Tag Archives: Shiites

Abu Arkan Ibrahim picked up a rifle and joined the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. troops when they occupied his hometown of Fallujah in 2003. He was badly burned in the fighting. Now, he fears the departure of the Americans he once battled. Over the past 17 years, the municipal employee …

Yemen’s internationally recognized government has called for pressure to stop the Houthi offensive and siege on several villages in the southern province of Taiz, the official Saba news agency reported. Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed said during a phone call with the Taiz governor, Nabil Shamsan, that Houthi crimes …

The United States on Tuesday designated the Bahrain-based Saraya al-Mukhtar group as a terrorist organization, accusing it of being backed by Iran and of having plotted attacks against U.S. personnel in the Gulf Arab state. The move, which comes amid a slew of sanctions announced by Washington as President Donald …

The Iraqi military is training a former member of an Iran-backed militia, who is under U.S. sanctions for killing protesters, to become a high-ranking officer in the army, according to six government, security and militia officials. They said that Hussein Falih Aziz, known as Abu Zainab al-Lami, had been sent …

Washington has made preparations to withdraw diplomats from Iraq after warning Baghdad it could shut its embassy, two Iraqi officials and two Western diplomats said, a step Iraqis fear could turn their country into a battle zone. Any move by the United States to scale down its diplomatic presence in …

The British embassy in Baghdad said that a British diplomatic vehicle was hit buy an IED on Tuesday morning on the airport road in Baghdad, but caused no injuries. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Separately, at 1 a.m. on Tuesday, two Katyusha rockets landed inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified …

President Donald Trump will announce a further drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq on Wednesday, a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday. That announcement will be followed by another one in the coming days on a further reduction in U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the official said. The decision comes …

Kuwait and Iraq separately denied an attack took place against a convoy carrying equipment for American forces. An explosion near the Jraischan border crossing between Iraq and Kuwaiti on Monday evening targeted a convoy carrying equipment for US forces, three Iraqi security forces told Reuters. It was not immediately clear …

Graham E. Fuller — The Trump administration has just delivered several dozen military strikes against Syria purportedly aimed at chemical production and storage facilities. It was an act the international community feared might lead to overt war in Syria between the US, Iran and Russia, but it came off a bit …

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo said on Saturday he sent a letter to Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and Iranian leaders expressing concern regarding Iran’s increasingly threatening behavior in Iraq. Speaking during a panel at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Southern California, Pompeo said he sent …

Aden’s Security Department yesterday inaugurated ‘Section 1’ and correctional centre at the Mansoura Central Prison. Many human rights and civil society organisations attended the event. Brigadier General Shalal Shaya, Aden’s Security Director thanked the UAE for its support, which was involved in the rebuilding and maintenance of the prison. Aden …

Russia is set to close major arms deals with two nations, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, once vehemently opposed to Moscow’s presence in the Middle East. In a historic visit to Moscow, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to discuss oil, Iran’s growing …

Saudi Arabia and its allies are pushing back on a renewed effort to establish a United Nations-backed independent international panel to investigate human rights abuses in Yemen. A draft resolution, proposed by a small bloc of Western countries, seeks to create a commission of inquiry, similar to one for the …

A division of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it has arrested a Takfiri terrorist linked to a Daesh-affiliated ring, which planned to carry out hundreds of terror attacks in the capital, Tehran. The Daesh element was apprehended in the Andisheh town in Shahriar County, Tehran Province, Colonel Amin …

It is 4:30 a.m. and pitch dark when the sick Syrian children and their mothers begin to cross into ­Israel. There’s a 1-year-old girl with a squint, and a 2-year-old with a birth defect that prevents him from walking. The family of a slight 12-year-old is concerned that she is …

Leaders of the Houthi group and loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, allies in Yemen’s civil war, said on Tuesday they had agreed to ease tensions between them after three people were killed in a clash. The violence late on Saturday between members of the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saleh …

Militant group Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul that began with a suicide bomber blowing himself up at the main gate, allowing gunmen to enter the building and battle security forces. The assault came a week after 35 people were killed …

Three car bombs exploded in Damascus on Sunday, state media reported, and seven people were killed in one of the blasts, a police officer said, the biggest such attack in the Syrian capital since a series of suicide attacks in March. One of the suicide bombers blew himself up in …

The Levant News — Bahrain is targeting its Shi’ite Muslim community through arrests and prosecutions of clerics, activists and entertainers, a group of United Nations-appointed independent experts said on Tuesday. In a statement, the experts urged Bahraini authorities to halt what they said were “arbitrary arrests” based on religion and …

Tensions ran high in eastern Iraq on Friday between Kurdish and Shi’ite fighters, highlighting divisions hampering efforts by the U.S.-backed government to blunt the momentum of Islamic State militants. There were conflicting reports on what transpired in Diyala province after Kurdish peshmerga fighters attempted to dig a trench to separate …