A nation is its institutions, and should those institutions weaken, the nation itself will be weakened. And should those institutions be destroyed, the nation, for all intents and purposes, will also be destroyed.
A dramatic example of how to destroy a nation unfolded in 2003 in Iraq as a US led axis invaded and occupied it, intentionally targeting and destroying Iraqi institutions and essential infrastructure, including the police, military, and the government as well as bridges
Over the weekend the Western press is blasting Russia and Syria for alleged war crimes in their assault on the terrorist controlled part of East Aleppo. A typical headline from The Washington Postreads “US accuses Russia of ‘barbarism’ and war crimes in Syria.” Meanwhile, the Long War Journal declares “US hits another Islamic State chemical weapons facility in Iraq.”
UK’s foreign minister Boris Johnson is crying foul that Russia should be investigated for war crimes. The Western media of
By Ayesha Fakhar
Terrorism has been widespread across the world and the impact of chronic terrorism on targeted societies has created mayhem in the entire world and is escalating with every passing day. The world today is unfortunately unpredictable, uncontrollable and not an orderly place to live in and sadly terrorism is a hostile activity specially aimed at civilians, with the purpose of advancing a specific agenda, political or other. Terrorism’s main aim has been to disrupt
The religious authority in Saudi Arabia responded aggressively to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s annual message Sept. 5 in which Khamenei attacked the Saudi government against the backdrop of the disputes between both states that culminated in forbidding Iranian pilgrims from the hajj this year. Iran also accused Saudi Arabia of negligence in managing the hajj, which led to the deaths of more than 760 people and injuries to around 1,000 in 2015.
Sheikh Abdulaziz Al
On my most recent trip to Saudi Arabia, I was greeted with a startling confession. In the past, when we raised the issue of funding Islamic extremists with the Saudis, all we got were denials. This time, in the course of meetings with King Salman, Crown Prince Nayef, Deputy Crown Mohammad Bin Salman and several ministers, one top Saudi official admitted to me, “We misled you.” He explained that Saudi support for Islamic extremism started in the early 1960s as a counter to Nasserism—the
Is America Any Safer” is the cover story of this September's Atlantic magazine. CNN and other media outlets are also commemorating the catastrophic terror attacks on the morning of September 11, 2001. Reflecting their collective paranoia or delusions of persecution, and exaggerated self-importance, Americans in general are perplexed about certain things with regard to 9/11: a) what went wrong with their intelligence; b) why some people hate them so much; c) America is no longer invincible
TEHRAN, Sep. 11 (MNA) – Hajj 2016 is proceeding while Iranian pilgrims didn't attend one of the biggest Muslim ceremonies due to conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Meanwhile, some pilgrims from Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq were also prevented from travel to Mecca because of harsh policies of the new generation of Saudi rulers. Since 2011, Saudi Arabia has been supporting salafist groups in Syria and Iraq and have tried to spread insecurity to Lebanon and Iran as well
As the so-called Islamic State demolishes nation states set up by the Europeans almost a century ago, IS’s obscene savagery seems to epitomise the violence that many believe to be inherent in religion in general and Islam in particular. It also suggests that the neoconservative ideology that inspired the Iraq war was delusory, since it assumed that the liberal nation state was an inevitable outcome of modernity and that, once Saddam’s dictatorship had gone, Iraq could not fail to become
by Eli Clifton
By outward appearances, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), the ex-terrorist Iranian opposition group hell-bent on regime change, appears to be losing their influence in the media. The group’s allegations about Iran’s nuclear program are met with increased skepticism after, for example, photographic evidence of “Lavizan-3,” a secret uranium enrichment facility in suburban Tehran, was revealed to be a stock photo from an Iranian safe company. But their spotty track record on
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump do not agree on much, but Saudi Arabia may be an exception. She has deplored Saudi Arabia’s support for “radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism.” He has called the Saudis “the world’s biggest funders of terrorism.”
The first American diplomat to serve as envoy to Muslim communities around the world visited 80 countries and concluded that the Saudi influence was destroying
Religious programming is popular throughout the Middle East. Television viewers call in or send questions via email or social media to ask scholars of Islamic law about all manner of things. Most questions relate to their personal lives, from the mundane—can Muslims listen to pop music?—to such issues as inheritance, alimony and contraception.
Every once in a while, however, a viewer raises an issue of political consequence. Such was the case with a 2015 episode
Russian-Israeli journalist and political analyst Israel Shamir offers his insights on why Trump's comments about Obama and Clinton being 'the founders of ISIS' may just put an end to Hillary Clinton's White House ambitions.
"Hillary Clinton, the candidate from the Democratic Party for the US presidency, is on easy street, or so it would seem," Shamir wrote, in a recent op-ed analysis for Svobodnaya Pressa.
"She has the reigning president on her side. She has the New York Times and the
ISIS is claiming credit for inspiring the latest terrorist attacks in Nice, France and on a train in southern Germany. We don’t know what was in the attackers’ minds or whether ISIS’ claim is false bravado or true, but a video obtained by our ISIS Defector Interview Project at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, ICSVE, may provide credence to ISIS’ claim. ISIS produces thousands of videos and memes to reach and radicalize those who are vulnerable, but this
The Nusra Front’s adoption of the new name Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and claim that it has separated itself from al-Qaeda was designed to influence US policy, not to make the group any more independent of al-Qaeda.
The objective of the manoeuvre was to head off US-Russian military cooperation against the jihadist group, renamed last week, based at least in part on the hope that the US bureaucratic and political elite, who are lining up against a new US-Russian agreement, may block