Please enable JavaScript to view this page correctly Home / News / Article A recent report by the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung has uncovered troubling practices involving a Vienna-based institute that facilitates obtaining PhDs from Malta’s Signum Magnum College (SMC) with minimal effort This revelation has sparked calls for an investigation with Nationalist MEP Peter Agius at the forefront of the response The Wiener Zeitung report highlights that the Studienzentrum Hohe Warte (SHW), located in Vienna, offers doctoral degrees from SMC without requiring students to attend classes or complete coursework. The ease with which these degrees can be purchased threatens the integrity of Maltese academic qualifications and undermines the hard-earned credentials of genuine students. Peter Agius reacted strongly to these revelations. On Facebook, he denounced the practice, asserting, “Such operations undermine the value of genuine academic qualifications.” He reported the matter to the Malta Further & Higher Education Authority (MFHEA), demanding immediate action. Public reactions have been equally critical. “Well done, Peter. My children and I worked hard to graduate. This is a great insult and injustice,” one commenter said. Another added, “We became the laughingstock of the world. Now, this centre sells degrees without studying. The police should investigate to ensure no Maltese citizens are falsely claiming high qualifications.” In response to Agius’s concerns, Dennis Zammit, Head of Legal and Compliance at MFHEA, confirmed that SMC is undergoing a statutory review. Zammit thanked Agius for bringing the issue to their attention and assured him that the institution’s operations were being scrutinised. A PhD from SMC costs €25,600, with an installment payment option. Yet investigations show it operates out of a business centre in St. Julian’s, Malta, and does not have facilities such as lecture halls, cafeterias, or libraries. The entire process is conducted online. Michael Schmelczer, president of SMC, has connections to several offshore companies involved in tax evasion, as detailed in the Paradise Papers. His Perchtoldsdorf villa serves as the registered address for SMC. Jürgen Petersen, managing director of the state agency responsible for the quality assurance of domestic universities, AQ Austria, commented on the proliferation of “mailbox universities,” which are not subject to rigorous checks or European accreditation standards. Petersen said AQ Austria only became aware of SMC through recent investigations. The MFHEA’s ongoing review is expected to conclude in September. Join our Corporate Democratic Responsibility Program. The Shift is an independent online news platform committed to investigative journalism and the defence of press freedom. It is also a platform for political, cultural and social commentary from civil society. If you’re not automatically redirected, refresh this page. We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to our use of cookies. We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below. The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze how you use this website, store your preferences, and provide the content and advertisements that are relevant to you. These cookies will only be stored in your browser with your prior consent. You can choose to enable or disable some or all of these cookies but disabling some of them may affect your browsing experience. Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data. Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns. 0.97);}@media (min-width:1024px){.css-1j5gzzj{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.55;}}.css-1cbf1l2{height:0;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:height 300ms cubic-bezier(0.4 1) 0ms;transition:height 300ms cubic-bezier(0.4 1) 0ms;height:auto;overflow:visible;}.css-15830to{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;width:100%;}.css-9vd5ud{width:100%;}Rediscover the music of Franz Schmidt with Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra Schmidt was a composer of the late romantic and early modern period who in the last years has been celebrating a comeback with audiences A composer of the same lavish style as Mahler Schmidt fell from prominence having been a composer feted by the Nazis – such associations prompted misgivings against which Schmidt was powerless to defend himself – but his output reminds us of the constant need to reappraise rewrite and enrich our account of music during the first half of the 20th century Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony’s dazzling live performances in this album of all four of his symphonies and the famous Notre Dame Intermezzo The audio album will be released on 11 September along with a visual album of Symphony No Franz Schmidt was born in 1874 in the Hungarian town of Pozsony (now Bratislava) and died in Perchtoldsdorf near Vienna in 1939 conductor and Conservatory professor: he was one of the most esteemed figures in the musical life of his native Austria his slender but substantial œuvre includes two operas concertante pieces for piano and orchestra Schmidt never embraced expressionism and atonality at a time when others were exploring more fluid structures continued to embrace 19th-century form and achieved a highly personal synthesis of the diverse traditions of the Austro-German symphony rather than being wedded to a narrative of dissolution and tragedy is radiant and belligerently optimistic and reveals this scion of largely Hungarian forebears as the last great exponent of the style hongrois after Schubert Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article Franz Viehböck (born Aug. 24, 1960, Perchtoldsdorf, Austria) is an Austrian electrical engineer and cosmonaut In 2002 Viehböck became the president of Berndorf Band GmbH an Austrian manufacturer of endless steel belts In January 2008 he was made a member of the board of the Berndorf Corporation May 5 (UPI) -- A local wing of Austria's Green Party announced it is holding a special meeting to teach women how to urinate standing up in unclean public bathrooms The party said the discussion will include instructions on how to urinate from a standing position at music festivals and other locations where unclean restrooms are likely to be found The participants at the meeting will be instructed on how to build simple devices to assist with standing urination Martha Gunzl, a local councilor and Green Party member, said she and other organizers were shocked at how much attention the planned meeting has been gathering online "We always discuss controversial subjects, but because we are just a local group nobody has ever shown any interest up until now," she told Der Westen Tom Holland writes books which bring the past to life But I am baffled by his recent documentary about Islamic State (IS) the arguments he makes in his film are intellectually dishonest It argues that the extreme violence of self-proclaimed IS should be interpreted in significant ways as a manifestation of Islam itself that the Ottoman army which captured Constantinople in 1453 was a precursor to IS He thus connects IS to Sunni Islam's most distinctive political institution He also links IS to texts from the Quran and states that IS atrocities are directly inspired by the teachings of Islamic holy scripture who is regarded by all Muslims as the perfect human being to help explain the genocidal violence of IS in the 21st century Holland compares verses and stories told about the Prophet as "mines waiting to go off and they can lie there for maybe centuries and something happens to trigger them Holland implicitly demands that Islam itself should reform We have often heard variations of this thesis - that Islam and Western liberal civilisation cannot coexist - from the English Defence League tabloid newspapers and far-right parties in continental Europe But it's less common from one of our more admired public intellectuals amplified on what appears to be quite an expensive Channel 4 TV production This is why I believe that a sceptical analysis of the claims made in Isis: The Origins of Violence is needed (The film was broadcast on Channel 4 to acclaim on 17 May I delayed this article because of the atrocities in Manchester and London during the general election campaign and then the attack on Finsbury Park Mosque It would have been insensitive to discuss at that time and better to wait until time had passed.) the arguments he makes in his film are intellectually dishonest. He fails to include information which does not fit his thesis and The first problem is Holland's account of the origins of IS for which he ignores the two most important facts The spark for the group's creation was the 2003 invasion of Iraq Saddam Hussein's Baathist army was disbanded by the Coalition many subsequently turned into bitter enemies of the United States and the new regime in Baghdad Many of its future leaders were held in Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca prison camps where they established the contacts and evolved the strategy of conquest that exploded across the Middle East a few years later.  This background explains why experts have estimated that one-third of IS commanders were former Baathist soldiers Experts say that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's two principal lieutenants are Iyad al-Obaidi and Ayad al-Jumaili - former Iraqi army officers under Saddam Islamic State is a Baathist renaissance project a secular enterprise aimed at winning back the status and power of which they were stripped in 2003 Islamic State's only constant maxim is the expansion of power at any price' In the words of Der Spiegel journalist Christoph Reuter, whose revelatory study of IS is required reading: "There is essentially nothing religious in its actions its unscrupulous changing of alliances and its precisely implemented propaganda narratives Islamic State's only constant maxim is the expansion of power at any price." Yet Tom Holland's account of Islamic State contains no reference to the Baathist origins of IS.  An equally significant omission concerns Saudi Arabia. As the former MI6 officer Alastair Crooke has explained it is impossible to get to grips with IS without knowing about the deal struck after World War One between the House of Saud and the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab founder of the Islamic movement known as Wahhabism.  Wahhab believed that Muslims needed to return to an all-absorbing focus on the One God and that the widespread preoccupation with the Prophet Muhammad (except as simply the greatest of the various prophets) or his companions He maintained that Islam had to be cleansed of all accretions (beyond devotion to the One God) and that Muslims faced a choice: either they give up their idolatrous habits (such as celebrating The Prophet's birthday) with all their property and family falling forfeit Wahhabis, and the then-minor tribal leader Ibn Saud, pursued this doctrine through a campaign in 1802 of death and destruction killing thousands in Karbala and plundering and looting the holy shrines before repeating the exercise in Taif.  Finally, Mecca and Medina gave themselves up to Ibn Saud's occupation It was a cleansing by sword and by fire.  stands as a primary source of teaching for IS recruits but he required the backing of the British government to shore up his dominance. To do this he needed to make his movement look more like a modern state (Philby advised him on the best approach) and his army of head-choppers and shrine destroyers needed to be reined in The British helped with the latter and British machine guns and planes were used to kill most of Abd al Aziz's Ikhwan brotherhood in 1929.  Philby subsequently converted to Wahhabism and joined (then King) Abd al Aziz's court The contradiction between the worldly cynicism of the pro-Western Saudi royal family, and Wahhabi fundamentalism is profound. The real target of IS is not, as Holland suggests in his documentary, the West. Instead, the rise of Islamic State can, in part, be understood as an explosion of Wahhabi fury against the corrupt Saudi royal family IS is a deadly combination of the military expertise of former Baathist generals and murderous Wahhabi beliefs Yet Isis: The Origins of Violence does not mention Baathism This failure leads Holland into a series of contradictions Islamic State is a deadly combination of the military expertise of former Baathist generals and murderous Wahhabi beliefs Holland stands at the Mar Mattai monastery in northern Iraq He notes that 1,200 years ago this region was "the beating heart of Christendom".  He says that "Christians of the lands out there were enjoying a golden age" He says there are only a handful of monks left at the monastery and that if they were to venture down to either of two Muslim villages beneath him He says that for the first time in 1,500 years those lands that were once the Christian heartland are now the Islamic State." He frames the decline of the Christian population in terms of an unmistakable dichotomy between Christianity and Islam.  But what Isis: The Origins of Violence does not mention is that 1,200 years ago the lands he calls "Christian heartlands" were ruled by Muslims The era he calls a Christian "golden age" is widely known in the region itself as the Islamic Golden Age It is true that this peaceful coexistence was at times uneasy a Sunni Kurd who would go on to found the Ayyubid Dynasty after conquering vast amounts of territory caused the monks to flee in the 12th century but the monastery soon returned to its former prominence Then the Mongols partially destroyed it at the end of the 13th century It was left abandoned until 1795 when (under Ottoman rule) it was renovated and fence walls built around it Christianity did not vanish from Mosul because the region has become Islamic It vanished because it came under the rule of an authority without religious tolerance that is to blame for the desperate situation faced by the Christians of northern Iraq Holland fails to ask how the monastery enjoyed a resurgence under Ottoman rule the Ottoman Caliphate was a precursor of Islamic State Yet Holland fails to ask how the monastery enjoyed a resurgence under Ottoman rule the Ottomans should have destroyed the monastery and driven the monks away after 1453 But the opposite happened: the Ottomans allowed Christians to reinhabit the monastery and restore it to its former splendour.  The Ottoman Caliphate was not intent on persecuting Christians within their domains like the Jews (many of whom also flourished under Ottoman rule) as "people of the book" and therefore to be protected As pre-eminent historian (and severe critic) of Islam Bernard Lewis put it the position of Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire was "very much easier than that of non-Christians or even of heretical Christians in medieval (Catholic) Europe" Holland fails to point all this out to his audience To have done so would have obliged him to acknowledge that Islam does not pose a more substantial threat to unbelievers than I belong to the Church of England and attend church regularly. I regret to say that I could easily have made a documentary about Christianity and violence on the same lines as Holland's work on Islamic State and Islam I could easily have made a documentary about Christianity and violence on the same lines as Holland's work on Islamic State and Islam I could have dug out verses from the Bible in which God orders death for non-believers I could have found gruesome verses about homosexuals and the punishment of adulterers I could have taken viewers back to the Middle Ages to compare the slaughter perpetrated by Crusaders when they took Jerusalem in 1099 with the restrained entrance of Caliph Omar to the city 450 years earlier in 637; or Saladin a century later in 1187 the site in 1995 of the only genocide in Europe since World War Two I would have shown that the massacre of Muslims there was carried out by Christians pointed out on BBC Radio's Today programme after the London Bridge atrocity I could have gone to the churches planted by the Serbs along the Bosnian-Serbian border in the last few years as a warning to Muslims to keep away. I could have shown how Mladen Grujicic who denies that genocide took place in his town was invited to President Donald Trump's first prayer breakfast in Washington in February I could have demonstrated that the Rwandan genocide two decades ago was carried out with the active complicity of local church leaders But this kind of assault on Christianity would have been selective and therefore unfair When I reported from Srebenica earlier this year It would have meant ignoring the wonderful and too often sacrificial work carried out by churches throughout the world the eternal truths that I believe we Christians embody I could even have carried out the same ruthless exercise with Buddhism a religion normally associated with non-violence.  I went to Myanmar to document the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims I could have used the term Buddhist violence given the dreadful role currently being played by Buddhist monks in generating hatred against Muslims.  Holland is vindicating IS's claim to be a legitimate representative of Islam IS claims legitimacy on the grounds that it is acting in the name of Islam. The vast majority of serious scholars and religious authorities dispute this insisting that Islam is a religion of peace These scholars say that IS acts contrary to the teachings of the prophet Then along comes an internationally respected British historian who suggests that the group's claims can be justified.  Holland is only able to pursue this line of argument by being selective with the facts as well as his use of Muslim voices deputy director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and a member of the War Studies Department at King's College London and Jordanian Salafist Abu Sayyaf appear in the film support the thesis that the bloodthirsty actions of IS can find justification within mainstream Islam But Holland had a serious duty to be balanced especially in a film as controversial as his Bear in mind that Holland's underlying target is not Islamic State: everyone which Holland holds in part responsible for IS atrocities Holland ought to have rigorously put his thesis to the test against at least one such scholar In the days when I used to present "authored documentaries" (the term used by media executives to describe TV polemics) on Channel 4 it was an unbreakable editorial requirement to present the alternative point of view The only circumstance in which this rule was breached was when the opposing side refused to be interviewed or give a statement in which case this refusal would be made clear to the audience One can therefore assume that Holland made no attempt to approach any Muslim voice who argued that Islam is a religion of peace Holland plays fast and loose with the words of the Prophet himself in order to help his case that Islam is inherently violent.  over pictures of the Mar Mattai monastery and the surrounding hills ‘Fourteen hundred years ago monks like Father Yousif provided Muhammad himself with a model of holiness. Islam "Our monasticism," the Prophet is reported as saying Our monasticism is the crying of allahu akbar on the hilltops." Earlier in the programme Holland tells viewers that in the Quran, jihad did not mean violence but simply "the effort required to be a good Muslim" in the context of a discussion of IS violence towards Christians.  The implication – and far too much of the film works through suggestion rather than rigorous argument – is that the persecution of monks such as Yousif and the attack on Sinjar in August 2014 that immediately follows the quotation in the film I was perplexed at the credentials of the hadith cited by Holland It did not appear to match any of the hadiths attributed to the Prophet asking him to "provide me with the exact Arabic or even English hadith sources where you got your version in which the terms rahbaniyya (monasticism) In his response he failed to provide me with a hadith which matches the one cited in the film direct me to Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam the late Thomas Sizgorich examined "the influence of monasticism on the evolution of religiously sanctioned violence in early Islam" but I could find no hadith in Sizgorich's book which matched the one used by Holland Holland did helpfully refer me to page 180 where the following hadith is quoted: "Wandering monasticism was mentioned in the presence of the Prophet of God "God gave us in its place jihad on the path of God and the takbir from every hill."' 'There is no hadith which contains the three words ‘monasticism' (rahbaniyya) ‘jihad' and ‘takbir' (a term for the crying of ‘Allahu Akbar') together' author of studies of classical Islamic literature and PhD scholar at Cambridge University author of numerous studies on classical Islamic literature and Special Livingstone PhD scholar at Cambridge University He told me that Holland's hadith does not exist: "There is no hadith which contains the three words ‘monasticism' (rahbaniyya) ‘jihad' and ‘takbir' (a term for the crying of ‘Allahu Akbar') together," he said This matters because Holland uses his hadith to suggest that Islam in some way corrupted the Christian idea of monastic holiness for violent purposes This is a serious claim: if asserted then it should be rigorously sourced and established I'm also disturbed that Holland introduces the words Allahu akbar instead of takbir the word actually used in the Sizgorich hadith the meaning of the two phrases is all but identical Holland would doubtless argue that he used the term to be more explicit to non-specialist audiences he must know that the phrase has come to signify violence as a result of its recent use by militant jihadists Hadith literature is very detailed and distinguishes between safe hadiths The hadith which Holland pointed me towards first appeared in the late 8th century in the Book of Jihad believed to have been written by Ibn al-Mubarak a warrior-scholar who fought against the Byzantines If indeed it was him who produced this collection of hadiths then it was as part of propaganda literature to justify these wars on religious grounds But Holland tells his audiences none of this Instead his film encourages its audience to assume that the Prophet himself condoned violent jihad This is not the only time that Holland presents selective information delivered from a railway carriage as it rattles past Vienna with reference to the Ottoman attempts to take the city: We've passed the town where they massacred everyone Hostages must be eliminated in a terrifying manner." But Ottoman attempts to conquer Vienna only begin to make sense when placed in the context of a long series of conflicts that began in the early 15th century and intensified after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 As Joachim Whaley made plain in a recent magisterial history of the Holy Roman Empire Rather it was the threat posed first to Venice and then to the Habsburgs by the establishment of an eastern empire the Ottomans were originally regional commanders in Anatolia who took control themselves and then expanded north-westwards They were Muslims whose first conquest was the territory of their own Muslim overlords Holland confirmed to me that the town where ‘they massacred everyone" is Perchtoldsdorf in lower Austria but somewhere between 300 and 1,000 are thought to have been killed there in 1683 But Holland fails to tell TV viewers that there were Habsburg atrocities too the Habsburgs took the town back from the Ottomans selling thousands more as slaves and killing half of Buda's Jewish population as well Indeed, during this bloodthirsty period of European history far worse massacres were carried about by European armies against each other. Historians think that during the 17th-century Thirty Years War Germany's population may have sunk by around one quarter This means that the Ottoman massacre outside Vienna can only be understood in the context of such contemporary horrors such as the sack of Magdeburg in 1631 when the Imperial Army destroyed a Protestant city reportedly slaughtering 20,000 out of 30,000 inhabitants Any responsible historian would provide that background to have done so would have undermined his thesis I am also troubled by Holland's use of the term "Muslim armies" rather than the more accurate but less inflammatory "Ottoman armies" Such labels support his argument that Islam has long been at war with other religions multi-religious empire which often protected minorities the Jews who survived the Austrian armies at Buda fled back into Ottoman territory where they were much safer than under the Habsburgs Holland's thesis that Islamic State's murderous origins can be traced to the Ottoman Caliphate would have been undermined Holland does not mention that tens of thousands of Hungarian nationalists led by Imre Thokoly, who wanted to resist Habsburg imperialism, fought with the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683. Perhaps more than half of the Ottoman army was made up of Christians rather than Muslims - Greeks Serbs fighting alongside Arabs and Kurds as well as Turks and other Muslims The film also fails to mention that the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna were in an alliance Ian Almond has written that these factors reflected how "little use terms such as 'Muslim' and 'Christian' are to describe the almost hopelessly complex web of shifting power relations ethnic sympathies and historical grudges" characterised European history the Ottomans did have a famous practice of devşirme, which was the conscription and forced conversion of Christian boys in conquered territories but it is surely wrong to suggest that Ottoman violence was "Muslim" and alien to Europe many men who rose to prominence came from old aristocratic Orthodox families There were Christians in many provincial armies and navies such as a contingent of Serbs who fought at the Battle of Ankara in 1402.  Yet Holland misleadingly labels the Ottoman army outside Vienna as "Muslim" his thesis that Islamic State's murderous origins can be traced to the Ottoman Caliphate would have been undermined There are still more serious issues with this documentary He does not explain the difference between Islamic State and al-Qaeda especially if the extent of IS's isolation is to be understood He fails to examine evidence that Islamic State has been supported by allies of the West He creates a Christian-Yazidi-Shia-versus-Sunni narrative which means he pays too little attention to the thousands of Sunni Muslims who have been murdered by IS He fails to stress how often Islam has been synonymous with tolerance rather than violence He devotes a great deal of attention to the recent IS-linked terrorist attacks in Paris without once mentioning the legacy of appalling French colonial atrocities in Algeria as a possible factor in the terrible IS attacks He says the "core of ISIS strategy" involves radicalising Muslims in the West at least until the recent series of devastating setbacks in northern Iraq He does not mention the latest research (for instance the work of Olivier Roy and Marc Sageman) showing that IS recruits tend to know little about Islam and are often drifters with a background in drugs and petty crime This lack of connection with Islamic movements makes them more dangerous because potential terrorists are difficult to detect But it undermines Holland's central contention that Islamic State's origins can be found within the tenets of Islam Isis: The Origins of Violence is well made first-class editing and an edge of drama mixed with dark moody music in devastated cities and by the pyramids are excellent I have never seen a better presentation of the horror which befell the Yazidis Holland himself is a gifted and passionate TV performer It is not good enough to make an argument mainly by stringing together a series of sequences or anecdotes no matter how traumatic and upsetting the subject A responsible presenter needs to put forward the counter-argument On the rare occasions that Holland alludes to counter-arguments he then brushes them aside This lack of balance is especially serious because Holland's film engages directly with the ancient argument that has taken on new intensity since Samuel P Huntingdon evolved his "clash of civilisations" thesis that Islam is inherently incompatible with journalists and politicians have bought into variants of this thesis: Bernard Lewis I asked Holland whether his film would have had greater strength authority and balance if he had interviewed at least one of these experts so his audience could have heard the other point of view Holland replied that "we were not making a film about whether or not ‘Islam' sanctions violence - an issue on which we were exploring whether there was anything within Islamic scripture and tradition that ISIS (& militant Salafi-Jihadists more generally) felt justified them in their treatment of non-Muslims and as a close ally of al-Maqdisi [editor's note: a leading Jihadi theorist] whose stature as one of the most important radical Muslim thinkers alive today I hardly need to spell out To provide intellectual and historical context and author of the definitive study of Salafi-Jihadism I cannot think of a documentary on ISIS that has featured two such intellectually distinguished interviewees." 'This was a film as its title plainly signified - on the historiography of violence "as its title plainly signified - on the historiography of violence I think Holland goes much further than he claims in his reply He is not just arguing that IS violence is the tragic consequence of an epic misunderstanding of what Islam teaches: if he was saying no more than that Instead he locates the origins of IS violence in Islamic scripture and Islam's most distinctive political institution Surely he is asserting that Islamic State is partly right and that there is something dark in the heart of Islam which makes the religion a threat to the rest of us its foundational texts and the behaviour of Muhammad" The strength with which he holds it gives the documentary its strength and authenticity The fundamental problem is that the facts which undermine or mitigate against Holland's thesis are excluded Holland's interpretation of Islamic State's relationship with Islam is But it is one with which Islamic State itself murderously agrees Additional reporting for this piece was provided by Richard Assheton - Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye He also was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year 2013 He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015 His books include The Triumph of the Political Class and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye Photo: A screen shot of Islamic State fighters from a propaganda video (AFP) Copyright © 2014 - 2025. Middle East Eye Only England and Wales jurisdiction apply in all legal matters Middle East Eye          ISSN 2634-2456                      The Local Europe ABVästmannagatan 43113 25 StockholmSweden Please log in here to leave a comment