The Islamic State took its headline-grabbing show to the world stage last week as IS-inspired militants launched near-simultaneous attacks against the Bardo Museum, a popular tourist destination in Tunis, and Shite mosques in Sanaa. The Sanaa attack, the first by Islamic State militants in Yemen, was followed up by a second attack by an IS-affiliated group, Lions of Lahi, against police in…
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Bahrain Strategic, International and Energy Studies (DERASAT) today convened and discussed key issues on the agenda. DERASAT Board of Trustees’ Chairman Khalid Ibrahim Al-Fadhala presided over the session and congratulated the appointed members, hailing their efforts in promoting the activities and programmes of the think tank.
They swore they ‘hacked military servers’ to threaten U.S. troops. Actually, these self-proclaimed ISIS whiz kids basically cobbled together information that was already online. So much for ISIS’s super-sophisticated hacker army. A group calling itself the “Islamic State Hacking Division” posted the names, addresses, and photos of 100 U.S. service members on…
Twelve years ago today, the U.S. and its NATO allies launched a disastrous and illegal invasion of the sovereign Republic of Iraq. The invasion, predicated upon false claims, such as the Iraqi leader, former President Saddam Hussein, aiding and abetting al-Qaida terrorists and concealing devastating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in contravention of various U.N. resolutions, has…
Bahrain Strategic, International and Energy Studies (DERASAT) today convened and discussed key issues on the agenda. DERASAT Board of Trustees’ Chairman Khalid Ibrahim Al-Fadhala presided over the session and congratulated the appointed members, hailing their efforts in promoting the activities and programmes of the think tank.
In his own way, President Barack Obama is trying every bit as hard to transform the Middle East as did the neoconservatives in George W. Bush’s administration. And Obama is no more likely to succeed. The neocons tried to mold the Middle East into their image of America; Obama is trying to shape the regional balance of power into his image of what it should look like.
Now is the time for the United States to upgrade its partnership with the Arab Gulf states into a real alliance. Should a nuclear deal between Iran and the U.S.-led group of nations known as the P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany) be reached, it will have significant implications for the security and stability of a strategically vital region for the United States and the global economy.
ISIS fighters attacked a military airport in Syria’s Homs province Monday as they pressed a westward offensive against government strongholds, an activist group said. Forays by ISIS, which is strongest in the northeast and east, into the provinces of Homs, Hama and even Damascus pose a…
The top five weapons importers — India, Saudi Arabia, China, the UAE and Pakistin — accounted for 33 percent of the total arms imports from 2010 to 2014, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfer report released last week. The UAE and Saudi Arabia combined accounted for 9 percent of the total arms imports over that period, eclipsing China’s 5 percent stake.
The United States is allied with Sunni Moslem aristocracies (and therefore with Sunni-headed nations), against Shia Moslem aristocracies (and therefore also against Shia-headed nations). Sunni aristocracies provide the huge ($1 million and larger) financial donations that sustain ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other jihadist armed movements, commonly called “terrorists.”