Despite assurances from Trump that ISIL is defeated, US raids against group in eastern Syria have intensified recently.
![U.S. Marines train with a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle in Deir ez-Zor province, Syria [Courtesy: SGT Matthew Crane /DVIDS/US Army photo]](/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/0ae410bd1bc743369b5d763ef124f7b5_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Despite assurances from Trump that ISIL is defeated, US raids against group in eastern Syria have intensified recently.
![U.S. Marines train with a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle in Deir ez-Zor province, Syria [Courtesy: SGT Matthew Crane /DVIDS/US Army photo]](/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/0ae410bd1bc743369b5d763ef124f7b5_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Correspondence obtained by Al Jazeera and The Intercept paints a bleak picture of life in ISIL-held parts of Iraq.

Nearly three years since the start of the uprising, rebels and Assad’s forces remain locked in conflict.
Government agencies empowered after 9/11 have been transforming themselves into the real holders of power in the US.
![The NSA leaks by Edward Snowden had far reaching implications beyond bureaucratic overreach by the government [Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/20131216392462734_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Unlike Malala Yousafzai, Nabila Rehman did not receive a welcoming greeting in Washington DC.
!["Nabila, a slight girl of nine with striking hazel eyes, asked a simple question in her testimony: 'What did my grandmother do wrong?'" writes Murtaza Hussain [Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/20131119477305734_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
The author, citing recent remarks about Persians, bemoans the fact that racism is alive and well in diplomacy.
![In his address to the UNGA earlier this month, Netanyahu used language completely alien to the typically careful discourse of international diplomacy when talking about Iran, writes Hussain [AP]](/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/201310672954152734_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
The President should take note of Nixon’s determination in establishing peaceful relations with an antagonistic nation.
!["If Barack Obama can put an end to America's conflict with Iran; another proud, ancient civilisation similar to China, there is no telling what the two countries relationship may look like forty years from now," writes Hussain [AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/201392823383097734_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Bucking the trend in the rest of the world, Canada’s immigrants are settling very nicely in this easygoing country.

It’s not too late to save Syria, but Western powers will not accomplish this by rushing into another ill-advised war.

Anti-Muslim bigotry so often goes unnoticed, and we should make it our duty to recognise and ostracise it.
