religion

By Erin Evers | (Human Rights Watch) In Latifiyya, a small town 20 miles south of Baghdad, fighting has been raging since long before the armed conflict that erupted when the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) took over Mosul. For at least two years state security forces and government-backed militias have been battling Sunni […]

Antisemitism

Netanyahu urges Europe’s Jews to move to Israel

contributors

Euronews | – “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to this weekend’s deadly synagogue shooting in Copenhagen by urging European Jews to emigrate to Israel. Netanyahu’s invitation comes despite reassurances from his Danish counterpart Helle Thorning-Schmidt that Denmark’s Jews belong there and that everything would be done to protect them. Warning that more anti-Semitic attacks […]

Christianity

Fox News Contributor: Fifty Shades of Grey Heralds the End of the World

contributors

Ana Kasparian | (The Young Turks) – “”Fox News contributor Robert Jeffress believes that gay marriage and the film release of Fifty Shades of Grey are signs that the apocalypse is nearing. Jeffress said “the Bible prophesized that in the End Times, there will be a lack of moral restraint. And I think we’re seeing […]

Iraq

Iraqi Gov’t AWOL: It’s Shia Militias vs. the Islamic State

contributors

VICE News | – “Last summer, the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) swept from Syria into northern Iraq, routing Iraqi security forces and seizing the city of Mosul. Soon afterward, the group declared the establishment of a dubious “caliphate” in the area it controls and rebranded itself the Islamic […]

Iran

2nd Iranian Commander killed in Iraq defending Samarra Golden Dome

contributors

By RFE/RL | – A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been killed in Iraq, Iranian media reported. The Tasnim news agency, said to be affiliated with IRGC, says Reza Hosseini Moghadam was in Samarra to confront militants of the Islamic State (IS) when he was killed on February 7. “He [Moghadam] […]

Christianity

Why Obama is Right to avoid double standard about Modern Christian Atrocities

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – President Obama, speaking on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, condemned religious extremism in the Muslim world, noting that it is the work of twisted individuals rather than being intrinsic to the religion. He then added, “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is […]

Houthi

Shiite Coup in Yemen: $400 mn. in US Weaponry Falls into Houthi Hands

contributors

Euronews | – “The United Nations and the United States have condemned Yemen’s dominant Houthi group for dissolving parliament. The move was also denounced by the country’s main political faction as a coup. Houthi rebel leaders, however, say a new interim assembly and government will be formed as swiftly as possible. Gamal Al-Soudi, the Houthi […]

Western Jews

‘Muslims are Jews’ natural allies in Europe’: Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt

contributors

RT | – “Europe’s economic difficulties in recent years have led to a rise in radicalism and anti-immigrant sentiment, and the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks brought these tensions to boiling point. How are these changes affecting Europe’s sizeable Jewish and Muslim minorities, and how are they testing the limits of Western ideas of tolerance and […]

Iraq

The Other Sinjar Massacre: As Iraq’s ISIL driven Back, Reprisals against Sunni Collaborators

contributors

Khales Joumah | Mosul | (Niqash.org) – As extremists from the Islamic State group are slowly driven out of northern Iraq, members of one of the groups that suffered at their hands – the Yazidis – began to take revenge on locals they say collaborated with them. This week several villages were looted and burned […]