Shipan Kumer Basu stated in an exclusive interview that ISIS is on the ascent in Bangladesh and he blames the Bangladeshi government for this reality.
Shipan Kumer Basu stated in an exclusive interview that ISIS is on the ascent in Bangladesh and he blames the Bangladeshi government for this reality.
Ramadan is a time of selfless devotion and a month of above-ordinary worship when Muslims reflect deeply on all matters of moral significance.
Following the withdrawal of support on Sunday from the Muslim Congress, Sri Lanka’s largest Muslim political party, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bid for a third term in office on Jan. 8 looks increasingly shaky.
Contrary to common misconception, Muslims are neither homogeneous nor are their interpretation and implementation of the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad monolithic.
The Hashemites claim to be part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, but evidence has emerged showing that the regime is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, who supports Islamic State.
On Nov. 29, an Egyptian court cleared charges against the country’s former president Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt from 1981 to 2011, when he stepped down in the face of massive protests and the loss of his security services’ confidence.
With Western leaders occupied by rising tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East, it appears that the emergence of uprisings on the African continent has largely been overlooked. The recent protests in Burkina Faso and the subsequent overthrow of Blaise Compaoré on Oct. 31 from his 27-year reign, illustrates the far-reaching social and political changes taking place in Africa.
On Nov. 15, ISIS beheaded a fifth western captive, aid worker Peter Kassig, who may have fought his killers and disrupted their filming of the event. The inevitable video features a familiar British-accented voice, of an ISIS member British media refer to as “Jihadi John.”
Eight Egyptian men were sentenced to three years in prison plus three years on probation for allegedly attending Egypt’s first same-sex wedding. The harsh sentence was condoned by Egyptian TV host Tamer Amin and the Egyptian Minister for Religious Endowment. Despite the high hopes that existed in the wake of the Arab Spring, the plight of homosexuals in Egypt and the Arab world has deteriorated.
Some describe it as the result of a disengaged American foreign policy; some look at it as a byproduct of an aggressive post-Saddam Iranian foreign policy in the region; then there are those who regard it as a creation of Sunni Arab states to undermine Assad and Iranian interests and contain Iran’s ambitious foreign policy in the region.
This year, the centenary of the start of World War I, has seen reexaminations of its immediate causes. Reexamination of the historic peace attempted at its conclusion, however, is even more relevant to the current crises in foreign policy.
It is that cyclical season of winner takes all. It is that all too familiar gladiatorial executive combat all over again. Yes, the Villa Somalia has once again turned into a roaring amphitheater.
Even if war is not always good for business, it is at least a business. Whether dealing in arms, antiquities, oil, grain, taxes or international aid, the Islamic State is building the basis for the sort of exploitative economy whose inequities and corruption (ironically) helped its star rise among the poor and discontented.
In a new piece in the London Review of Books, Patrick Cockburn writes on the rise of the Islamic State — also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — and elaborates in detail on the factors that have contributed to its military success in Syria and Iraq despite American air raids against the group since August of this year.
The Egyptians may not be receiving fulsome applause at the U.N. this week for their diplomacy to date, but quietly, Israeli, Gulf, and American leaders are clapping, in large part due to Cairo’s reaffirmation of a hardline stance against Hamas this past summer.