Iraq

"They can resort to the U.N. Security Council, that is their natural right, but this is not an honest step,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, referencing Baghdad’s move to appeal to a “higher” authority in an increasingly tense standoff with Ankara stemming from the latter’s decision to send several hundred troops and 25 tanks to Bashiqa (just northeast of Mosul) a week ago. 

“For every seven Shiites killed, we want seven Sunnis [killed] in their place.”

That rather alarming declaration comes from outspoken Iraqi lawmaker Hanan Al-Fatlawi. Not known for holding her tongue, the Shia MP inflamed sectarian tensions with her eye for an eye tirade in the summer of 2014, prompting Diana Moukalled, the Web Editor at the Lebanon-based Future Television to pen the following sharp rebuke: