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…
New York- Twenty years ago I used to write poetry, mostly about the world well beyond my day-to-day action space. Tonight I was inspired to scribble something new, something quickly. The Euphrates in Arabic is called al-Furat.
New York- I don’t have much time to do full fledged blog posts as of late but today I was prepping an image for my ongoing #fabledcity street art project, (prints available for sale via paypal) rooting around my archives. While…
New York- I don’t ordinarily post the work of others here on TWD (unless they happen to be close friends) but I am thoroughly impressed by this interview by Jon Stewart of the disgraced former NYT reporter Judith Miller. It is…
New York- I’ve been delving through my archives of late in preparation for an upcoming series of television appearances the rise of dictatorships mostly in the latter half of the twentieth century. Poring over my stock from Baghdad and thinking about…
New York- With each coming day lately there is a new tragedy being announced by the takfiri evangelists who refer to themselves as ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah (the Islamic State). With a campaign noted for executions believed to be taking place in ar-Raqqah…
New York- I have a an article in the November/December issue of the Combating Terrorism Center’s Sentinel publication titled The Battle for Kobani Comes to the Fore. Above is a clip I put together from my field work in Kirkuk Governorate in…
Barcelona- I have a new report out this week for IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre in London on my analysis of the Islamic State’s brutal campaign to establish a religio-politcal entity among several of the former Ottoman (the last…
Barcelona- After an egregiously long sabbatical in the chunky, ‘polar vortex’ torn streets of NYC, I finally made it back across the Atlantic. I put plans for returning to Iraq’s Green Line and Ukraine’s chaotic Donbas region on hold for the…