The national security parole board for Guantánamo Bay has approved the transfer of 35-year-old Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmed, a former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, to an as-yet-undetermined “Arab-speaking country” that can offer “appropriate security assurances.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif warned Saudi Arabia not to send ground forces into Syria, as the Saudis have declared their intention to do. Anticipating charges of hypocrisy over the thousands of troops Iran has deployed in Syria, Zarif insisted they were merely “military advisers.”
Travelers from Visa Waiver Program countries who have visited Libya, Somalia, and Yemen will need to obtain a visa in order to travel to the U.S. under new Department of Homeland Security travel restrictions.
Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is willing to deploy ground troops to Syria to combat the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), as part of the U.S.-led coalition.
Contents: Syrian regime encircles Aleppo, causing new flood of refugees; Saudi Arabia ready to send ground troops into Syria; Saudi Arabia sees itself in an existential crisis; Turkey denies Russian reports of Syria invasion
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack aimed at the presidential residence in Aden, Yemen, on Thursday. Reports say that up to 11 people were killed in the blast and at least 20 wounded.
The prime minister and vice-president of Yemen, Khaled Bahah, fled the country with several of his ministers in October, after Iran-backed Houthi insurgents attacked the palace where they were living.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly recruiting young Afghans who visit to fight against the Iran-allied Shiite rebels known as Houthis in the ongoing Yemen war.
Contents: Reader comments on xenophobic ‘Soldiers of Odin’ in Finland; European Union said to be collapsing over migrant crisis; Mideast borders set by Sykes-Picot and Balfour declaration under fire; The 2016 market meltdown raises fears of financial crisis
Contents: China signs nuclear deals with Saudi Arabia and Iran; China signals support for Saudis in Yemen, and for Palestinian state
AFP relates the remarkable statistic that almost 100,000 refugees from Ethiopia and Somalia flowed into Yemen last year, often dying en route, despite a brutal civil war that mushroomed into an international conflict. As bad as things are in Yemen, Ethiopians and Somalis are still willing to risk death to emigrate there.
The Chinese government issued a joint statement with officials of Saudi Arabia in support of the Sunni government of Yemen under President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, days before President Xi Jinping is set to visit Iran, the main international support of the Shiite Houthi rebels.
A Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a police building in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, killing at least 26 people and injuring nearly 15, reports The Associated Press (AP), citing security officials loyal to Iran-allied Shiite rebels known as Houthis.
Contents: Pakistan tries to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran; Reader questions about Mideast country alignments
Contents: Mideast trends: Sunni-Shia countries align along predicted lines; Saudi Arabia faces increased social unrest with sudden austerity budget
The Arab Spring revolution that spread to various countries after it started in January 2011, when Tunisians assembled in the streets of their capital and overthrew their longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has a been a failure, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Al-Qaeda has threatened Saudi Arabia and the United States, pledging retribution in response to Riyadh’s mass execution of several militants earlier this month, including members of the terrorist group.
A Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) clinic in Yemen was hit by a “projectile” on Sunday, killing at least five people and wounding ten more in the blast, the humanitarian group announced.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), prompted by the mass execution of members of its rival group al Qaeda, threatened to destroy the Saudi Arabian prison where the jihadists were killed, Reuters reports.
The Iranian government has accused Saudi Arabia of “deliberately” bombing its embassy in Yemen’s capital of Sana’a in an air raid Wednesday night, leaving buildings damaged and a number of staff wounded. The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaberi Ansari,
The Obama administration is expected to release 17 detainees as early as next week, including “al Qaeda followers” who have been cleared for release from the Guantánamo Bay prison by a board established by the president.
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.
Members of the female Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) brigade mutilated and butchered a mom who breastfed her child in Raqqa, Syria, according to reports.
Saudi Arabia’s air force intercepted a Scud missile launched from Yemen Saturday night, according to the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Yemeni rebels known as Houthis and their allies.
The Islamic State’s “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria shrunk by 14 percent in 2015, according to an analysis by IHS, a defense research firm.
A missile fired from Yemen Saturday struck the Saudi southwestern border city of Najran, killing three civilians and injuring others, according to the Gulf Kingdom.
Nine months of war between a Saudi-led military coalition and a Yemeni rebel group have left thousands of civilians dead, a nation gravely polarized and the land strewn with debris, mines and unexploded bombs.
The much-touted seven-day cease fire in Yemen began on Tuesday afternoon and lasted maybe an hour, before there were reports of both Saudi warplanes dropping bombs on Houthi insurgents, and the Houthis shelling a loyalist stronghold. Naturally, each side blames the other for breaking the agreement.
EILAT, Israel – Breitbart Jerusalem was hard-pressed to find a single Palestinian Authority official willing to publically comment on Saudi Arabia’s newly announced “Islamic military alliance” purportedly forged to fight terror. “Palestine” is listed as one of 34 Muslim nations
A week-long cease-fire in Yemen’s civil war is scheduled to begin on Monday, followed on Tuesday by peace talks in Switzerland brokered by the United Nations.
An abnormally large number of desert locusts are expected to hatch beginning in January in Yemen, threatening to eat through a chunk of an already dangerously depleted food supply. Most Yemenis rely on humanitarian aid for food and water following a year of civil war and the rise of jihadist violence in the Middle East’s poorest nation.
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A huge explosion killed the governor of Yemen’s southern Aden province and six of his bodyguards on Sunday, security officials said, in an attack that was later claimed by a local Islamic State affiliate.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a member of a U.S.-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia, has deployed to Yemen more than 400 Colombian mercenaries who had been training in the Emirati desert to combat Iran-linked Shiite rebels known as Houthis, reports The New York Times (NYT).
Saudi Arabia imposed sanctions on at least 12 senior Hezbollah figures accused of responsibility for carrying out operations for the group, which it had designated a terrorist organization in March of last year, state media reported on Thursday. “These names
Former U.S. Army Master Sergeant John Hamen, abducted by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on October 20, has died in captivity. The exact circumstances of his death have not yet been disclosed.
Federal authorities charged four men in Ohio for conspiring to raise money and aid for Yemen’s al-Qaeda branch and its former member, U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki.
While the Obama administration deals with the fallout from bombing a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, the Saudis have a similar situation on their hands in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi insurgents.
Armed jihadists broke into three departments at the University of Aden in southern Yemen on Monday, distributing leaflets signed by the Islamic State (ISIS) and threatening death to university authorities if they do not enforce a strict separation of the sexes.
With the Shiite Houthi rebels losing ground in southern Yemen, Sunni jihadist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State appear poised to fill the power vacuum in areas where neither the Houthis nor internationally recognized President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi have been able to secure a foothold.
Sudan has agreed to send 10,000 soldiers to Yemen to help secure the southern port city of Aden and back up the Arab coalition in its armed resistance to Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the liberation of Houthi-held cities.
