Tag Archives: sectarianism

Public prosecutors in Lebanon have been instructed to crack down on the monopoly on foodstuffs and oil derivatives as political, security and diplomatic concerns grow over explosive daily protests. The spontaneous protests are also demanding access to medicine, fuel, hospitalization and electricity. The Crisis Observatory at the American University of …

In a speech seen as an act of defiance against the Lebanese state and the US, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday insisted that Lebanon should be “negotiating with Iran to buy gasoline and diesel with the Lebanese currency if Lebanon’s shortages persist.” Seemingly unconcerned about the possibility that this …

Prime Minister-Designate Saad Hariri asked the Lebanese government on Saturday to pay its dues to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and for the international community to shoulder its responsibility. The tribunal was set up to prosecute those behind the 2005 assassination of Hariri’s father, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. It is …

Lebanese President Michel Aoun did not intend to revoke prime minister designate Saad al-Hariri’s mandate when he wrote to parliament last week declaring that Hariri could not form a government, Aoun’s son-in-law said on Saturday. Veteran Sunni Muslim politician Hariri was nominated in October to form a cabinet after Hassan …

The EU is drawing up sanctions on politicians in Lebanon seen as blocking the formation of a government, readying the bloc’s first penalties on its Middle Eastern ally in frustration at the ruling elite’s mismanagement, diplomats said. Led by former colonial power France, the bloc is seeking to ramp up …

Lebanon’s public prosecutor has launched an investigation into central bank governor Riad Salameh, a judicial source said Friday. The probe follows a Swiss legal request alleging that over $300 million had been embezzled from the bank through a company owned by Salameh’s brother. The senior judicial source said that the …

Lebanon’s president told the army and security forces on Monday to clear roadblocks after a week of protests over a collapsing economy and paralysed government, but the army chief warned that troops should not get sucked into the political deadlock. President Michel Aoun issued the call to open up the …

Pope Francis is set for an historic meeting with Iraq’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, during a trip to Iraq planned for March, the patriarch of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic Church said on Thursday. The visit, which eluded Francis’s predecessors, takes place amid deteriorating security in some parts …

Iraq’s cabinet decided on Tuesday to postpone the general election to Oct. 10 from June, the state news agency INA said. The government last year set a general election for June 6, 2021, roughly a year ahead of when it would normally be held, but Iraq’s Independent High Election Commission …

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to use newly declassified U.S. intelligence on Tuesday to publicly accuse Iran of ties to al Qaeda, two people familiar with the matter said, as part of his last-minute offensive against Tehran before handing over to the incoming Biden administration. With just eight …

The leader of Lebanon’s biggest Christian political party on Sunday ruled out joining a new government led by Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri, a new hurdle for efforts to pull the country out of political paralysis. Politicians have been at loggerheads over the shape of a new administration since the last …

President Michel Aoun said on Saturday that Lebanon would seek evidence and documents from the United States that led Washington to impose sanctions on his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, a prominent Christian politician. The United States on Friday blacklisted Bassil, leader of Lebanon’s biggest Christian political bloc, accusing him of corruption …

Iraqi security forces killed at least one anti-government protester using live gunfire and wounded at least 40 others in the southern city of Basra on Friday, security sources and a rights official said. It was the first killing of a protester by security forces in Basra since Prime Minister Mustafa …

Iraqi security forces clashed with anti-government demonstrators in Baghdad on Sunday with at least 39 people, most of them police officers, injured by projectiles unleashed from each side, security officials said. Police sources said tear gas canisters being fired by security forces had injured at least seven people. A separate …

The EU on Monday criticized Lebanese politicians for their failure to form a government, after the country’s prime minister-designate quit at the weekend due to pressure from Hezbollah and its allies over key ministerial jobs. Lebanon has experienced almost a year of intense turmoil, which has been exacerbated by the …

Lebanon’s top Christian cleric took a swipe at leaders of the Shi’ite Muslim community on Sunday for making demands he said were blocking the formation of a new government and causing political paralysis in a nation in deep crisis. Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, leader of the Maronite church, did not …

In an exclusive interview with Arab News on Wednesday, the head of Lebanon’s Maronite church, Bechara Al-Rai, called for all of the many political factions in the country — which has just marked its centenary — to support his call to adopt ‘active neutrality,’ describing it as “part of the …

Two people were killed and at least three wounded in clashes in a town south of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Thursday evening, the state news agency and a security source said, as several political parties urged calm. The Lebanese army said on its Twitter account that it had deployed …

Clashes between Iraqi protesters and security forces in central Baghdad killed at least two demonstrators overnight, security and medical sources said on Monday. It was the first such deadly incident in months at Tahrir Square, which became a symbol of anti-government protests during months-long mass unrest last year. The protesters …

Iraqi security forces raided a headquarters belonging to a powerful Iran-backed militia in southern Baghdad late on Thursday and detained more than a dozen members of the group, government officials and paramilitary sources said. The raid was the most brazen action by Iraqi forces against a major Iran-backed militia group …

A regular survey of experts on matters relating to Middle Eastern and North African politics and security (By MICHAEL YOUNG) Assaad al-Achi | Executive director of Baytna Syria, Syrian civil society activist Although leadership tensions, at least public ones, are extremely rare in Syria, they have always existed since Hafez …

A bomb blast at a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in eastern Baghdad wounded at least seven people on Friday, security sources said, correcting earlier reports of seven killed. Police sources said on Friday a suicide belt or improvised explosive device had been used in the attack in the Baladiyat neighbourhood, for …

Giza Criminal Court sentenced four people to 14 years in prison over charges including deliberately murdering prominent Shia Muslim leader Hassan Shahata, and three other Shias in 2013. The case is known in media as the “Shia strife.” The defendants carried Molotov cocktails, sticks and bladed weapons, and headed to …

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson slipped into Iraq Monday night after having spent the morning in Afghanistan, but his welcome in Baghdad was far less effusive as the Trump administration pushes to isolate Iran, an important Iraqi ally. The diplomatic challenges for the United States in Iraq have become …

Iraqi forces have demanded that Kurdish troops withdraw from oil fields and military bases around the contested city of Kirkuk, Kurdish officials and a senior militia leader said Friday, leading to a tense standoff around the city. Kurdish peshmerga soldiers rallied to protect Kirkuk on Thursday night, as Interior Ministry …

Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu (AT): Thank you, Professor Sachedina for agreeing to speak to Maydan. You are a Professor of Religious Studies and a senior scholar at the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at GMU. At the same time you hold the Endowed IIIT Chair in Islamic Studies …

Now more than ever Lebanon matters. And more than it ever has before. It matters because it continues to be a buffer zone and a contention state (be it a dysfunctional as it is now) between secularism and religious extremism. (Call them Shiite theocracy, Sunni/Wahhabi Shekidoms and Fiefdoms, etc.). The …

by Graham E. Fuller*– Iraqi politics are in turmoil—nothing new here. Not surprisingly, the post-invasion order is taking a long time to shake down, given the destruction of the old. Entirely new relationships had to be forged under the new, radically changed environment. What Iraq requires above all is the …

THE LEVANT – Saudi authorities have blamed militants linked to Al-Qaeda for an unprecedented attack that killed Shiite worshippers and stoked sectarian tensions in the Sunni-dominated kingdom. Saudi authorities have blamed militants linked to Al-Qaeda for an unprecedented attack that killed Shiite worshippers and highlighted sectarian tensions in the Sunni-dominated …

THE LEVANT – By Ramzy Baroud for Eurasia Review – Consider this comical scene described by Peter Van Buren, a former US diplomat, who was deployed to Iraq on a 12-month assignment in 2009-10: Van Buren led two Department of State teams assigned with the abstract mission of the “reconstruction” …