Afzal Ashraf

Shia mili­tias must be­have in a sen­si­tive and em­pa­thet­ic way to the most­ly Sun­ni civil­ians they lib­er­ate in Iraq.

In pol­i­tics, as in war, suc­cess be­longs to those who can seize the ini­tia­tive.

The hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis rais­es ques­tions about the na­ture of pol­i­tics and lead­er­ship in the Arab and Mus­lim world.

Re­treat in Ra­ma­di should trig­ger a re­view of coali­tion’s ISIL strat­e­gy.

The Jor­dan­ian gov­ern­ment must shift its stance on ISIL from con­tain­ment to con­fronta­tion.

Fear of be­ing con­sid­ered in­ad­e­quate push­es west­ern gov­ern­ments to am­pli­fy the po­ten­tial threat of for­eign fight­ers.

The threat posed to UK se­cu­ri­ty by re­turn­ing ‘ji­hadists’ is slim­mer than of­fi­cial as­sess­ments sug­ges

The most pow­er­ful weapon against ex­trem­ism is the knowl­edge that Is­lam­ic em­pires were not sus­tained by armies alone.

There is trag­ic irony when it comes to un­der­stand­ing the use of air pow­er in quelling re­bel­lions in Iraq.