Epstein Secrets

r toward a breakup, one group is maneuvering the crisis with far more leverage than the others: Iraqi Kurds. And in the contested oil-rich region of Kirkuk, Iraq's Kurdish minority has been steadily consolidating control for weeks. On the southern edge of the province, in an area once secured by centra

s continued across the country as Iraq's Shiite-dominated armed forces, with the help of Shiite militias, struggled to recapture territory seized by the Islamic State. Last week on Friday, the army reclaimed control of Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Awja, a Sunni Arab stronghold north of Baghdad, the Iraqi armed

nt comes at a time when Kurds have taken control of parts of the country that previously fell outside of their sphere of influence, notably oil-rich Kirkuk. Skepticism persists, however, regarding the Kurds' prospects for making this idea a reality. While the security and political dimensions of the Ir

carrying out a raid in a Sunni neighborhood in Tripoli. It seems that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which recently renamed itself the Islamic State (IS), and/or its allies have turned their sights on Lebanon. This recent flurry of attacks in Hezbollah-friendly neighborhoods and in support of Sun

northern Iraq, though the Kurdish peshmerga are professional fighters who ISIS would be wary of challenging now. But as the years go on, the oil in Kirkuk would be a tempting ISIS target. One question is whether ISIS has learned from its failed reign of terror in Anbar province in 2005 and 2006, when

ian- Saudi meeting, Iraq, the Middle East and the whole world was jolted by the fall of Mosul, the second largest Iraqi city, to the group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The threat of the territorial disintegration of Iraq and Syria has become real for the world. The Arab response to this