Saturday, 05 January 2013
Syrian opposition fighters Friday killed a relative of political security chief Rustom Ghazali, a key regime figure, on Friday in the southern province of Deraa, a watchdog said, as government warplanes and artillery pounded restive suburbs of Damascus. State television also reported the attack, without ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Saddam Hussein’s Vice President Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Fridat of seeking to implement an Iranian-backed agenda to divide Iraq. In a video-taped message obtained by Al Arabiya, the fugitive ad-Douri -- who was confirmed as the head of Iraq’s Baath Party following the ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Protesters in support of the Arab Spring-inspired reform movement gathered near the Jordanian capital’s Husseini mosque on Friday to commemorate the second anniversary of the organization. “We are here today to commemorate the second anniversary of this Jordanian movement for reform, the movement that called for change and ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr visited a Baghdad church that was the scene of a deadly 2010 attack as well as one of the Iraqi capital’s main Sunni mosques on Friday, an apparent overture to other religious groups as opposition mounts against his rival, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The cleric’s stops at the holy ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Egyptian security forces found anti-tank missiles in a warehouse in Egypt’s northern Sinai on Friday, in a region south of Arish city. According to a security source, the missiles were supposed to be shipped to Gaza through underground tunnels. He described the missiles as being 75 centimeters long, with a two kilometer ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Iran, whose relationship with the United States has worsened over its disputed nuclear program, blames Washington for violating a nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its failure to wipe out terrorism in Afghanistan. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary, Saeed Jalili, who is on a visit to New Delhi spoke to ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
The FBI suspected that U.S.-born Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen, could have bought flight tickets for three of the 9/11 hijackers before the attacks, a transparency watchdog said. Judicial Watch, which is based in Washington, cited government documents obtained under a Freedom of ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
A senior Pakistani militant commander has been appointed to succeed warlord Mullah Nazir, who orchestrated attacks in Afghanistan until his death in a U.S. drone strike, officials said Friday. Nazir, killed late Wednesday and buried Thursday, was the main militant commander in the tribal district of South Waziristan, where ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Lebanon is to keep its border with Syria open to refugees but will seek more aid from other Arab states and the international community, its government decided in a meeting late Thursday. The cabinet rejected calls from ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement to close the border with the number in Lebanon already totaling ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians joined a rare rally staged by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group in Gaza on Friday, as tensions ease with rival Hamas Islamists ruling the enclave since 2007. A long hiatus in peace talks between Abbas’s administration and Israel has narrowed ideological differences between the two ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
The Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban as punishment for campaigning for girls’ education has been discharged from the British hospital treating her, but will return soon for more surgery, the hospital said Friday. Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, said 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
A man in Yemen has been charged with spying for Israel and will soon face trial in the southern port city of Aden, official sources said on Friday. The man was arrested three weeks ago in the city of Taez after a period of surveillance, and was named as 24-year-old computer engineer Ibrahim al-Dharahi, the defense ministry’s ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Iran has agreed to hold talks with six major powers about its atomic program in January but the date and venue has yet to be decided, the country’s top nuclear negotiator said on Friday. The six powers want to rein in Iran’s uranium enrichment program to ensure it is geared only for civilian energy, through a mix of ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Three U.S. senators, including the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have stepped up their pressure on the CIA over its response to “Zero Dark Thirty,” a new film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In a letter sent to the CIA and released on Thursday, Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Intelligence Committee, Armed ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of taking 10 billion Egyptian pounds (U.S. $1.5 billion) from the American government, according to claims by Egyptian lawyers. An immediate investigation into the accusation was ordered by Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah on Thursday. The lawyers, Mohamed Ali Abd al-Wahab ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
A car bomb exploded at a crowded petrol station in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 40, opposition activists said. The station was packed with people queueing for fuel that has become increasingly scarce during the country's 21-month-long insurgency aimed at overthrowing ... Read More
Friday, 04 January 2013
Sudan, S. Sudan presidents to meet in summit to defuse tension Leaders of Sudan and South Sudan are due to meet Friday in the Ethiopian capital to push for progress on stalled economic, oil and security deals that were drafted to ease tension between the former civil war foes. The meeting between Sudanese President Omar ... Read More
Thursday, 03 January 2013
Egypt’s main opposition, the National Salvation Front, said on Thursday that it is willing to engage in a national dialogue with President Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood if a number of conditions were met. The front said that the dialogue over controversial constitutional laws should have a clear agenda and that ... Read More
Thursday, 03 January 2013
A car bomb killed at least 20 Shiite Muslim pilgrims at a bus station in the Iraqi town of Mussayab on Thursday, at the peak of a Shiite religious commemoration. The blast erupted late in the afternoon in the town which is about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the Iraqi capital. It targeted worshippers ... Read More
Thursday, 03 January 2013
War-torn Syria is threatened with “schemes of division and partition,” the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised speech on Thursday. “We fundamentally and ideologically reject any form of partition or division of any Arab or Islamic country and call for them to preserve ... Read More