South Asia
Pakistan: sectarian strife mars Ashura
Celebrations of Muharram, the Shi’ite holy month highlighted by the Ashura festival, saw sectarian violence that left several dead across Pakistan.
Tag: sectarian war
Greater Middle East
Syria war portends Middle East ‘balkanization’?
Elements of Washington wonkdom are calling for the break-up of Syria into ethno-sectarian mini-states, and see the separatist contagion spreading to the rest of the Middle East.
Greater Middle East
Syria: civil wars in the civil war
As the Free Syrian Army now battles jihadist rebels as well as the regime, the two biggest jihadist factions are fighting each other for control over oilfields in Syria’s north.
Greater Middle East
Assad to The Hague? Don’t bet on it…
Syria does not recognize the International Criminal Court, so an ICC case against Bashar Assad can only be launched by the Security Council—where Russia holds a veto.
Greater Middle East
Syria’s Christians become propaganda pawns
Syria’s Christians are becoming propaganda fodder in an international war of perceptions, with atrocities carried out by the jihadist Nusra Front being attributed to the FSA.
Greater Middle East
Syria: minority peoples face cleansing
Armenians, Circassians, Mandaeans and other small ethnicities in Syria are being uprooted by jihadist terror, and increasingly see the Assad regime as the lesser evil.
Greater Middle East
Syria: Nusra Front attack Christian village
Jihadist forces of the Nusra Front launched an assault on the ancient Christian village of Maaloula, which is on the UNESCO tentative list of world heritage sites.
Iraq
Iraq: death squads target Mujahedeen Khalq?
At least 47 are dead following an Iraqi military assault on Camp Ashraf, a refugee settlement inhabited by exiled members of Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq.
Greater Middle East
Are you ready for World War 5?
The fearful synergy of regional sectarian war and Great Power rivalries holds the menace of the looming Syria intervention setting off a new global conflagration.
Greater Middle East
‘Black Friday’ in Lebanon: air-strikes, terror blasts —and confusion
A Salafist group opposed to the Assad regime attacks Israel, which “retaliates” by bombing the pro-Assad PFLP-GC, while presumed Shi’ite militants blow up Salafist mosques in Tripoli.
Greater Middle East
Egypt: Ikhwan unleash rage on Copts
Muslim Brotherhood supporters unleashed their rage on Coptic Christians, with several churches, homes, and Copt-owned businesses attacked throughout the country.
Greater Middle East
Egypt: labor repression amid Ikhwan crackdown
Two days before the bloody repression against Musilm Brotherhood protesters in Cairo, Egyptian army troops attacked striking steel workers in Suez governorate.