Violence is rising in eastern Turkey since imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan decided to abandon peace efforts and leave local commanders in charge of the conflict.
Yemen now faces multiple converging crises—with al-Qaeda and allied tribal militants in the Hadramout, with Shi’ite Houthi rebels in the north, and with armed separatists in the south.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called for the release of nine adherents of the Ahmadiyya sect detained under a controversial emergency law just extended by parliament.
An officer of the Saudi religious police, patrolling a park for unmarried couples illegally socializing, met physical resistance after he stopped a young couple walking together.
The Yemeni government and Huthi rebels should investigate alleged violations of the laws of war in the recent conflict and hold all those responsible to account, Human Rights Watch said.
Turkish politician and Kurdish rights activist Leyla Zana was sentenced to three years in prison for spreading terrorist propaganda.
Saudi Arabia announced the arrest of more than 100 in a supposed al-Qaeda plot based in neighboring Yemen to target the kingdom’s oil infrastructure.
Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria’s Bashar Assad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah met in Damascus for an unprecedented three-way summit on unity against Israel.
Saudi Arabia's attorney general confirmed that prominent journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi died in the country's Istanbul consulate. A statement said that Khashoggi was killed after a fight inside the consulate, and that 18 Saudis are detained pending an investigation. Turkish officials believe Saudi agents killed and dismembered Khashoggi. His body has not been found. "Now the same government that lied to the world, claiming for weeks that it had no knowledge of Khashoggi's fate, expects us to believe he died in a fight," said the Committee to Protect Journalists. "This ridiculous assertion is further evidence of a cover-up. We need an international investigation and relentless pressure on Saudi Arabia from the Trump administration, if we ever hope to get to the truth." (Photo: CPJ)
A Sana’a government official said that Yemen will build a rehabilitation center for transfered Guantánamo Bay detainees. The US has supposedly pledged $11 million for the project.
The US is set to hold talks with European and Arab partners in London to build support for a drive to defeat a perceived growing al-Qaeda threat in Yemen.
A group of Muslim clerics warn they will call for holy war if the US sends troops to Yemen. “Muslim sons are duty bound to carry out jihad and fight the aggressors,” the statement read.
