Arab World

Khokha (Yemen) (AFP) – The battle for a major rebel-controlled port in Yemen has left more than 100 soldiers and insurgents dead in less than a week, medics and military sources said Saturday. Yemeni forces are fighting to close in on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, the main conduit for humanitarian supplies into a […]

Qatar

Saudi Arabia warns of new Gulf War targeting Qatar if it buys Russian Missile Defense

AFP

Paris (AFP) – Saudi Arabia has threatened military action against Qatar if it goes ahead and acquires Russia’s top of the range S-400 air defence missile system, Le Monde daily reported. Citing information it had obtained, Le Monde said Friday that Riyadh had written to French President Emmanuel Macron asking him to intervene to prevent […]

Donald Trump

In Remote Iraqi town, US Troops and Iran-Backed Militias are already Facing Off

Mustafa Habib

Baghdad (Niqash.org) – Locals in Al Qaim, Anbar, worry that the current stable security situation can’t last. It’s being upheld by US troops and Iran-allied militias, whose antipathy toward one another is becoming more overt all the time. Iraqi troops searching a secret IS base near Al Qaim. (photo: Iraqi Ministry of Defence). The people […]

Syria

Syria’s Assad gives Kurds option of Negotiation or War, Demands US Leave

AFP

Damascus (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned US-backed Kurdish forces he would not hesitate to use force to retake the third of the country they control. “The only problem left in Syria is the SDF,” Assad told Russia Today in an interview aired Thursday, referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces which has […]

Feminism

After arrest of Feminists, Saudi Arabia sets Harsh Penalties for Sexual Harassment

AFP

Riyadh (AFP) – Saudi Arabia is preparing to outlaw sexual harassment, officials said Tuesday, less than a month before the conservative kingdom lifts its decades-long ban on women driving. The kingdom’s Shura Council, which advises the cabinet, approved a draft law on Monday which would introduce a prison term of up to five years and […]

Dissent

In Bid to Erase Arab Spring from History, Egyptian Junta Arrests Legendary Blogger Wael Abbas

Committee to Protect Journalists

New York (CPJ) – Egyptian authorities should release immediately Wael Abbas, a blogger who has documented Egyptian police abuse, and end their senseless campaign against the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police at dawn today detained Abbas at his Cairo home and took him to an undisclosed location, according to news reports, […]

Featured

Legal? Despite Withdrawal Pledge, Trump’s Massive Mission Creep in Syria

Juan Cole

The US is warning Syria against attempting to recover lands lost to rebels south of Damascus. Some of those rebels are ISIL or affiliated in some way to al-Qaeda. That is, the US is now doing the opposite of what it said it was going in to Syria to do. It is often alleged that […]

Iraq

With Some Sunnis Voting for Shiites, is Iraq After ISIL Becoming Less Sectarian?

Karl Kaltenthaler

Cleveland, Oh. (The Conversation) – The results of May 2018 the Iraqi parliament election shocked many. The surprising results could mean a different phase in Iraq’s political trajectory has begun. Most observers were expecting an easy win for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi‘s slate of candidates from all 19 of the country’s provinces. As an analyst […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arrests: What is Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman up to?

Brian Whitaker

London (al-Bab.com ) – News from Saudi Arabia about the arrests of ten or more rights activists has been viewed with a mixture of shock and surprise in western media. Just a few years ago, though, no one would have been surprised: it was simply the way the Saudi regime behaved. But that was before […]