Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Tallha Abdulrazaq
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Can Iran claim to protect Islam whilst Houthis strike Makkah?
One would be forgiven for not knowing that Makkah, the holiest place on Earth to Muslims, was recently attacked. Islam’s holiest city had missiles fired at it, not once, but twice last month. It has been over a week since Shia Houthis from Yemen fired what is likely to...
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Battle for Mosul: Why are Shia militias in Tel Afar?
Explaining why Shia militias have launched a military operation against the Iraqi town of Tel Afar as part of the Battle for Mosul. Where is it happening? Tel Afar, a town 60 kilometres west of Mosul, home to predominantly Sunni Turkmens though Shia Turkmens used to also live there before fleeing...
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Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine
Men of Capital is one of those rare books that attempts to write about how Palestine was before the creation of the State of Israel from a unique and original perspective. Author Sherene Seikaly draws upon archival sources as well as little known Palestinian business periodicals such as the Iqtisadiyat...
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Battle for Mosul: Explaining Daesh’s assault on Kirkuk
A summary of the events on the ground during the Battle for Mosul in Iraq....
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Mosul: Continuing the Iraqi Nakba and Holocaust
Iraq has been ignored for long enough. I do not mean that it is not in the news, because it almost always is. From almost daily bombings in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, to shootings, murders and detainment of political dissidents and to the seemingly never ending cascade of...
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Shia militias and the impending Mosul bloodbath
During Ashura, a major Muslim date in the Islamic calendar, one of the main leaders of the Shia-dominated Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) announced that the recapture of Mosul would be “vengeance and retribution against the killers of Hussein”. This astoundingly sectarian rhetoric was largely ignored by the Western media...
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Clooney’s looney vow to prosecute Daesh misses the point
In the latest mad attempt to fight Daesh, Amal Clooney, celebrity-cum-lawyer, has announced that she will be prosecuting Daesh in international criminal courts. Clooney will be representing Nadia Murad, a newly anointed UN Goodwill Ambassador and former Daesh sex slave, and will bring charges of war crimes and genocide...
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36 years on, the Iran-Iraq War is still relevant
It has been 36 years since the Iran-Iraq War erupted, engulfing the entire Middle East region in uncertainty, destabilising markets and causing immense loss of life and permanent impairment to millions of Iraqi and Iranian troops and civilians. The echoes of that war can still be heard today. The Iran-Iraq...
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Saudi supports terrorism? Look who’s talking, Iran
In a rather bizarre tirade published in the New York Times earlier this week, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister and top diplomat, urged the international community to “rid the world of Wahhabism”, doing his utmost to use thinly-veiled sectarian rhetoric whilst trying to come across as a champion...
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Saudi-Iran Hajj spat more political than religious
In recent days, tempers have flared, voices have been raised and scathing words have been uttered by both Saudi Arabia and Iran as their dispute over the annual Islamic pilgrimage raged on. The Hajj pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam that must be performed by every able-bodied...
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The Gulf War revisited
On 2 August 26 years ago, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in the early hours of the morning and, by the afternoon of the same day, had concluded decisively the main objectives of their campaign to conquer and occupy the diminutive, wealthy Gulf state. Although this was perhaps the easiest...
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Daesh and sectarian Shia militias are equivalent
I was recently invited as a panellist for an event hosted by the Faiths Forum for London to discuss Iraq after Daesh, and potential scenarios for the future of the war-ravaged country’s political landscape and the challenges it faces. The panel included current and former post-2003 Iraqi officials, including...
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Turkish democracy, Western hypocrisy
In light of the recent, botched coup attempt against the Turkish government and the will of the Turkish people, many commentators in the West have been agitated by the Turkish authorities’ response to those who plotted against their nation. It seems as though, as usual, the West is looking...
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The attempted coup in Turkey signals the end of political-militarism
Turkey’s latest military coup has ended in ignominious failure. As these words are written, over 1,500 military personnel, including officers, have been taken into custody, and Turkish security forces loyal to the government are besieging stubborn stragglers in the last few pockets of rebellion in both Istanbul and Ankara....
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Medina blast: More proof Islam is innocent of terror
A wave of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East and Asia in the past week have demonstrated yet again, and entirely definitively, that terrorism has no relation to Islam whatsoever. I have previously discussed the deviance of so-called Muslim terrorists, and shown how they are...
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Fallujah: Victory or humiliation?
Despite many premature declarations of victory, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi held aloft the Green Zone-era Iraqi flag in Fallujah last Sunday. He immediately began talking about the next stop being Mosul, and that Daesh would soon be defeated and wiped off the board. However, one might say that...
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The dichotomy of reporting terrorism
Before I begin, let me first extend my most heartfelt condolences to the family of Jo Cox. She was an admirable woman who campaigned to end the suffering of children, and was very recently and up until her tragic and untimely death championing the human rights of the Syrian people...
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Erdoganism and Turkey’s new prime minister
Turkey’s new prime minister is now Binali Yildirim, the former transportation minister. As an engineer, his competence in more technical roles was in little doubt, but some have been questioning his ability to take over from the more intellectual and diplomatic Ahmet Davutoglu who recently resigned from the prime...
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Sadr’s political tantrum turned pantomime
Iraqi news output over the past couple of months has been a seemingly incessant torrent of stories about the great, the indomitable, the righteous Moqtada Al-Sadr; Shia cleric extraordinaire, spiritual leader of the Ahrar Bloc of Iraqi lawmakers and military symbol of the Peace Brigades sectarian militia, part of...
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Why the opposition to the Saudi-Egypt deal?
Saudi Arabia’s recent deals with Egypt have attracted a whole host of harsh criticism from an assortment of commentators, analysts and political groups. Although the agreements between the two Arab countries also include investment and energy deals, the controversy has primarily surrounded Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi’s alleged relinquishing...
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Ennahda: Democratic conservatives, not Islamists
Perhaps the most enduring and lasting impression that I have after speaking to and spending time with Ennahda officials and activists, as well as being familiar with their politics, is that Tunisia’s “Islamists” are simply not Islamists. Although key figures and the founders of the party Rached Ghannouchi and...
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Terrorism and tourism: Tunisia's economic woes
While the Tunisian political scene has recently garnered praise and attention for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it has yet to win any prizes for establishing a thriving and stable economy. Tunisia’s problems, mainly rooted in the realm of the political, have compounded and exacerbated the small country’s economy....
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Five years on: Was democracy the answer for Tunisia?
It is now five years since the ouster of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s long-time dictator and the first of the Arab despots to be successfully challenged and toppled in the mass uprising of the Arab Spring. Back then, what seemed like an epochal event, ushering in a new...