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The approach to Gwer, on the Peshmerga-IS frontline, was proving just how green a correspondent I was. Each no-name village between Erbil and the front had me asking: “Is this it?” None was. Each looked and felt as I assumed
At nine o’clock tonight, Goran Ahmad will pick up his 1983 Cuban AKM, kiss his wife of two days on the cheek, and take to the streets of Dibis, in Iraqi Kurdistan’s multi-ethnic Kirkuk province, until first light. He will
For ten long days, Ghazala Elyas lived under the self-proclaimed caliphate of the group that calls itself the Islamic State. Mrs Elyas, 80, is in remission for cancer, but remains bed-ridden for a host of other conditions, including diabetes. She
The Kurds are finally making the news. After nearly two years of fighting between Kurdish militias and Islamic militants in Rojava, or Syrian Kurdistan—the western part of what some hope will one day be a united Kurdish state—the Islamic State’s
When an Egyptian court convicted Al Jazeera journalists Peter Greste, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed this week on trumped up charges and with no evidence against them worth the name, the internet, quite rightly, exploded. Twitter, in particular, quickly
In 2009, Australian journalist Lauren Williams (@Laurenwillgo) resigned from her position at The Daily Telegraph and struck out for the Middle East. Her plans were vague: a bit of backpacking, a bit of freelancing, a bit of well-earned adventure. “I
The footage out of Istanbul this week was depressingly familiar. The water cannons. The riot police. The Occupy Gezi protesters who last year captured the world’s attention—Turkish flags waving above Taksim Square and all that—once again feeling the brunt of
I meet Shehada at his home early in the morning and we set off with his friend and neighbour, Isa, in the direction of Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city. It should by rights be a half-hour drive: Hebron is