President Joe Biden announced Feb. 4 the United States will end support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen that has deepened suffering in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country. “This war has to end,” Biden told diplomats in his first visit to… Read moreBiden pledges end to US support for Yemen war —almost
The investigation by the Syrian transition government into the March violence against the Alawites in Latakia province has been submitted—but the full findings have not been made public, and it apparently exonerates the government of involvement. Meanwhile southern Suwayda province has seen a perhaps even deadlier eruption of violence—this time pitting Druze against Bedouin, with the role of the government similarly the source of much contestation (and fodder for Internet partisans). And a Damascus protest against the violence and for co-existence was attacked by goons. Amid all this, Israel is militarily intervening, the government looks to Turkey for military aid, and both the US and Russia still have forces on the ground—treating the country as a Great Power chessboard. In Episode 288 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that the Syrian Revolution is poised on a razor's edge, ready to descend into ethno-sectarian war and authoritarianism unless political space can be kept open for the secular-democratic civil resistance that began the revolution 14 years ago. (Image: Banners read "Syrians must not shed Syrian blood" and "We reject Israeli aggression against Syria." Credit: The Syria Campaign via Facebook)
US warplanes and drones struck supposed al-Qaeda targets across three provinces in Yemen, killing at least 12 suspected militants and wounding multiple civilians.
President Trump's first commando raid left dead the US-born 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the late leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Saudi fighter jets carried out air-strikes on a peaceful rally in Yemen's capital Sanaa that had been called to protest Saudi air-strikes, leaving several dead.
The US killed "dozens" of AQAP fighters in an air-strike on a training camp, but claims of denying the group "safe haven" ring hollow as its zones of control grow in Yemen.
President Obama delivered his plan to close Guantánamo Bay to Congress—to be immediately met by Republican opposition, with Ted Cruz calling for the facility's expansion.
Human Rights Watch called on the US to cancel a pending arms sale to Saudi Arabia in the absence of serious investigations into alleged laws-of-war violations in Yemen.
The US State Department finds that the number of "terrorist attacks" around the world rose by a third in 2014, largely due to the expansion of ISIS and Boko Haram.
Over the past two months, the ISIS international franchise has made gains from West Africa to the Indian subcontinent, with militants in several countries proclaiming for the "caliphate."
Claims that the Houthi uprising in Yemen is an Iranian plot ignore that the Houthis' brand of Shia is heretical to Iran's ayatollahs—and that Yemen's Shi'ites have real grievances.
Under the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie, an attack on free speech is being used to justify further attacks on free speech… in the paradoxical name of protecting free speech.
