The Associated Press reports it has seen documents that show the State Department expects Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to remain in power until at least March 2017, which is “two months after President Barack Obama leaves office and more than five years after Obama first called for Assad to leave.”
Officials in the tiny Gulf nation of Bahrain said Wednesday they busted an Iran-backed “terror” cell that was planning imminent attacks inside of the country. Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni monarchy but is populated with a Shiite majority.
On Wednesday, the Sunni nations of Qatar and Djibouti announced they would be severing diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, becoming the 9th and 10th nations to officially cut relations, roll back ties, or condemn the Shiite theocracy in the past week.
The Saudi execution of insurrectionist Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr threatens to touch off a conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims across the Middle East and beyond. Massive Shiite protests have occurred across the region over the past few days and have spread into Asia.
When Saudi Arabia executed a Saudi Shiite cleric on New Year’s Eve, the Shiite world ignited in protest. According to the Iranian regime, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr’s execution was not justified. The Saudi government, however, thinks otherwise.
Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s figurehead President who serves the interests of Ayatollah Khamenei, delivered a verbal tirade against the Saudi government on Tuesday after Riyadh executed a prominent Shiite cleric on New Year’s Eve.
The government of Kuwait has become the latest to downgrade its diplomatic relations with Iran after a mob burned down the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran following the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr.
The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on Sunday afternoon titled, “Who Lost the Saudis?” It lays out a convincing case for why Russia and Iran are out to get the House of Saud—which, for all of its many, many flaws, is still an impediment to the agenda of America’s primary geopolitical adversaries.
Protests over Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr have spread through Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey, and now India, especially in districts with a heavy Shiite population.
Bahrain and Sudan have joined their ally Saudi Arabia in formally severing diplomatic ties with Iran, while the United Arab Emirates has “downgraded” its diplomatic team, recalling its ambassador from Tehran and announcing that it would reduce the number of diplomats assigned to Iran.
The most prominent leaders in the Shiite world have issued threatening statements against the Saudi monarchy, pledging that the House of Saud will pay a price for executing Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was an influential cleric among the Saudi Shiite minority.
One particular execution carried out by Saudi Arabia this weekend, that of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr, led to violent protests and the sacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
On Saturday, Saudi Arabia carried out the execution of Sheikh Nimr, a prominent Shiite cleric, along with 46 other individuals, many of whom faced suspect charges, causing a sectarian divide among the two major sects of Islam.
The Tunisian government shut down a jihadist cell that recruited females to marry terrorists in Syria.
The Islamic State’s affiliate in Bangladesh claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque that killed one person and injured three others.
Dozens were killed and around two-hundred wounded in two separate suicide attacks in a Hezbollah stronghold outside of Beirut Thursday night, Lebanese officials said.
Muqtada Al-Sadr, one of the most influential clerics in the Shiite world, has sent out an olive branch to Egypt’s Al-Azhar, a known hotbed for jihadi indoctrination and the most prominent Sunni institution in the world, seeking to unite the sects of Islam against the Jews.
On Friday night, a gunman suspected of working for the Islamic State opened fire on a Shiite mosque in the Saudi city of Qatif, killing five people and injuring nine others.
With astonishing speed, American influence—withered by years of Barack Obama’s indecisiveness—is fading, as Iraq realigns around Russia and Iran. Take it from the Iraqis, who are celebrating the arrival of “Putin the Shiite” in Syria, hoping he’ll swing into Iraq to pick up the fight against ISIS.
Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels, who threw the country into civil war this year after a coup attempt against exiled president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, have written a letter to the United Nations accepting a seven-point peace plan led by Oman.
A sizable group of Saudi clerics has called for jihad against the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, and by extension, Assad’s military allies Russia and Iran. The Islamist clerics praised the rebels Russia is currently bombing as “holy warriors of Syria” who are “defending the whole Islamic nation.”
Bahrain has ejected Iran’s Ambassador to Manama after uncovering an Iranian bomb-making factory in the tiny Gulf kingdom, officials said, who claimed that the facility was filled with members of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
While Russia has diverted much of the world’s attention to the war in Syria, the Islamic State’s online propagandists are working to divert attention away from the dangers of living under ISIS with the announcement of two new theme parks opening in Iraq and Syria.
The masked gunmen who kidnapped 16 Turkish construction workers from their job site in Baghdad at the beginning of September have released a video of their hostages, showing them alive and well, and they claimed that the captives will be released soon.
A new Iranian film about the early life of Muhammad is doing brisk business at the box office even as its creative team faces fatwa threats and some of the Muslim world’s most prominent Sunni clerics have called for it to be banned outright.
Sunni vs Shiite sectarian violence has long been a defining factor of Middle Eastern conflict; as ISIS has taken hold thorough the region that conflict has waxed rather than waned. But warnings of violence between the groups have now been
Bahraini officials are accusing Iran of providing the weaponry used Tuesday during a deadly terror attack that killed two policeman in the archipelago nation.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) released a video of their massacre at the Speicher army base in Tikrit, which left over 1,700 young Shi’ite cadets dead.
As the Shiite Houthi rebels who have taken over Sanaa continue to wage war against troops loyal to deposed Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group has taken credit for another Shiite mosque bombing, stating that they plan to “take revenge” upon the Houthis for attempting to control the country.
Three Islamist attacks on separate continents Friday morning have been tentatively linked to ISIS: an attack against an American factory in France that included a beheading, a shooting spree in Tunisia, and a suicide-bomb attack on a mosque in Kuwait.
Yemeni Houthi Shiite forces launched two separate attacks on Saudi border positions late Wednesday, killing three soldiers amid continuing escalation between both sides of the ongoing conflict in the war-torn country.
Bahrain says that it thwarted an Iran-backed plot to bomb Bahraini territory and Saudi Arabia, Reuters reports.
UN-organized peace talks between the competing Sunni and Shiite sides of the growing Yemeni civil war ended explosively after a journalist threw a shoe at a Houthi leader, prompting a melee between multiple parties at the resulting press conference. United Nations mediators nonetheless stated they were optimistic the two sides would resolve to end violence.
“Top Egyptian intelligence officers met recently with senior Hamas officials from outside the Gaza Strip to discuss the poor relations between Egypt and the Strip’s Hamas regime, senior officials of the Islamist organization confirmed on Tuesday,” Israel’s Haarez wrote on Wednesday.
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.
(Reuters) Saudi-led air strikes killed a group of around 20 Houthi fighters outside the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Wednesday and also shook the capital Sanaa in the north, militiamen opposed to the Houthis said.
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.
Iranian-backed militias consisting of Shia Muslims have released a video showing an alleged Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) member alive being burnt alive in Iraq, reminiscent of a similar video in which ISIS jihadists burnt alive a Jordanian pilot. The terrorist group members identify as Sunni Muslims, who consider Shia Muslims heretics.
The Associated Press reports thousands of Shiites filled the streets in Saudi Arabia on Saturday to mourn the latest fatality from a pair of ISIS bomb attacks against Shiite mosques in the Kingdom.
The Associated Press cites a release from the official Saudi Press Agency to report a second suicide bomb attack against a Shiite mosque in the Kingdom. At least four people were killed in the Friday attack.
