Shamima Begum & Why an International Tribunal for ISIS is Necessary

At just 15 years-old, Shamima Begum left her home in London with two friends to travel to the Islamic State (IS). They would be smuggled through Turkey by a Canadian spy, where the three girls would be married off to foreign fighters. Two are presumed dead, and the survivor, Shamima Begum, ended up in a […]

Could the War on Gaza Pull Rojava into a Regional Conflict?

There are certain inflection points in history around which decades are defined, and October 7th was one of them. The Hamas incursion into Israel, and the subsequent Israel bombing and ground invasion of Gaza, have escalated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an intensity unseen since 1948. Events of such historic importance are seldom contained to their […]

Iraq War 20 Years On: How the US Failed Kurdish Politics

Twenty years ago, American-led forces launched their fateful invasion of Iraq: a campaign of devastating shock and awe that shattered the Iraqi state and overthrew Saddam’s dictatorship in under two months. The story, one of Iraqi disintegration, sectarian conflict, and ultimately American failure to produce a flourishing democracy, is by now well known. However, the […]

Syrian-Turkish Rapprochement: The Future of Kurds in Syria

After a decade of enmity, the end of 2022 saw a sudden move towards rapprochement between Syria and Turkey. For Turkish President Erdogan, normalization with Syria serves three important goals for his leadership, particularly with difficult elections coming up in 2023. These are the eventual withdrawal of Turkish troops from their increasingly unpopular entanglement in […]