The front page of Al-Akhbar's Tuesday edition features news of the upcoming release of a Hezbollah music video celebrating the second anniversary of the July War of 2006. Subsequently, the name of the of the video is tammuz, which translates simply as July. According to the pro-opposition Lebanese daily, the picture at the bottom of […]
The 11th Arab conference on combating terrorism was held this past week in the Tunisian capital of Tunis. The two-day event, convened by the Council of Arab Interior Ministers, brought together officials from the region's counter-terrorism establishments to address various issues stemming from terrorism. In addition to the council, representatives from the Arab League and […]
According to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, the Hamas-led government in Gaza threatened to take measures against anyone who violates the ceasefire. This came in response to a rocket attack launched by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades against the Israeli town of Sderot. Hamas claims that the Al-Aqsa Brigades, an armed wing of the group's political […]
In response to an IDF operation that killed two in the West Bank town of Nablus early this morning, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants claimed to have fired three rockets from the Gaza Strip at the Israeli town of Sderot. Israeli sources confirm that rockets did hit the town, lightly wounding two. One of those […]
Here's a YouTube link to Al-Jazeera's English coverage of the recent clashes in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. Note that the fighting between the residents of the largely Alawite Baal Mohsen and the predominantly Sunni Beb al-Tabbaneh neighborhoods is reminiscent of the 1980's when, during the civil war, the same areas were respectively split […]
I wrote a post last week on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's then planned state visit to India. Now that his trip has concluded, I thought I would provide some highlights from Syria's state-run SANA News Agency's in-depth coverage. As previously mentioned, al-Assad sought to strengthen bilateral relations with India on both political and economic matters. […]
The Palestinian Ma’an news agency featured a report today on its English language website that provides an overview of how both Palestinian and Israeli newspapers have been responding to the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which took effect in Gaza on Thursday morning. People on both sides have voiced some skepticism as to whether […]
The motorcade of the US State Department's Charges d’Affaires in Lebanon Michele Sison was pelted with stones on Wednesday by townspeople in the south Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh. Sison was visiting USAID and US-sponsored projects in the area, but reportedly had to make an unexpected lunch stop in Nabatiyeh after one of the cars in […]
Al-Jazeera's English website featured a report over the weekend that suggests political divisions within the Palestinian cause are exacerbating a deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip. The report comes on the first anniversary of Hamas's takeover of Gaza, and claims that many within the Palestinian press have voiced their frustration with the current situation. A […]
Syria's state-run SANA news agency has dedicated a new section of its website to President Bashar al-Assad's planned visit to India this coming week. The site's English language section has also featured coverage of the visit. So far, the articles featured in this section have included commentary discussing the overall agenda and goals of al-Assad's […]
Here's an interesting report that was recently featured on Al-Jazeera's English language website. It provides some insight into the rise of the al-Shabaab, also often referred to as the Mujahideen Youth Movement (MYM), as an armed force in Somalia. Some interesting points/quotes put forth by the author: 1) Entities within the al-Shabaab initially began as […]
The website for Hezbollah's Al Manar TV reported today that the Iranian Committee for the Reconstruction of Lebanon (ICRL) completed repaving the al-Ghajar Bridge in south Lebanon. The bridge, destroyed during the July War of 2006, spans the Hasbani River near the border town of al-Ghajar. Half of the town lies in Lebanese territory, while […]
The website for the Jordanian Islamic Action Front (IAF) reported that 10 members of Jordan's parliament signed a memorandum demanding that the country's ambassador to Iraq not be dispatched to Baghdad. This comes shortly before the Jordanian government announced on Monday its intention to send its envoy to Iraq ‘in the near future’, following the […]
The independent Kuwaiti Al-Seyassah daily featured a report by the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) covering an address given by Iraq's Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahrastani in parliament this Saturday. According to the report, al-Shahrastani revealed that negotiations are underway between Iraq and its neighbors, Iran and Kuwait, towards reaching an understanding on shared oil […]
A report by the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Information Center (PIC) voiced the group's firm disapproval of statements made by Sen. Barack Obama during his speech at AIPAC's annual policy conference on Wednesday. While some suggest that the Arab world was 'shocked’ by his comments, Hamas took particular offense to how the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee stated […]