The west turned a blind eye to the possible use of chemical weapons by militant Islamists allied against the Assad regime in Syria. Now that Islamic State almost certainly possesses them, the chickens are coming home to roost.
Militarised spyware has played a crucial role in the Assad regime's offensive against the Syrian opposition. But further risk remains as Syrians' data has been swept up in the global surveillance dragnet.
The US-led campaign against Islamic State isn’t working. It won’t unless it addresses Shia sectarianism in Iraq and Assad’s atrocities in Syria.
It’s been a year of searing images of horrifying mass civilian injury and death, from Gaza to eastern Ukraine. The world must set standards to curb resort to weapons with wide-area effects where many civilians are at risk.
The US wants Turkey to join the military effort against Islamic State at Kurdish-dominated Kobane, across the Syrian border—but Ankara’s focus is the Kurds within its own.
Since 1993, there have been calls for the legal and political recognition of starvation as a weapon of war. In Syria, it has regained distressing urgency.
Navi Pillay offered a scathing indictment of the UN Security Council's failures to address global crises, most notably in Syria. But the paralysed state of the UN may finally offer the chance to address its inherently undemocratic structure.
Sometimes states exaggerate the threat posed by violence from non-state forces. With ISIS in Iraq and Syria, however, the opposite is true: its onward march threatens the region and the international community.
As Qatar assumes an increasing role in the political diplomacy of the Middle East, its subtler interventions in Syria's civil war continue unquestioned.
The Syrian imbroglio is very difficult, not intractable—and the west cannot continue to throw up its hands in despair.
A surge of Tunisian jihadists into Syria tells much about the wider story of violence and politics after the Arab Spring.
Humanitarian agencies have renewed support after a rare moment of unity in the UN Security Council regarding cross-border aid delivery into Syria, but face only growing challenges and ethical dilemmas navigating the country's complex conflict lines.
