The jihad against a non-existent “film” produced by non-existent “Jews” continues to claim lives, with the latest attack launched by militants in Egypt’s Sinai on Israeli border troops.
Both imperialism and political Islam see in the current crisis the opportunity to revive the dystopian dialectic of jihad-versus-GWOT—and reverse the gains of the Arab Spring.
In the wave of protest over a provocateur-produced "film" dissing the Prophet Mohammed, jihadists could be seizing back the initiative from secular revolutionaries in the Arab world.
The eleventh 9-11 anniversary saw riots in Libya and Egypt over an Islamophobic film produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer.
Egypt President Mohammed Morsi issued a new law that bans pre-trial detentions of journalists for speaking out against the government, overturning the Mubarak-era practice.
Hamas security forces arrested a Salafi sheikh upon his release from a Gaza hospital where he was treated for wounds sustained in an Israeli targeted strike.
A court in Egypt sentenced 14 Islamists members of the jihadist organization al-Tawhid wal-Jihad to death for their roles in a series of attacks in northern Sinai.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood blamed the deadly attack at the Rafah crossing on Israel’s Mossad, while the IDF said it was carried out by “global jihadists.”
The Egyptian government announced that it has requested the release of the last of its citizens currently being held at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.
Talk about strange bedfellows! This week witnessed the surreal spectacle of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, the most bellicose neoconservative in the Trump administration, visiting Turkey to try to forestall an Ankara attack radical-left, anarchist-leaning Kurdish fighters that the Pentagon has been backing to fight ISIS in Syria. "We don't think the Turks ought to undertake military action that's not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States," Bolton told reporters. Refering to the Kurdish YPG militia, a Turkish presidential spokesman responded: "That a terror organization cannot be allied with the US is self-evident." Bolton left Turkey without meeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then publicly dissed the National Security Adviser's stance as a "serious mistake." YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud, in turn, shot back: "Turkey, which has been a jihadist safe-haven and passage route to Syria since the beginning of the conflict, has plans to invade the region end destroy the democracy created by blood of sons and daughters of this people." (Photo: ANF)
French prosecutors issued international arrest warrants for three prominent Syrian officials charged with collusion in crimes against humanity, in what human rights lawyers are calling a major victory in the pursuit of those believed responsible for mass torture, abuse and summary executions in the regime's detention facilities. The warrants name three leading security officials—including Ali Mamlouk, a former intelligence chief and senior adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, as well as head of the Air Force Intelligence security branch, Jamil Hassan. A third, Abdel Salam Mahmoud—an Air Force Intelligence officer who reportedly runs a detention facility at al-Mezzeh military base near Damascus—was also named. Hassan and Mamlouk are the most senior Syrian officials to receive an international arrest warrant throughout the course of the conflict. (Photo of hunger strikers at Syrian prison via Foreign Policy. Credit: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi signed a cybersecurity law that gives the government broad authority to block websites deemed to constitute a threat to national security or the economy, imposing prison terms for anyone found guilty of running or just visiting such sites. Amnesty International described the new law as giving "the state near-total control over print, online and broadcast media." More than 500 websites had already been blocked in Egypt prior to the new law being signed. There is another cybersecurity law before the president, which would places all Twitter accounts with more than 5,000 followers under government supervision. With street protests in Egypt all but banned, the Internet has been one of the last spaces left for dissent. (Photo: Egypt Daily News)
