Thousands of Coptic Christians clashed with police in southern Egypt during a funeral procession for seven people shot dead as they left a Christmas service hours earlier.
The White House said the US will suspend transfers of Guantánamo Bay detainees to Yemen—while admitting that al-Qaeda uses the existence of the Gitmo prison as a recruiting tool.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama have agreed to fund a special counter-terrorism police unit in Yemen to tackle the rising threat from the country.
The US-led Coalition's ongoing failure to admit to, let alone adequately investigate, the shocking scale of civilian deaths and destruction it caused in Raqqa is a "slap in the face" for survivors trying to rebuild their lives and their city, said Amnesty International a year after the offensive to oust ISIS. In October 2017, following a fierce four-month battle, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—the Coalition's Kurdish-led partners on the ground—announced victory over ISIS, which had used civilians as human shields and committed other war crimes in besieged Raqqa. Winning the battle came at a terrible price—almost 80% of the city was destroyed and many hundreds of civilians lay dead, the majority killed by Coalition bombardment. In a September 2018 letter to Amnesty, the Pentagon made clear it accepts no liability for civilian casualties. The Coalition does not plan to compensate survivors and relatives of those killed in Raqqa, and refuses to provide further information about the circumstances behind strikes that killed and maimed civilians. (Photo: SDF)
Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based radical imam with ties to the suspect in the Fort Hood killings, has been named in the apparent thwarted Christmas Day terrorism attempt.
For the second time this week, air-strikes are reported from Yemen—this time against purported al-Qaeda targets in the country’s north, leaving 34 dead.
In a new report, Human Rights Watch calls on Yemeni authorities to stop using lethal force against protesters and to end attacks on the media in southern Yemen.
Shi’ite Houthi rebels charge that US fighter jets bombed their positions in north Yemen, as the UK’s Daily Telegraph reports that Washington has ordered Special Forces teams to the country.
The new annual report from the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies finds that Iraq is the Arab world’s worst rights abuser for a second year running.
Egypt has become a police state where citizens receive no protection from torture, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) charges in a new report.
Coptic Christian shop owners in the Egyptian town of Farshoot are refusing to reopen their stores until the government compensates them for damages in two days of rioting over the weekend.
After months of dialogue, the Turkish government announced a plan to help end the 25-year conflict with a Kurdish separatist movement that has cost more than 40,000 lives.
