2025
The Demographic Trap Renewed: Identity Politics and the Failure of
Fakherddin Salih, a Kurd who returned to Kirkuk after 2003, is one of hundreds of Kurdish families threatened with eviction from their homes. For nearly a year, Salih and others guarded their homes, fearing forced displacement by the Iraqi army, pressured by "influential Arabs" seeking to reclaim residential and agricultural lands that the Ba'ath regime had granted them after seizing them from their original Kurdish and Turkmen owners. This is a deep-rooted and recurrent conflict over property, fueled by partisan interests and constantly shifting administrative and security power dynamics in the oil-rich province, which is home to a mix of…
The Code is More Dangerous Than a Bullet: Cyber and
The digital transformation in the Middle East accelerated over the past two decades through artificial intelligence, cloud computing, advanced communications, drones, and commercial satellites. This transformation reshaped the regional security landscape on two interconnected levels: intelligence (expansion of collection and analysis sources, and the emergence of the private sector as a key information provider), and strategy (the expansion of the scope of power into cyberspace and drones, and changes in deterrence equations and costs). Events in the region, from Stuxnet and Shamoon to the threats of drones to navigation in the Red Sea, demonstrate how technology has simultaneously become both…
Captagon Drug Networks Adapt and Survive in Middle East After
Syria’s transitional government is cracking down on the production of Captagon — an illicit synthetic stimulant that flourished under the sponsorship of the Bashar al-Assad regime until its fall in December. But production and trade of the drug are continuing, particularly in parts of Syria not yet under the control of the new administration.
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Peace Talks Begin, But the Doors Remain Shut: Displaced Kurds
On July 3, 2024, Dawood Youkhanna (72 years old), along with his family and other residents of the village of Miska in the Amedi district (70 km northeast of Duhok), fled their homes and abandoned their farms—their main source of income—after their village turned into a battlefield between PKK fighters…
Toxic Air, Silent Funds: Where’s the Environmental Support in Kurdistan
Rebin Fattah On a rough road stretching from the Degala district to the villages southwest of Koya district (70 km east of Erbil), hundreds of vehicles, including oil trucks, pass daily. These trucks carry oil extracted from the Taq Taq field in eastern Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Along both sides…
“Handled Internally”: When Corruption Becomes Inevitable
In Iraq, corruption didn’t just emerge from the absence of institutions; it arose because they adapted to new roles, no longer concerned with applying rules but with postponing accountability and re-arranging priorities far from the public interest. The question here isn’t about the nature of the flaw, but about the…
Redrawing Nineveh: Are Minority Needs Being Servedor Manipulated?”
As soon as Nineveh was fully liberated from ISIS in the summer of 2017, political movements started to emerge, particularly around the time of each election, regarding its administrative future. Representatives of minorities—including Turkmen, Christians, Shabaks, and Yazidis—repeatedly announced their desire to transform their areas (Tel Afar, Sinjar, and the…
Investment Paralysis in Iraq is Fueling the Housing Shortage
With high hopes of owning a home for the first time in his life, Haider Abu Bilal (67), a retired employee of the Ministry of Electricity, signed a contract in 2020 to purchase a horizontal residential unit in the “Al-Firdous” investment housing project in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad. He was…
Brick Factory Workers in Iraq: Facing Death, Injuries, and Disease
On the morning of January 1, 2024, 28-year-old Hussein Ne’ma was going about his usual duties as a furnace operator at the “Al-Janabi” brick factory in the Zaid Bin Ali area of Babil province, southern Iraq. As he stood atop the brick-constructed furnace, refueling it with black oil, the roof…
Under Official and Clerical Protection: The Boom of Fraudulent Shrines
Alawiya bint al-Hasan is the name given to a shrine established last year in the agricultural area of Al-Bu Hadari in Kufa district, Najaf governorate, southern Iraq. It joins hundreds of shrines, maqams, and religious sites that suddenly appeared in Iraq over the past two decades, which specialists describe as…
Is Mosul Truly the City of Forty Prophets?
Khadija Ahmed, 71, still adheres to a tradition she has followed since her youth: a weekly visit to the Prophet Jonah’s Mosque on the eastern side of Mosul. She only stopped during the years of ISIS control, when the group prohibited such visits and ultimately blew up the mosque in…
