Jordan

Human Rights Watch | – – (Beirut) – Jordanian authorities have severely restricted informal border crossings in the eastern part of the country since late March, 2015, stranding hundreds of Syrians in remote desert areas just inside Jordan’s border. Human Rights Watch analyzed satellite imagery and interviewed international aid workers. They said the Syrians have […]

GCC

Richest Countries Bomb among World’s Poorest: Yemen already a Forgotten War

contributors

VICE News | (Video) | – “For more than six weeks, nine countries led by Saudi Arabia have been carrying out airstrikes on Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation. Whole neighborhoods have been destroyed and communities reduced to rubble. According to the United Nations, the strikes, targeting Iranian-backed Houthi rebel positions in the Yemeni capital […]

Egypt

‘American Terrorist’: Middle East reacts to Murder of 3 Muslim-American Students in N Carolina

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – If American mass media seemed reluctant to cover the murder of three Muslims students at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as a hate crime, the same was not true in the Middle East, where strong opinions were aroused. Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan criticized President Barack Obama […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

US Commander: Death of Jordan Pilot Turning Point in ISIL Fight

contributors

ABC News | – United Arab Emirates joins Jordan in fight against ISIS after the horrific death of the pilot. ABC News: “Gen. John Allen Says Death of Jordanian Pilot Could Be Turning Point in ISIS Fight”

Bush

Is ISIL’s ‘Shock and Awe’ more Awe-ful because One Victim?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) burning of a captured Jordanian pilot alive produced justified revulsion globally, resulting in the terrorist organization being termed “barbarous” and similar epithets. Why did it behave this way? Because it wants to terrify its opponents into submission and underline that it is too […]

Featured

Angry Jordanian Crowds Rally over ISIL Murder of Pilot, but some blame US, King

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Jordanian protesters came out in the thousands on Tuesday to protest the gruesome murder by Daesh (ISIL, ISIL) of a captured Jordanian pilot, Muath al-Kasasbeh. He was from the central Jordanian town of Karak (pop. 70,000), 87 miles south of the capital of Amman, and crowds came out […]

Climate Change

Did Drought and Climate Change cause Middle Eastern States to Collapse in 2014?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — The Middle East, from North Africa to Afghanistan, has seen an unusual number of governments collapse in recent years. Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have abruptly become something akin to failed states, and masses overthrew dictators in Egypt and Tunisia. It is unclear how strong the Afghanistan state […]

Dissent

Leftist Jordanians protest expected gas deal with Israel

contributors

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Dozens of protesters marched in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Friday to denounce a gas deal with Israel that is expected to be passed by the end of the year. Protesters held signs against the Israeli diplomatic mission in Jordan and against normalization with Israel during the rally, bearing messages such […]

Displaced and Refugees

West Only has Money for Bombs? 60,000 Child Laborers in Jordan as Syrian Refugees struggle to Survive

contributors

AMMAN | (IRIN) | – Jordan is straining under the weight of its over 600,000 Syrian refugees, with government officials and aid agencies warning of dwindling resources and capacity to respond to the ever-growing needs. Yet Syrians fleeing the current conflict only make up one small portion of the country’s refugee population. For decades, the tiny […]