Tag Archives: Terrorism

SoAli Atwa, a senior Hezbollah operative who was on the FBI’s most wanted list for his role in one of the most notorious plane hijackings in aviation history, has died, the Lebanese militant group said Saturday. Atwa, who was believed to be in his early 60s, died of complications related …

Iran’s aggressive and expanding unmanned aerial vehicles program is a growing threat not only to countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, but also the West, according to officials from the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI’s Washington office, said the program …

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack on a gas pipeline at Deir Ali power station in Syria, according to a statement published on Saturday on its affiliated Telegram channels. Earlier, Syria’s electricity minister said the attack had led to an electricity outage that hit the capital Damascus, its …

President Joe Biden on Friday directed the declassification of certain documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a supportive gesture to victims’ families who have long sought the records in hopes of implicating the Saudi government. The order, coming little more than a week before the 20th anniversary of the …

Hollywood actor-turned-producer Bo Svenson has had enough of the US entertainment industry’s one-dimensional depiction of characters from the Middle East. He is working on films he hopes will shake up the industry and position Arabs and Muslims to be the stars of their own stories. Svenson, who was born in …

An explosion ripped through a busy market in the Iraqi capital Monday killing at least 35 people, according to medical sources, in an apparent suicide bombing ahead of Eid holiday celebrations. In one of the worst attacks in Baghdad in recent years, body parts of victims lay scattered across the …

The US State Department is “beyond fed up” with Houthi attacks in Yemen, spokesperson Ned Price told a press briefing on Thursday, adding that the assaults were exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the country.  A Yemeni government official said Tuesday that Houthi rebels fired two missiles in the latest attack …

Turkey’s Constitutional Court accepted an indictment on Monday seeking a ban on the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for alleged ties to militants, CNN Turk said, opening the way for a case to close parliament’s third-largest party. The case is the culmination of a years-long crackdown on the HDP, in which thousands of …

Tentative plans for a movie that recounts the response of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to a gunman’s slaughter of Muslim worshippers drew criticism in New Zealand on Friday for not focusing on the victims of the attacks. Hollywood news outlet Deadline reported that Australian actor Rose Byrne was set to …

Several hundred people gathered in London, Ontario on Saturday to pay homage to a Muslim family deliberately mowed down by the driver of a pick-up truck, in an attack that has shocked Canadians and which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced as “terrorist.” Four members of the Afzaal family — a …

Lebanon on Monday received a preliminary report from France regarding last year’s massive port blast in Beirut that killed and wounded thousands, judicial officials said. The officials said the French report is useful for the ongoing investigation in Beirut over the August blast, which decimated the country’s main port and …

Saudi Arabia has released construction tycoon Bakr Bin Laden after more than three years since he was detained as part of a corruption crackdown in 2017, two sources told Reuters on Thursday. The former chairman of Saudi Bin Ladin group and a half-brother of Osama bin Laden, was released a …

Al Arabiya TV is being accused by the Iranian news agency IRNA of distorting the “truth” behind the Iranian missile ideology, the Saudi-owned network said Saturday. The network said the IRNA had accused Al Arabiya of focusing its news reports on “the regional threats posed by Iranian missiles.” IRNA said …

Eritrea has acknowledged its troops are participating in the war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region but has vowed to pull them out amid mounting international pressure. The first explicit admission of Eritrea’s role in the fighting came in a letter posted online Friday night by the country’s information minister, written …

The Israeli military said Saturday it had conducted airstrikes against targets in the Gaza Strip following a rocket attack from the Palestinian enclave, in the second such exchange in as many days. The strikes hit what the military described as “terror targets” operated by Gaza’s Islamist ruling party Hamas. They …

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will put forward a three-phase peace roadmap for Afghanistan during a proposed meeting in Turkey, seeking an agreement with the Taliban and a ceasefire before elections, a document seen by Reuters shows. Washington is pushing for a conference to be hosted by Turkey, with U.N. involvement, …

Israeli senior ministers have yet to meet and discuss the official approach to the International Criminal Court’s, ICC, probe of allegations of war crimes lodged against the country, Jerusalem Post reported. The government has received official communication from international tribunal three weeks ago and their response is due on April 9, …

Turkey’s top court sent an indictment calling for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to be banned back to the prosecutor on procedural grounds, state-owned Anadolu Agency said on Wednesday. The Constitutional Court ruled that the indictment had procedural omissions and returned it to the Court of Cassation, it said. …

An Indonesian cathedral was rocked by a suicide bombing on Sunday with body parts littering the chaotic scene as Christians inside celebrated the start of Holy Week. The powerful blast at the church in Makassar city on Sulawesi island happened around 10:30 am local time (0330 GMT) and left at …

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said on Friday they have sent Israel and the Palestinians notifications of the opening of a war crimes probe, a move that leaves the parties with one month to seek a deferral. Earlier this month the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced she would formally …

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia has responded to its removal from Washington’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by escalating its attacks on the governments in Aden and neighboring Saudi Arabia, Brigadier General Turki Al-Malki, spokesperson for the Saudi-led Coalition, has told Arab News in an exclusive interview. The US State …

U.S. President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday that it will be “tough” for him to meet a May 1 deadline to withdraw the last troops from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war. Biden’s comments to ABC News were his most extensive to date about the deadline set …

The US administration has a responsibility to push back against efforts to undermine Saudi Arabia, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says in an exclusive interview with Arab News, adding that to deny the Saudis “the capacity to defend themselves is just crazy, and yet that appears to be …

A Saudi court on Wednesday upheld the original sentence of women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who had championed women’s right to drive and for an end to Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system. Hathloul was sentenced in December to nearly six years in prison under broad cybercrime and counterterrorism laws after …

Pope Francis condemned weapons manufacturers and traffickers for selling arms to “terrorists” in comments on Wednesday reflecting on his recent trip to Iraq. He said he was grateful to have been able to make a visit that eluded his predecessors and described it as a “sign of hope after years …

The Daesh group has claimed responsibility for the February 3 killing of four soldiers in a rugged region of central Tunisia, SITE Intelligence Group reported. The US monitor of militant groups said late Thursday that the soldiers were killed in three blasts ignited by its fighters near Mount Mghila and …

President Joe Biden’s aides have launched a formal review of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, reviving the Obama-era goal of closing the controversial facility with the aim of doing so before he leaves office, the White House said on Friday. Aides involved in internal discussions are …

Prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was released from a Saudi prison after nearly three years behind bars, her family said on Wednesday, a case that has drawn international condemnation. Hathloul, 31, was detained in May 2018 and sentenced in December to nearly six years in prison on charges that …

The US commitment to Saudi Arabia remains clear and unshakeable, the country’s charge d’affaires, Martina Strong, has said. “Our commitment to Saudi Arabia just as we have over decades remains unshakeable and remains clear,” she told Arab News. “We are very clear-eyed about the threats that Saudi Arabia faces and …

At least two people were killed and more than 90 wounded in an explosion at a gas station on Saturday afternoon in the Houthi-controlled central city of Bayda, a health official told Arab News. A video circulating on social media showed a large ball of fire emanating from the gas …

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of an Islamist convicted of beheading U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, a decision that has left his family in “complete shock”, lawyers said. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was the main suspect in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter …

Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping prepare for next year’s soccer World Cup. Then one day last April, officials from Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency arrived with $10,000 in cash. They told him his son had died – not in Qatar, but …

Twenty-two aid groups working in Yemen called on Sunday for the new U.S. administration to revoke the designation of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization, saying it puts millions of lives and the peace process at risk. The U.S. State Department has initiated a review of the …

The US on Sunday condemned an attempted air attack on Riyadh at the weekend and said anyone who tried to undermine the Kingdom’s stability would be held to account. The strike on the Saudi capital on Saturday, which was thwarted by air defenses, “appears to have been an attempt to …

Two senior British parliamentarians called on Friday for an investigation into a British-registered company possibly linked to last year’s devastating explosion in Beirut, after Reuters found that the firm had not disclosed its beneficial owners. The company, Savaro Ltd, is registered at a London address, and like all British firms …

Geir Pedersen, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, on Friday called for “more serious and cooperative” international diplomacy as part of political efforts to improve the lives of the Syrian people and develop a vision for the future of their country. Speaking ahead of the fifth session of the Small …

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 …

Twenty-eight people were killed in an attack on a bus along a main highway in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province that borders Iraq, Syrian state media said on Wednesday, an incident that residents and defectors say was an ambush on an army vehicle. There were no more details of the incident …

A prominent advocate of democracy in Afghanistan who headed an election monitoring organisation was gunned down on Wednesday in a Kabul neighbourhood, drawing widespread condemnation locally and internationally. Yousuf Rasheed, executive director of the Free and Fair Elections Forum of Afghanistan Organization (FEFA), was shot dead while his driver was …

India on Monday handed a dossier to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council about a major attack that it said militants from Pakistan had attempted in the Indian part of Kashmir last week, government officials said. The four militants, belonging to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad, infiltrated into Indian …

A missile fired by Houthi militants in Yemen sparked an  explosion and fire at a fuel distribution site near Jeddah on Monday. The blast took place at 3.50 a.m. and causing a fire in a fuel tank at the petroleum products distribution station, north of the city, Saudi Arabia’s energy …

The Palestinian Authority will resume civil and security cooperation with Israel suspended in May over a now-frozen Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian minister said on Tuesday. Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh wrote on Twitter that “the relationship with Israel will return to how …

President Donald Trump may withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Somalia as part of a global pullback that could see major reductions in Afghanistan and a slight drawdown in Iraq, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that nothing had been finalized …

A gun attack on the Saudi Embassy in the Netherlands was on Thursday condemned by Islamic organizations and the international community. Shots were fired at the Kingdom’s diplomatic mission in The Hague, a day after a bomb attack at a World War I remembrance service in Jeddah injured at least …