The US is to resume military sales to Bahrain, suspended due to human rights concerns during last year’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the State Department announced. Rights groups says arbitrary arrests and torture continue.
US military advisors to Yemen, pulled out last year due to human rights abuses by the crumbling regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, are set to return—as drone strikes continue on territory controlled by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The Pentagon is this week leading “Eager Lion 2012″—the largest multinational military exercises in the history of Jordan, with maneuvers planned along the Syrian border as well as in the Gulf of Aqaba, across from Israel.
Bahraini authorities arrested Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, for messages he posted on Twitter criticizing the Interior Ministry and demanding the release of other arrested rights advocates.
As Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing the Syrian regime of war crimes, Ankara invoked the threat of NATO intervention if fighting again spills over the border into Turkish territory.
A previously unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for the latest suicide bombing in Damascus—which killed 11 at a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers. Iran blamed “foreign powers” that want to inflame the conflict for the blast.
A protest leader was found dead after overnight clashes between the pro-democracy demonstrators and police in Bahrain, as the Formula One Grand Prix car-racing spectacle is set to open in the conflicted Persian Gulf mini-state.
Ali Mushaima, a 28-year-old Bahraini activist, has been on hunger strike for 10 days outside the US embassy in London, to call attention to Washington’s complicity in the repression of Bahrain’s civil revolutionary movement.
The Kurdish opposition bloc walked out of the Syrian National Council at a meeting in Istanbul, accusing host country Turkey of "pressuring the SNC" to omit the demands of the Kurdish members in the final document outlining a transition plan.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has seized several provinces in southern Yemen, keeping government troops at bay—and in the latest clash, seizing two tanks. The US launched at least six drone strikes against AQAP targets last month.
Reactions to the passing of Pope Shenouda III, leader of Egypt’s Coptic Christians, reveals much about the country’s ominous but still tentatively hopeful political situation. Compass Direct News, which documents persecution of Christians around the world, on March 23 noted… Read moreEgypt: now the Muslim Brotherhood are the moderates…
Syria held a referendum on a new constitution, with much of the international community dismissing it as a “sham.” The vote comes just one day after 89 people were reportedly killed in Homs, the center of the opposition.
