isis

Turkey wants to have it both ways: To act against the Salafists, while using them as dispensable mercenaries against the Kurds.

The ‘ghost caliphate’ – Sunni Arab insurgency – is likely to persist in the remote, poor and sparsely governed areas of Syria and Iraq.

How the arrest of this Kurdish leader is handled will indicate the extent to which the Syrian Kurds’ central role in the fight against the Islamic State has accrued some broader political legitimacy for their leadership. This, in turn, has implications for the troubled relationship between the West and Turkey.