Thera- I made a (very) short) video on my Fabled City Youtube channel about the failed Kurdistan independence referendum which was now nine years ago. Hard to believe 2017 was that long ago. I had just got back to Erbil…
Thera- My work in the Qandil mountains in Erbil governorate, Iraq along the border with Iran for the Jamestown Foundation wasd cited in PhD dissertation at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia (aka the Czech Republic). Tomáš Kaválek, the Director of…
Cleveland- My fieldwork in Iraq’s Kirkuk governorate on Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqa al-Naqshbandia (JRTN) was cited by the Mapping Militants Project at Houston’s Rice University. JRTN was led in the shadows by the late, enigmatic Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the last major…
New York- My frontline work in Iraq in the heady days of the war against IS-known as Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve in American security speak-was cited in a research report published by the Rand Corporation. The report titled…
New York- My work in Syria and Iraq was cited by the Library of Congress and the London-based openDemocracy respectively. My fieldwork in northern Syria’s Idlib governorate for Janes Islamic Affairs Analyst was given a hat tip in “Unrest in…
New York- Something I happened in my years covering the era of the terror wars (known in the Anglosphere more formally as Operation Inherent Resolve-more simply the war against the so-called Islamic State) was the mystical sound of the tanbur.…
New York- I’ve put together a showreel of some of my Arabic language network appearances over the years from Al jazeera and BBC Arabic. These are pulled from the appearances where I still was able to locate the original mp4…
New York- I’ve put together a showreel of some of my English-language television appearances over the years from The History Channel, France 24 (English), and CSPAN. There were others like CNN for example where the links no longer work and…
New York- I have a few new-ish academic citations I want to post here on the blog this week. It means the world to me that my frontline work lives on in academia and the think-tank world in part because…
New York- My work in Iraq during the war against IS for the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point is cited (pp. 29, 33) in this new volume Surviving the Islamic State by Austin Knuppe, an academic at Utah State…
New York- I’m pleased to share that my fieldwork in Iraq from the war against IS circa 2016-17 is cited in a new book called Death, Dominance, and State-Building by MIT professor Roger D. Petersen published this month by Oxford…
New York- For many years I had dreamt of making with way to the tiny village to Taq Kasra and nearby Salman Pak in southern Baghdad governorate. to cast my eyes of the Arch of Ctesiphon, a wonder of the…
Al-Khobar- I’ve written this essay about my recent journey to Iraq which was a very personal milestone as it marked twenty years since I first visited the country. This was perhaps my twelfth visit to Iraq over the span of…
Nasiriyyah- I have a new episode up on my channel about exploring what remains of Baghdad’s old quarter after a failed photo mission. Walk with me as late afternoon gradually turns to night along the banks of the Tigris. Iraq’s…
Barcelona- I’m certainly no film critic, but I came away from the star studded Vice starring Welsh-born Christian Bale as Wyoming’s Richard ‘Dick’ Bruce Cheney, ruthless veteran Republican operator and titan of industry with several thoughts. Firstly as someone who…
New York-I have a new piece out in the September 2018 issue of the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point’s monthly Sentinel journal on IS’s insurgent rear bases and operations in Iraq’s northern federally controlled governorates of Kirkuk, Salah ad-Din, and…
Kirkuk- I have a featured report in London at Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (subscription required) this week about ad-Dawla al-Islamiyya’s (IS’s) return to almost purely asymmetric tactics after the forcible collapse of its all too modern, social media-fueled state-building…
Pai- Fifteen years ago today the Ba’athist government of Iraq was wholly overthrown by the United States military along with its United Kingdom partners and a minute cabal of disconnected, diaspora Iraqis looking to implement various unrealistic political agendas in…
Erbil- Today marks fifteen years since the disastrous Anglo-American invasion of the Republic of Iraq. Eighteen months after the American intervention in the Afghan civil war became internationalised in response to 9/11, the next phase of what I refer to as…
Kirkuk-I have a new piece out with Jane’s Intelligence Review (subscription required) in the UK on my latest findings in troubled Kirkuk governorate and the Disputed Territories. Following the now notorious events of 16 October last year in which the PUK…
Erbil- I arrived back in Iraq for the sixth time since the American-led invasion that commenced fifteen years ago (a month from now give or take). On 20 March 2003 Baghdad time, the ground forces of the United States, United Kingdom,…
Barcelona- I have an article out in the October issue of the CTC Sentinel entitled “The Hawija Offensive: A Liberation Exposes Faultlines,” based on my fieldwork in Kirkuk governorate in August and September. I began this work before the offensive…
Paros-I have a piece out this week for Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre on the findings from my field research in late August and early September in the troubled, multi-ethnic Kirkuk and Salah ad-Din governorates. These contentious regions act as…
Erbil- I have a new article out for Jane’s Intelligence Review on the forces arrayed around what has come to be known as the ‘Hawija pocket’ in southwestern Kirkuk governorate. The traditionally Sunni Arab town of Hawija, a restive northern bastion of…
New York- Fifteen year ago today the United States military intervened in the then ongoing civil war in Afghanistan which until 9/11 had been all but entirely ignored in the West save for a few women’s rights groups and other…
New York- I am proud to mention that I have the cover story of the October issue of Jane’s Intelligence Review entitled “Eyes on Mosul: Offensive Looms in Northern Iraq.” With each of the reporting trips I’ve made to Iraq…
Barcelona- Very proud to have an article from my recent trip to Iraq’s Ninewa Governorate in the August issue of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point’s Sentinel publication. As you may have read or heard, there has been much…
Barcelona- Regretfully I haven’t updated TWD for quite some time. I had wanted to do regular updates during my recent stint in Iraq but that whole time I was focused on my goals there to the point where I shirked…
New York- “Mosul, Mosul, Mosul!” is what enterprising taxi drivers in Erbil would yell as I walked past a dusty lot referred to as the Mosul garage years ago now. I would contemplate hopping in one of those shared orange-and-white…
New York- With the highly distracting ‘Brexit’ debate-arguably the most distasteful neologism since ‘Grexit,’ and the buffoonery of the coming US presidential election, the war(s) in Iraq and Syria painfully grind on in the ramadan heat. The recapture of Fallujah-which has…