| Two Saudi policemen injured in Riyadh drive-by shooting Posted: 29 Mar 2015 04:36 PM PDT  Two Saudi police officers were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Riyadh Sunday, a spokesman said, days after the Kingdom strengthened security measures as it leads air strikes on Yemen. "A security patrol was carrying out its duties in Riyadh when it came under fire from an unknown vehicle" in an attack that "left two policemen wounded," the spokesman said in a statement published on the official SPA news agency. The attack comes just days after Saudi Arabia's Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef ordered that security measures be strengthened along borders and across the kingdom, as Riyadh leads air strikes against Iran-backed Shiite rebels in neighbouring Yemen.
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| Boston officer improving after surgery to remove bullet Posted: 29 Mar 2015 02:32 PM PDT  BOSTON (AP) — A decorated Boston police officer shot point-blank in the face by a suspect was in stable condition at a hospital Sunday and improving after surgery to remove a bullet lodged below his ear, police said.
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| Arab League unveils joint military force amid Yemen crisis Posted: 29 Mar 2015 02:08 PM PDT  SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — A two-day Arab summit ended Sunday with a vow to defeat Iranian-backed Shiite rebels in Yemen and the formal unveiling of plans to form a joint Arab intervention force, setting the stage for a potentially dangerous clash between U.S.-allied Arab states and Tehran over influence in the region.
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| Leading suspect in Tunisia museum attack killed Posted: 29 Mar 2015 01:27 PM PDT  TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian security forces decimated the leadership of a Tunisian jihadi group linked to al-Qaida's North African branch, including the man identified as the "operational chief" of the attack this month on the National Bardo Museum that killed 22 people, mostly foreign tourists, the interior minister said Sunday.
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| Islamic State group beheads 8 Shiites in Syria's Hama Posted: 29 Mar 2015 10:19 AM PDT BEIRUT (AP) — A new video released by the Islamic State group on Sunday shows its fighters cutting off the heads of eight men said to be Shiite Muslims. The video posted on social media said the men were beheaded in the central Syrian province of Hama. |
| How big a threat are the world's jihadi groups? Posted: 29 Mar 2015 09:38 AM PDT Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim looked like any ubiquitous insurgent commander in southern Afghanistan. They are becoming more sophisticated in their communications, more lethal in their tactics, and more adept at fundraising. |
| 'Dangerous accord' with Iran worse than Israel feared: PM Posted: 29 Mar 2015 09:29 AM PDT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday denounced as "dangerous" a nuclear accord that world powers are negotiating with Iran, saying it goes beyond what his government had feared. "The dangerous accord which is being negotiated in Lausanne (Switzerland) confirms our concerns and even worse," Netanyahu said in remarks at a meeting of his cabinet broadcast on public radio. The premier warned that Iran could be in a position to "conquer" the Middle East through what he called the "axis" of control it has over the capitals of Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Netanyahu angered the White House when he addressed a joint session of the Congress to warn against a nuclear deal with Iran in the lead-up to Israel's March 17 general election.
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| Egypt prosecutor names Brotherhood leaders as terrorists Posted: 29 Mar 2015 08:27 AM PDT  CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top prosecutor on Sunday named 18 Muslim Brotherhood members, including the group's leader and his deputy, as terrorists in the first implementation of an anti-terror law passed earlier this year.
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| Arab leaders agree joint military force Posted: 29 Mar 2015 07:25 AM PDT  Arab leaders agreed on Sunday to form a joint military force after a summit dominated by a Saudi-led offensive on Shiite rebels in Yemen and the threat from Islamist extremism. "Assuming the great responsibility imposed by the great challenges facing our Arab nation and threatening its capabilities, the Arab leaders had decided to agree on the principle of a joint Arab military force," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told the summit in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. The decision was mostly aimed at fighting jihadists who have overrun swathes of Iraq and Syria and secured a foothold in Libya, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said ahead of the summit. Egypt had pushed for the creation of the rapid response force to fight militants, and the matter gained urgency this week after Saudi Arabia and Arab allies launched air strikes on Huthi rebels in Yemen.
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| Q&A: Plans for an Arab joint intervention force Posted: 29 Mar 2015 06:52 AM PDT  CAIRO (AP) — Arab League member nations formally announced on Sunday an agreement to form a joint military force. While details of how such a force would actually operate remain thin, the agreement is a telling sign of a new determination among Saudi Arabia, Egypt and their allies to intervene aggressively in regional hotspots, whether against Islamic militants or Iran-backed groups.
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| Saudi Sunnis and Iran's Shiites—Why the U.S. Can’t Support Both Posted: 29 Mar 2015 04:00 AM PDT  It's about a possible full-fledged tribal war between the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and its allies vs. the Shiites of Iran and its supporters. The United States is now supporting Iran — a member of President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" — with airstrikes in an effort to keep ISIS from gaining in Iraq. Just to confuse things even more, the administration is also supporting the Saudis in their efforts to keep Iran-backed Houthis from taking over Yemen. The Saudi-led air campaign against the Houthi positions in Yemen is just the latest step Saudi Arabia has taken to ensure that the delicate political balance of the Middle East stays to its liking.
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| The frontline in liberating child soldiers Posted: 29 Mar 2015 03:33 AM PDT Just a year ago, Yemen was one of the few countries with a "children's parliament," an elected body of teenagers that advised the nation's lawmakers. Its main concern: how to end the recruitment of children, by both the military and armed groups, to act as soldiers. Fast forward to 2015 and Yemen's government has collapsed. According to the United Nations, the invading troops should not be surprised to find thousands of child soldiers. |
| Syria regime executed prisoners before Idlib fall: monitor Posted: 29 Mar 2015 12:17 AM PDT  Syrian government forces apparently executed at least 15 prisoners in the city of Idlib before Islamist fighters overran the provincial capital, a monitor said on Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bodies of at least 15 detainees had been found after the northwestern city was taken by a coalition of forces including Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front. "The number of bodies found in a military intelligence detention facility in Idlib city has risen to 15," the Britain-based group's director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. The group had earlier reported the discovery of at least nine bodies believed to be prisoners executed by regime forces before they withdrew from the city.
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| Addressing India's 'rape culture,' the toll of the Syrian war, voting in Israel, economic reform in the Ukraine, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Posted: 28 Mar 2015 05:00 AM PDT "It is seldom that India gets coverage in the western media and when it does, it is often for negative news...," writes Mrutyuanjai Mishra. If India and Indians do not protest against such documentaries [as the BBC's documentary 'India's Daughter'] then we might see an increase in racism against persons of Indian origin. |
| Nobel's will goes on display for first time Posted: 28 Mar 2015 03:03 AM PDT  Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, which played a pivotal role in Swedish history by creating the now-illustrious Nobel prizes, has gone on display for the first time in Stockholm. Until now, only a handful of people had laid eyes on the original 1895 document that has been stashed away in a safe at the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. The Nobel Museum has changed all that, putting it on public display as part of its new exhibition "Legacy". "The aim is to show Alfred Nobel's legacy to the public.
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