Recent reports from Syria suggest the military forces of dictator Bashar Assad are crumbling under the strain of fighting a five-year-long civil war, and dealing with the rise of the Islamic State, which has been scoring military victories in Syria as well as Iraq.
Contents: South Korea fears that MERS virus will break out into general population; Iran demands a nuclear agreement ‘snapback’ provision of its own
Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S., and Shiite militias linked to Iran, seized back “key parts of the northern refinery town of Baiji” from Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists on Sunday, according to media reports.
Four Saudi children have died and 28 others have been hospitalized due to a poisoning in an Iranian hotel. Three of the dead were only three years old and the fourth was a 14-year-old girl.
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was given the unenviable job of defending President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran on Sunday at a conference in New York sponsored by the Jerusalem Post.
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, believed to be a religious Jew, was heckled by the audience at a Jerusalem Post conference when he defended the actions of the Obama administration vis-à-vis Iran over its nuclear program.
The Islamic State beheaded at least 10 Taliban militants in Afghanistan this week in a remote area in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar region, where the jihadist groups are locked in an intense battle for control over many of the surrounding provinces.
Contents: Saudi Arabia shoots down Scud missile from Houthis in Yemen; Who’s causing the humanitarian crisis in Yemen?; Europeans rescue 3,000 migrants on Saturday, fear hundreds of thousands more
Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria and Yemen are benefiting from the global focus on the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), quietly capturing territory and expanding their influence amid the turmoil in the war-ravaged countries, reports The Washington Post.
The regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad appears ready to “accept de facto partition” of Syria, a move that would leave most of the country in the hands of rebels and jihadists, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports, quoting experts and diplomats.
Vocativ makes the interesting, and chilling, point that Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini—the Ayatollah, the guy Mickey Mouse was flipping off in all those seventies T-shirts—is doing very well on social media for a guy who died when computers were still bigger than dishwashers.
A Persian-language news outlet reported this week that Iran has sentenced a group of 18 Christians to between one and ten years in prison each for organizing “house churches” and “propaganda against the regime.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The growing Iranian influence in the Middle East has brought two historic enemies together, Israel and Saudi Arabia, officials from both countries revealed during a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) event.
The idiom “selling one a bill of goods” conveys the message a buyer is being deceived—i.e., he is not getting that for which he thought he had bargained. Over the past several weeks, we have witnessed the occurrence of three events where this idiom appropriately can be applied.
An Iranian court sentenced artist-activist Atena Farghadani, 28, to 12 years in prison for insulting the government, after publishing a cartoon portraying Parliament members with animal heads.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was repeatedly interrupted by supporters of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a unity rally held in Tehran on Wednesday.
Contents: With Syria’s army nearing collapse, Iran plans massive troop deployment; Iran and Syria may invoke 2006 mutual defense agreement; Greece and Europeans fail once again to reach an agreement
After outcry from supporters, Instagram restored an account dedicated to memorializing the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamist revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The account, which has over 100,000 followers according to some media reports, has posted over 600 photos of the late cleric and revolutionary.
AAP reports that Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said her government would consider sending more troops to help battle ISIS in Iraq, but the Iraqis have been oddly slow to request assistance, even as the Islamic State overruns cities and begins lining up an attack on Baghdad.
The Syrian army is defunct and the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria is “100 yards” from the country’s border with Israel, an unidentified senior Israeli army officer said, The Times of Israel reports.
Over the past 18 months, Obama has paid Iran $700 million a month to come to the negotiations table and string along the West with promises of dismantling their nuclear program. This may sound like an exaggeration – it’s not. In addition to paying them what will amount to $12 billion in unfrozen assets by the end of June, Obama has ceded half of the Middle East to the Iranian hegemony, including control of critical international waterways, as well as the security of Israel.
President Obama’s contention that Iran’s nuclear program has been “frozen” over the last 18 months of negotiations is weakened by the IAEA finding that the Islamic Republic’s stockpile of nuclear fuel has increased.
Last February’s Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks proved a thriller. Behind 28-24 with 26 seconds left, the Seahawks had a first down on the Patriots one-yard line. With one of the best running backs in the league, the Seahawks were expected to run. Surprisingly, Seattle’s coach called for a pass play over the middle; the ball was intercepted and the Seahawks lost.
Neither Iran nor the West are friendly with ISIS, but if an Iranian cartoon contest is any metric, their mutual enemy is not pushing the powers closer together.
Barry Navidi—who produced the Al Pacino vehicles, “The Merchant of Venice,” “Salome,” and “Wild Salome,” and is touring with Pacino’s current one-man show—spoke with Variety in Tehran during the International Urban Cities Film Festival. He asserted his excitement about the rapprochement between the Obama administration and Iran because it will encourage fimmaking in Iran.
