Tag - iraq

 
 

IRAQ

Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 21, 2014
Iraqi Christians fly to new life in France after escaping Islamic State
On a warm evening at Irbil International Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan, some 150 mostly Christian refugees anxiously waited to flee their homeland aboard a French government plane.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 19, 2014
Alliance invites a hollow laugh
A U.S. senator has gone on record touting Syria and Iran as having, together, the means, ability and motivation to wipe out the Islamic State. But President Barack Obama and State Secretary John Kerry — as well as both parties in the U.S. Congress — are not interested.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 19, 2014
Obama picking targets while missing the point
Even if President Barack Obama cobbles together a plan to destroy the Islamic State, the problems bedeviling the Persian Gulf, and the greater Middle East more broadly, won't be going away anytime soon.
WORLD
Sep 17, 2014
NSA chief on tech-savvy Islamic State: 'I'm watching'
While U.S. military leaders appeared before Congress to outline their strategy to fight Islamic State militants on the battlefield, the National Security Agency chief said on Tuesday he was watching the media-savvy group's cybercapabilities.
WORLD
Sep 14, 2014
Iraq leader vows to protect civilians after airstrikes against Islamic State
Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Saturday that he had ordered his air force to halt strikes on civilian areas, following attacks by both Iraqi and U.S. jets in large areas of the country held by fighters from the Islamic State group.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 10, 2014
U.S. Iraq air raids help Kurds and Shiites, but at the expense of Sunnis
A small group of people pick through putrefying human remains laid out on plastic sheets by the side of a road in northern Iraq, searching for any trace of missing friends and relatives.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 9, 2014
Islamic State makes inroads in South Asia
Islamic State pamphlets and flags have appeared in parts of Pakistan and India, alongside signs that the ultraradical group is inspiring militants even in the strongholds of the Taliban and al-Qaida.
WORLD
Sep 7, 2014
U.S. airstrikes target Islamic State insurgents near Iraq's Haditha Dam
U.S. warplanes on Sunday carried out four strikes on Islamic State insurgents menacing Iraq's Haditha Dam, witnesses and officials said, widening what President Barack Obama called a campaign to curb and ultimately defeat the jihadist movement.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 7, 2014
Strategy against Islamic State in hand, Obama now must make it work
It took President Barack Obama and his top aides a week to explain that he does in fact have a strategy for confronting the Islamic State militancy. Now he has to prove that he can make it work.
WORLD
Sep 7, 2014
For Iraqi families, survivors, answers remain elusive months after Islamic State bloodbath
No one disputes the horrific outcome: Iraqi military recruits were led off their base unarmed and murdered in the hundreds, machine-gunned in mass graves by the Islamic State, whose fighters boasted proudly of the killings on the Internet.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 7, 2014
Soldier who survived Islamic State's systematic slaughter speaks
Eight hundred Iraqi soldiers were divided into lines of ten men, given rushed interrogations by Islamic State fighters and shot dead, the survivor said. By dawn, he was one of only 20 left alive.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 6, 2014
Islamic State guides Egyptian militants, expanding its influence
The Islamic State, fighting to redraw the map of the Middle East, has been coaching Egypt's most dangerous militant group, complicating efforts to stabilize the biggest Arab nation.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 5, 2014
Greece says it's in 'danger zone' from influx of Syrian, Iraqi refugees
Greece is slipping into a "danger zone" without the funds or resources to handle a fast-growing wave of refugees trying to enter the European Union from war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq, the government warned on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 2, 2014
Crossing paths with James Foley in Syria's war
A former independent reporter in Syria recalls the last times he saw freelance journalist James Foley — whom the Islamic State beheaded last month — and a helpful middle-aged tailor fighting for the Free Syrian Army.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 2, 2014
Defending arming of Kurds, Merkel calls Islamic State a threat to Europe
German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her government's taboo-breaking decision to send arms to Kurds fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq, telling parliament on Monday that the group posed a major security threat to Germany and Europe.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 31, 2014
Steppe nomads were precursors to the Islamic State
The debate over how to think about the Islamic State group has mainly centered on important but abstruse questions — is it evil or not? — and on what combination of military and economic pressure might be necessary to prevent the establishment of a caliphate.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 31, 2014
Islamic State militants behead captive Lebanese soldier
Islamic State militants beheaded a Lebanese soldier who was one of 19 captured by hard-line Syrian Islamists when they seized a Lebanese border town for a few days in August, a video posted on social media showed on Saturday.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 23, 2014
Shiite militiamen kill dozens of Iraqi Sunnis in mosque shooting
Iraqi Shiite militiamen machine-gunned minority Sunni Muslims in a village mosque on Friday, killing dozens just as Baghdad is trying to build a cross-community government to fight Sunni militants whose rise has alarmed Western powers.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 21, 2014
Malaysian militants inspired by the Islamic State plotted bomb attack on Carlsberg brewery
Suspected Malaysian militants loyal to the extremist Islamic State movement bought bomb-making material ahead of a proposed attack on a Carlsberg brewery near the capital, Kuala Lumpur, a top anti-terrorism official said.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Aug 21, 2014
Are Islamic State's anti-U.S. threats mere bluster?
Islamic State's beheading of a U.S. journalist and its threat to "destroy the American cross" suggests it has gained enough confidence seizing large areas of Iraq and Syria to take aim at American targets despite the risks.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past