Greater Middle East

Egypt: court upholds convictions of activists

Egypt's Court of Cassation upheld convictions and three-year prison sentences of three activists for violating the country's controversial new anti-protest law.

Greater Middle East

Kurdish forces claim victory at Kobani

Kurdish forces at Kobani announced that the town is now under their full control, with ISIS militants driven out of all neighborhoods. The claim was confirmed by the Pentagon.

Greater Middle East

Egypt: leftist protester killed at Tahrir Square

Protests around the commemoration of Egypt's 2011 revolution may be dominated by Islamist Morsi supporters, but an early demonstration called by a socialist party saw one killed.

Greater Middle East

Egypt: retrial for police in protester deaths

Egypt's Court of Cassation ordered a retrial for four police officers accussed in the deaths of 37 detained protesters in a van outside a Cairo prison after the 2013 coup.

Greater Middle East

Yemen’s Houthi rebels: Iran’s proxies?

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.

Greater Middle East

Lebanon’s hashish valley arms against ISIS

The Bekaa Valley's cannabis farmers, who armed to resist Lebanese army eradication efforts, now say they are ready to resist any ISIS incursion into their fastness.

Greater Middle East

Egypt: atheist gets prison for Facebook posts

An Egyptian court in Baheira governorate sentenced student Karim Ashraf Mohamed al-Banna to three years in prison for announcing on Facebook that he is an atheist.

Greater Middle East

Saudi blogger to be flogged for blasphemy

Blogger Raif Badawi, convicted of "offenses to Islamic precepts" in Saudi Arabia, is to receieve 1,000 lashes at the start of his 15-year prison term.

Greater Middle East

Egypt: secularism and dictatorship?

A sweeping "anti-terrorism" decree and expanded crackdown on opposition come as Egypt's President al-Sisi is making overtures to the Copts and invoking pluralism.

Greater Middle East

Turkey: clashes between PKK, Islamists

Three were killed in southeastern Turkish town of Cizre in clashes between Islamist militants of the Huda-Par and followers of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Greater Middle East

Syria: new rebel alliance in besieged Aleppo

With regime bombardment intensifying, Syrian rebel factions in Aleppo announced a new "Shamiyya Front"—a further consolidation of "moderate" Islamist forces.