New York- While I traveled across much of the width and breadth of the Middle East earlier this year, I shot one vlog in particular that I thought was a bit too dark for my channel and decided to release…
Category: Middle East
The Arch of Ctesiphon
Crossing Borders: Kuwait to Saudi Arabia
The Road Back to Baghdad: Retracing My Journey to Iraq Twenty years On
Crossing Borders-From Iraq to Kuwait
Fabled City: Journey to Jerash
Among the Ancients-Back in Petra
Fabled City Aqaba Episode is Now Live
Fabled City Amman Episode Is Out!
Of Men and Martyrdom: Back to South Lebanon
From Stoicism to Cynicism on Cyprus
Days Like These
Into the Mountains-New Work on IS in the Troubled Governorates of Northern Iraq
War by Another Name: Insurgency in Northern Iraq
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…
Syria after IS
Barcelona- I have a new article out with Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre about the risks faced by the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces following their final defeat against the so-called Islamic State. My piece assesses what the armed landscape will look…
The Festering Bastion
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…
One Hundred Years
New York- Yesterday marked the centenary of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Armenians and their supporters in the international human rights arena describe the massacres as a calculated genocide undertaken by the Ottoman military in the midst of the Great War…
Syria: A Lost Revolution
New York- Three years ago today I trekked into northern Syria’s rebellious Idlib Governorate from Hatay Province in Turkey. I had to put immense trust in my fixer who was living in a Turkish Red Crescent camp at the time with…
Kobane: from Indifference to Intervention
An Unnecessary Siege from Derek Flood on Vimeo. Barcelona- I have a new article this week for Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Monitor concerning my observations on the siege of Kobane from October 10-15. I also have a short piece on the…
The Intervention
Murşitpinar- Another quick blog entry with some images from Kobane and environs and recent days. The media narrative on the siege has shifted from predictions of the city’s imminent fall to IS being on the back foot in the battle…
The Siege
Murşitpinar- Don’t have time to crunch out much text today as I’m firing off a few reports from the past few days for a client but I wanted to post some more images of the siege of Kobane. While it has…
The Border
Murşitpinar- Things have been hectic here in recent days and I don’t have time to write much text for TWD but wanted to put up a few images that might otherwise go unseen. The battle for Kobane is nothing short of…
Thoughts on 9/11 from the Aegean
Thira- Two years ago when I was here on this island, the principal of the Santorini archipelago in Greece’s Cyclades group, I was quietly reading the Eleventh Day The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden by Anthony Summers and…
Along the Morphing Green Line in Iraq
Barcelona- Proud to announce that I have to lead story in this month’s issue of Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst (Subscribers only). I travelled along a section of the so-called “Green Line” that divides Iraqi Kurdistan from Arab-majority Iraq. Iraq’s Green…
Iraq Then and Now
Barcelona- I have a new article out in today’s edition of Asia Times Online about the discordant security arrangement in Iraq’s contested Kirkuk Governorate. On October 21, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama declared: “After nine years, America’s war in Iraq will…
The Mess They Left Behind
Kirkuk- Here is a quick teaser of images from my recent reporting trip to Iraq’s perennial fault line known as Kirkuk Governorate. A decade ago the United States poured over the Kuwaiti border to destroy the Ba’ath Party led by…
Scenes From an Enclave
Erbil- Here are a handful of snapshots from my iPod from my day running around the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan while trying to get situated.
Ten Years On, Militant Salafism and Millenarian Shi’ism Conflating Iraq and Syria Wars
New York- I have a new article out on how the ongoing war in Syria is helping stoke sectarian tensions in Iraq that are manifesting themselves in the form of daily suicide bombings, shootings, and dual massive AQ jailbreaks. My article…
Mali, North Korea and the Confluence of Histories
New York- I had a couple of long term projects published at the end of this past week. The first was an examination of the little known history conjoining Mali in West Africa with North Korea in Northeast Asia over at…
How Syria Has Changed
New York- I have an article out this week in Asia Times Online based on my very different experiences in Syria from 2002-2012. Throughout the decade after 9/11, Syria–though absolutely central to the history and culture of the Arab realm–was viewed as…