planning to vote this week to approve, or not, the national unity government that was proposed by the country's Presidency Council last month. Two of the council's nine members refused to sign on to the unity cabinet proposal, and so far at least two of the proposed 18 … Continue reading Missing the forest

Everybody's supposed to be ceasing hostilities in Syria this week, so I guess it's Russia's last chance to really go after its really high-value targets: hospitals and schools. You know, those bastards: Almost 50 civilians were killed when missiles hit at least five medical facilities and two schools in rebel-held areas of Syria on Monday, … Continue reading Post-hostility Syria still seems pretty hostile to me

If you were under the impression that the Gulf War air campaign was all precision strikes, the Amiriyah bombing should disabuse you of that notion. Amiriyah was an air-raid shelter in Baghdad that the US military concluded was some kind of command-and-control center because of all the people (terrified civilians, as it turned out) who … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: the Amiriyah shelter bombing (1991)