Arab World

Beirut (AFP) – Islamic State group fighters began evacuating their final stronghold in southern Damascus on Sunday, a monitor said, bringing Syria’s government closer than ever to flushing out the last threat to the capital. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has used a combination of military pressure and evacuation deals in recent months to recapture territory […]

Human Rights Watch

Saudis Arrest 7 Women’s Rights Activists who had Upstaged Crown Prince on Driving

Human Rights Watch

Beirut ( Human Rights Watch) – Saudi authorities since May 15, 2018, detained a total of seven prominent women’s rights defenders, Human Rights Watch said today. The activists have long advocated ending the ban on women driving and abolishing the discriminatory male guardianship system. Among those arrested are Eman al-Nafjan and Lujain al-Hathloul, along with […]

Displaced and Refugees

100,000 Yemenis displaced by Saudi-led Coastal Offensive, with Millions on edge of Famine

AFP

Aden (AFP) – A Yemen government offensive backed by ground troops and warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition has displaced tens of thousands of people along the country’s western coast, Amnesty International said Thursday. The rights group warned “the worst could be yet to come” after surveying civilians who made the perilous escape from front line […]

Iraq

Why Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shocking Victory in Iraq Elections isn’t that Shocking

Mustafa Habib

Baghdad (Niqash.org) The results of the Iraqi elections were surprising. But in fact, the way Iraqis were feeling about local politics beforehand indicates that nobody should actually have been all that surprised. The morning after the preliminary announcements about who had won and who had lost in the Iraqi elections, it was clear that Iraqis […]

Iraq

Still not Bush’s Iraq: Anti-American Cleric, Pro-Iran Militia and Communists ahead in Election

Sarah Benhaida

Baghdad (AFP) – An alliance spearheaded by nationalist cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose fighters once battled the United States, led Monday in surprise preliminary results from Iraq’s first poll since the defeat of the Islamic State group. In a further political upset, a rival bloc of pro-Iranian former fighters appeared to be coming in second, squeezing […]

Donald Trump

Gearing Up for the Third Gulf War: a Future Cataclysm between US, Israel, Saudi and Iran?

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch) With Donald Trump’s decision to shred the Iran nuclear agreement, announced last Tuesday, it’s time for the rest of us to start thinking about what a Third Gulf War would mean. The answer, based on the last 16 years of American experience in the Greater Middle East, is that it won’t be pretty. […]

Yemen

UN: Saudi-led Coalition inflicts 60% of Yemen Deaths, Injuries

Middle East Monitor

Some 236 civilians were killed in Yemen in April making it the deadliest month for the war-torn state this year, a United Nations briefing note revealed today. “The month of April was the deadliest month for civilians in Yemen so far this year, with a sharp increase in casualties. At least 236 civilians were killed […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi-financed Belgian mosques teach hatred of Jews, gays: report

AFP

Brussels (AFP) – Teaching manuals in Gulf Arab-financed mosques in Belgium promote anti-semitic stereotypes of Jews and call for the persecution of homosexuals, according to a leaked Belgian intelligence report. The texts used in mosques including the Brussels Grand Mosque call for gays to be stoned to death or thrown off buildings and describe Jews […]

Saudi Arabia

Arms and Manipulation: How the Saudis and UAE took Trump for a Ride

Tomdispatch

By William Hartung and Ben Freeman It’s another Trump affair — this time without the allegations of sexual harassment (and worse), the charges and counter-charges, the lawsuits, and all the rest. So it hasn’t gotten the sort of headlines that Stormy Daniels has garnered, but when it comes to influence, American foreign policy, and issues […]