Shelly Kittleson
Shelly Kittleson is a journalist writing mainly on issues related to security, conflict, and post-conflict in the Middle East and its environs. After starting out in Afghanistan, she has in recent years reported extensively from the ground in Syria and Iraq. She has won awards for her reporting from warzones.
Latest from Shelly Kittleson
In a Former al Qaeda Redoubt, Afghans Take On the Taliban and ISIS
Local ‘uprising’ armed groups with fighting experience and a young provincial governor intent on change in an area long known for having hosted the founder of al Qaeda seem to be keeping the Taliban offensive at bay. For now.
Post-ISIS Security Pitfalls Lurk in a Small Town Near Baghdad
Though ISIS cells undeniably continue to operate in some Sunni-dominant areas, the use of forces linked to Shiite armed groups to conduct operations in Sunni-majority areas aggravates fears of human rights abuses and even “ethnic cleansing.”
Bombs Over Erbil
The murky militia that took responsibility for last month's attack in Iraq issued a statement claiming that it “only targets the American, Turkish, and Israeli occupation bases.” Though many armed groups and others in the country have demanded an end to the “American-Israeli occupation,” the addition of “Turkish” is significant.
The Changeling of Deir ez-Zor
He was not a jihadist, although he’d been called one when convenient. When he joined “the Kurds,” he automatically became a “fighter for women’s empowerment and the rights of the dispossessed Kurds.” He was neither. And neither are so many other Syrian Arabs from the eastern part of the country.