Isis
Isis’s weakness is now its strength
As coronavirus swept the globe a year ago, Isis began issuing pronouncements. ‘God, by his will, sent a punishment to…
We shouldn’t forget the horrific crimes of Isis returnees
Summer 2015. A five-year-old girl is chained up and left outside in the desert sun in Fallujah, Iraq – a…
The twisted logic of Shamima Begum's defenders
Shamima Begum is back in the news. Firstly because she’s had a makeover. She can be seen on the front…
Shamima Begum is not a victim
Adark cloud hangs over the Al Hol Camp where Shamima Begum is being held in North-Eastern Syria. She is said…
Denying Shamima Begum a return to Britain could backfire
Today’s decision by the Supreme Court to prevent Shamima Begum from returning to the UK and mounting a legal challenge…
A high-end car-boot sale of the unconscious: Colnaghi’s Dreamsongs reviewed
In 1772 the 15-year-old Mozart wrote a one-act opera set, like The Magic Flute, in a dream world. Il sogno…
The hostages’ president
President Trump has tweeted that, among other things he’s best at, he is ‘the greatest hostage negotiator in the history…
Macer Gifford: My fight against Isis
A warning from the British trader who fought in Syria
Netflix’s Caliphate is all too frighteningly plausible
Sweden is now properly celebrated as the Land that Called Coronavirus Correctly. But in the distant past, those with long…
A dark journey into a fanatical underworld
Two years ago, the counter-extremist analyst Julia Ebner decided she needed to delve deeper into the extremists trying to disrupt…
Netflix's Messiah is a great concept undermined by implausible politics
Sky’s latest bingewatch potboiler Cobra can’t quite make up its mind whether it wants to be an arch, knowing House……
My fear about the next generation of jihadists
I’ve just finished reading William Manchester’s absorbing memoir about the Pacific War. ‘Goodbye Darkness’ is a reminder of just how…
Trump honors hero dog Conan. Media goes barking mad
There are a few scenes from the Trump presidency which belong in the pantheon of great American political imagery. There…
Portrait of the week: An election date is set, al-Baghdadi dies and a row over gay giraffes
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, having shelved his Brexit Bill in the face of parliamentary opposition, persuaded the Commons…
Donald Trump’s shameful Syrian betrayal
Donald Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria is one of the most shortsighted foreign policy miscalculations in recent memory.…
It’s unfair for Britain to take Tooba Gondal and other Isis brides back
I am sure that Tooba Gondal, the latest Isis bride to beg for a return to Britain, would, as she…
Lap-dancing with ISIS, the real Monica Lewinsky and one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen: Edinburgh Fringe roundup
Clive Anderson’s show about Macbeth, ‘the greatest drama ever written’, offers us an hour of polished comedy loosely themed around…
The European fighters who battled Isis – and were abandoned by their governments
Foreign fighters are returning from the battlefield — not Islamists but the Americans, Europeans and South Americans who fought to…
The brutality of the Isis Beatles
Beirut Television cameras get everywhere these days. Or maybe that was always true. Gore Vidal, the grand old man of…
Why we must make an example of Shamima Begum
The three most popular justifications for punishment under the law all (as it happens) begin with R. They are retribution,…
I always come away more confused after listening to Moral Maze
Is it me or are we now faced (or perhaps I should say fazed?) much more often by stories in…
![Ivory plaque of a lioness mauling a man, ivory, gold, cornelian, lapis lazuli, Nimrud, 900 BC–700 BC. [© The Trustees of the British Museum]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/11/lioness_plaque.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
The Assyrians of Ashurbanipal’s time were just as into pillage and destruction as Isis
The Assyrians placed sculptures of winged human-headed bulls (lamassus) at the entrances to their capital at Nineveh, in modern Mosul,…
The true face of Islam won’t be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but at the British Museum
In Britain today, Islam in its original essence is not to be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but on…
And I think to myself, not a wonderful world…
The story of Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan is an interesting one, I think, for what it tells us about…
The tragedy of Syria: how protest spiralled into savagery
The fateful day five years ago began like any other for the family. A pot of black tea with cardamon…
