Russia arms Iraq, Syria to help combat Islamic State - Lavrov
(Reuters) - Russia is arming Iraq and Syria to help them fight Islamic State, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday, calling the radical militant group the main threat to his own country's security.
"Islamic State is our main enemy at the moment. If only because hundreds of Russian citizens, hundreds of Europeans, hundreds of Americans fight alongside IS," he said in an interview with three radio stations. "They are already coming back... and to enjoy themselves could stage vile acts at home."
Russia has criticised air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq, and encouraged Washington to work with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the battle against IS.
"We are helping both Iraq and Syria, possibly more effectively than anyone else, by providing weapons to their armies and security forces," Lavrov said, without giving details of the weapons.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/04/22/mideast-crisis-russia-lavrov-idINKBN0ND1GH20150422?rpc=401
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Author: Patrick Cockburn
Publisher: Verso Books
Published Date : 01 January 2015
Paperpack: 192 pages
ISBN
78-1784780401
In the media haze of information and mis-information that proliferates about the conflicts that continue to rage throughout Iraq and Syria, there is one word that has emerged over the past year as a terrifying symptom of the Middle Eastern malaise: "Da'esh". The Arabic term for the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL) that stretches across vast swathes of Syria and Iraq, it is a word that has struck fear into the heart of many, and precipitated a splurge of new reports, articles, books, analyses and lay speculation about the origins of the radical Islamist group and the likely ripple effects of its territorial and ideological takeover of the Middle East.
One of the first, and nominally more credible, books to emerge out of the ISIS media frenzy is that written by Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the Independent and one of the few Western journalists (along with other household names in Middle East reporting such as Robert Fisk) who still maintains the capacity to provide in depth and on the ground reporting from the region. The Rise of Islamic State, published by Verso in January 2015, was eagerly anticipated by journalists and analysts alike as a window into the inner workings of this shadowy organisation and an opportunity to understand how it was able to be formed and develop from the ashes of the Iraq war and Syrian conflict.
And indeed, on a superficial level at least, this is exactly what the book delivers. Consisting of more of a collection of anecdotes and reportages than any actual analysis or argument, the book chronicles the various ins and outs of the Syrian revolution, and how a combination of political, social, economic and military factors laid the groundwork for the emergence of the group now known as Islamic State. The overall effect is of a hodgepodge of disparate facts and figures that tend to dwell too much on the minutiae of the current conflicts, rather than the deep historical, sociological and political roots from which they stem.
Despite Cockburn's commendable attention to detail and well-researched picture of the facts on the ground, his myopic vision of history (in which the enduring legacies of the shadow states built under Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez Al-Assad in Syrian are all but excluded from his narrative) and his tendency towards sweeping generalisations (such as his usage of the terms "Sunni" and "Shia" as if such homogeneous and discrete groups of individuals existed labouring under a posited sectarian collective consciousness) serve to undermine much of his attempts at nuance. As a seasoned journalist who is often critical of the mainstream press – indeed, one of the chapters of the book itself is ironically titled "If It Bleeds It Leads", an underhand jab at the attention-seeking of the corporate media – it is a shame to see Cockburn himself fall into re-hashing tired stereotypes and fear-mongering rather than his usual balanced and informed reporting.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/media-review/book-review/18206-the-rise-of-islamic-state-isis-and-the-new-sunni-revolution
