Washington DC and Sana’a, Asharq Al-Awsat—The United States has asked the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and two leading members of the Shi’ite Houthi movement currently in control of the country’s capital, Sana’a, and other parts of the country
Beirut and Mürşitpınar, Reuters/ِAsharq Al-Awsat—Iraqi–Kurdish fighters have joined the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in Kobani, hoping their support for fellow Kurds backed by US-led airstrikes will keep the ultra-hardline group from seizing the Syrian border
Wagah, India, Reuters—India and Pakistan have suspended a daily military ritual on their main land border crossing after a suicide attack that killed dozens of people, the first time the colorful parade has been called off since the two countries went to war in 1971. India’s home ministry said
As Bahrain nears the fourth year of its crisis—more a security crisis than a political one—the internal troubles in the Gulf’s smallest country show no sign of abating: for neither have the security measures employed by the government recently had any tangible effects, nor has the Shi’it
A “who’s who” of Washington DC gathered in the city’s National Cathedral the other day to pay their respects to Ben Bradlee. The ceremony reminded me of another occasion, in the 1970s, when I first witnessed the Washington Post editor’s personal magnetism. We were having lunch in a Washington restau
Copenhagen, Reuters—Governments can keep climate change in check at manageable costs but will have to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2100 to limit risks of irreversible damage, a UN report said on Sunday. The 40-page synthesis, summing up 5,000 pages of work by 800 scientists already publis
Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front issued a list of demands for the release of 27 Lebanese soldiers it has held hostage since August on Saturday. In a statement, the group said it had passed on three sets of demands to Ahmed Al-Khatib, the Qatari mediator acting as a go-b
Sana’a and Al-Hudaydah, Asharq Al-Awsat—The Shi’ite Houthi movement continued to target the offices of rival political and religious groups over the weekend, taking over the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in the central city of Ibb after destroying several of the group’s offi
London, Asharq Al-Awsat—While the eyes of the rest of the world are focused on the international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, within Iran allegations of high-level corruption at one of the country’s leading institutions are threatening to provoke a major political crisis. A parliamentary
Donetsk, Reuters—Pro-Russian rebels voted to set up a separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, aiming to take the war-torn region closer to Russia and defying Kiev and the West, as shelling continued across the territory. The United States and European Union have denounced the vote as ill
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat—Syrian National Coalition President Hadi Al-Bahra acknowledged that Syria’s moderate rebels have made mistakes as they find themselves fighting a war on two fronts against the Bashar Al-Assad regime and the advancing Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In a broad-ran
If there were no social media websites on the internet, would the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) be as strong and effective as it is today? The short answer is no. ISIS would not have been as effective as this, nor would it have been able to expand in the manner that it […]
Baghdad, AP—Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 tribesmen and women in Iraq’s Anbar province, officials said Saturday, the latest mass killing committed by the group. The shooting happened late Friday in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of
Sana’a, Asharq Al-Awsat—Yemen’s Houthi movement has given embattled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi just 10 days to form a new government, warning that the Shi’ite movement will take unspecified additional “options” if the deadline is not met. Despite granting Hadi a 10-day deadline, Houthi f
Mojave, Reuters—Richard Branson is set to meet his Virgin Galactic space team in California’s Mojave Desert on Saturday following the crash of a passenger spaceship being developed by his company that killed one pilot and seriously injured the other. The entrepreneur has pledged to keep
Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat—Prominent Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Hussein Ismail Al-Sadr said that there is more that unites Sunnis and Shi’ites than divides them, calling on all Muslims to stand together against the threat of terrorist and extremist ideology as represented by the Islami
Suruc, Turkey and Baghdad, Reuters—A convoy of Iraqi Kurdish forces in Turkey rolled late on Friday across the border into Syria to help Syrian Kurds defend the besieged town of Kobani that has become the focus of a Western-backed war against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgents.
Ouagadougou, Reuters—An officer in Burkina Faso’s presidential guard seized power on Saturday promising to lead the West African country to elections after the resignation of longtime President Blaise Compaore, in an apparent putsch against the military chief of staff. Compaore stepped d
When the Swedish foreign minister promised weeks ago that his country would recognize the State of Palestine, we weren’t sure that Sweden would do so given the tremendous amount of pressure such a decision would face from the European Union, the United States and other social and political forces th
Egypt is facing a fierce attack that aims to drag the country into a quagmire of chaos and instability that a number of other regional states have already fallen into. The terrorist attacks, which have escalated in recently, aim to weaken and destabilize Egypt, drowning it in a spiral of domestic cr
