Four gun-wielding rebel fighters sit relaxing on a wall, their faces concealed by scarves and ski masks. All are Indonesians who came to Syria to join the Islamist insurgency, the cameraman says, speaking Indonesian peppered with Arabic phrases. He pans around and introduces them as ...
Eight rebel fighters have been crucified in Syria by the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) because they were considered too moderate, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on contacts on the ...
China will boost gun training for police in Beijing, a senior security official said, as it braces for what it calls an upsurge in militant violence around the country. The vice minister of public security and head of Beijing's Public Security Bureau, Fu Zhenghua, urged ...
Reclusive cleric takes charge in Iraq crisis
Najaf is far from Baghdad's palaces and the battlefields of northern Iraq. Its mud-brick houses, dirt alleys and concrete office blocks project little in the way of strength or sway. But it is here, where Iraq's most influential clerics work from modest buildings in ...
The Sunni uprising in Iraq has received enthusiastic support from many Persian Gulf Arabs, despite official unease over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, branded a terrorist group by governments in the region. While public opinion is hard to gauge in the tightly ...
Senior Afghan poll official quits, opens way for Abdullah return to race
Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who pulled out of the race alleging vote-rigging, indicated he might return after a senior election official resigned Monday. Abdullah, one of two candidates through to a second-round vote on June 14, had accused Independent Election Commission (IEC) Secretariat head ...
The safety breach at a government lab that may have exposed 84 workers to live anthrax centered on a pivotal lapse in procedure: researchers working with the bacteria waited 24 hours to be sure they had killed the pathogens, half the time required by ...
Egypt upholds death sentence on Brotherhood leader, 200 supporters
In a mass trial of Islamists who ruled Egypt for a year but face a fierce crackdown under newly installed President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, an Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed death sentences against the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and 182 supporters. Mohamed Badie and ...
Obama sends U.S. military advisers to Iraq as battle rages over refinery
President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was sending up to 300 U.S. military advisers to Iraq but stressed the need for a political solution to the Iraqi crisis as government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country's biggest refinery. Speaking after a ...
A U.S. interest now coincides with Iran's. Both wish to save the Shiite government of Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from the ISIS advance. But the prospect of an Iran-U.S. alliance will cause a political clash.
Saudis appear to warn Iran: Don't meddle in Iraq
Saudi Arabia gave an apparent warning to regional rival Iran on Wednesday not to intervene in the conflict in Iraq, which it said could escalate to full civil war with implications beyond Iraqi frontiers. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a fellow Sunni Muslim Gulf dynasty, ...
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki broadcast a joint appeal for national unity on Tuesday with bitter Sunni critics of his Shiite-led government — a move that may help him win U.S. help against rampant Islamists threatening Baghdad. Just hours after al-Maliki's Shiite allies had angrily ...
