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In-depth: The failure to address past violations in the ‘war on terror’ has enabled UK and US-backed torture practices to re-emerge, this time in Syria.

The US and UK’s complicity in torture and detention practices has once again come under the spotlight amid revelations of the systematic abuses and preventable deaths of detainees in northeast Syria.

The Limits of Cooperation Between Israel and the Arab States

When Iran directed over 300 missiles and drones at Israel on April 13, Jordan helped fend off the attack. Initial media reports suggested that several other Arab states assisted in Israel’s defense, efforts they later denied. Nonetheless, a chorus of Israeli leaders, as well as some observers in Washington, interpreted these acts as a sign of a major shift. These Arab states, the argument went, would side with Israel if its conflict with Iran continued to escalate. Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, declared that Iran’s attack had “created new opportunities for cooperation in the Middle East.” The Institute for National Security Studies, a leading Israeli think tank, declared that “the regional and international coalition that participated in intercepting launches from Iran toward Israel demonstrates the potential of establishing a regional alliance against Iran.”

“To this day I feel humiliation for what was done to me… The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.” That’s what Abu Ghraib survivor Talib al-Majli had to say about the 16 months he spent at that notorious prison in Iraq after being captured and detained by American troops on October 31, 2003. In the wake of his release, al-Majli has continued to suffer a myriad of difficulties, including an inability to hold a job thanks to physical and mental-health deficits and a family life that remains in shambles.

To Israelis, October 7, 2023, is the worst day in their country’s 75-year history. Never before have so many of them been massacred and taken hostage on a single day. Thousands of heavily armed Hamas fighters managed to break through the Gaza Strip’s fortified border and into Israel, rampaging unimpeded for hours, destroying several villages, and committing gruesome acts of brutality before Israeli forces could regain control. Israelis have compared the attack to the Holocaust; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described Hamas as “the new Nazis.” In response, the Israel Defense Forces have pursued an open-ended military campaign in Gaza driven by rage and the desire for revenge. Netanyahu promises that the IDF will fight Hamas until it achieves “total victory,” although even his own military has been hard put to define what this means. He has offered no clear idea of what should happen when the fighting stops, other than to assert that Israel must maintain security control of all of Gaza and the West Bank.

«Les hommes ne reconnaissent plus aucune autorité effective dans l’ordre spirituel, aucun pouvoir légitime dans l’ordre temporel. Les profanes se permettent de discuter des choses sacrées (…) c’est l’inférieur qui juge le supérieur, l’ignorant qui impose des bornes à la sagesse, l’erreur qui prend le pli sur la vérité. L’humain qui se substitue au divin. La Terre qui l’emporte sur le Ciel (…)». (René Guénon – philosophe)

Analysis: The Kurdistan Democratic Party’s unprecedented boycott of long-overdue parliamentary elections leaves the semi-autonomous region in uncertain waters.

Voters in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region will cast ballots on 10 June for the regional parliament for the first time since 2018, but a major force will be missing from the ballot.