The annual celebrations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran on February 11 were marked this year by mass defiance of the US after George Bush’s State of the Union address on January 29 promised action against an "axis of evil" comprised of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
An interesting and ironic message appeared on an Islamic e-mail forum early this year. The author, a supporter of the Taliban and Usama bin Ladin, had previously been extremely critical of the Islamic State of Iran, which he saw as a sectarian, Shi’i state.
Despite weeks of claims in the West that the war in Afghanistan is over, that its main objectives have been achieved and the Taliban decisively defeated, that al-Qaeda is destroyed and a ‘civilized’ government installed in Kabul, hundreds of Afghans are still dying in ongoing US air attacks.
The contrast between the words and actions of the West’s leaders, and the remarkable ability of most Westerners to believe their politicians, and to accept uncritically a totally West-centric view of world affairs, despite the mass of contrary evidence before them, is frustrating at any time.
While assorted representatives of Afghan groups were meeting with Western leaders in Bonn to map out a government for Afghanistan “freely determined by its own people,” and American bombs were continuing to fall on towns and villages in some parts of the country, two other conferences on Afghanistan’s future were taking place in Washington and Pakistan.
Almost two months after the US began its bombing of Afghanistan, the Taliban remain defiant in substantial parts of the country. As we go to press, the Northern Alliance and the US are claiming to be about to capture the northern town of Kunduz...
Addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 10, US president George W. Bush did something that no US president has ever done: he used the word “Palestine” to describe the emasculated Palestinian ‘state’ that the US and Israel would like to set up in the West Bank and Ghazzah as part of a ‘peace settlement.’
Much has been made of George W. Bush’s throwaway characterization of the US’s “war on terrorism” as a ‘crusade’. To be fair, he was probably using the word in the sense of a determined, even zealous, pursuit of a cause, rather than in any specifically anti-Islamic sense...
Three days after the bombing of Afghanistan began, US officials admitted that they were running out of targets. The bombing is likely to continue, however, to satisfy public opinion. Hawks in Washington also want to attack other countries.
More than two weeks after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, the initial shock has worn off and the prevalent mood has changed to nervous anticipation as the world waits to see what the US will do next.
Tens of thousands of people may have died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11.
The US’s position as the dominant power in the world is now widely recognised, as is its freedom to do as it pleases, virtually anywhere in the world, with scant regard even for its Western allies, let alone anyone else. Equally clear is its ability to manipulate international institutions such as the UN to legitimise its actions...
This month, the al-Aqsa Intifada will be one year old. It was on September 28 that Ariel Sharon, then leader of Israel’s opposition, walked into the Haram al-Sharif surrounded by Israeli soldiers, in an calculated insult to the Palestinians and a demonstration of Israel’s effective sovereignty over the Farthest Mosque.
After months of street turmoil and parliamentary drama, Indonesia returned to relative calm with the removal of Abdurrahman Wahid from the presidency last month. His tumultuous 21-month rule was marked by moves to open up political freedom in the world’s fourth most populous Muslim country.
Despite the city effectively being turned into a fortress by an army of policemen equipped with tanks, armoured vehicles, helicopters and riot-control equipment, thousands of protesters gathered outside the venue of a meeting of senior politicians planning their future strategy for promoting their common interests.
Former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic appeared before the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague on July 3, to hear the charges of murder and crimes against humanity being brought against him.
As this issue went to press (June 26), Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was meeting with US president George W. Bush at the White House in Washington. It was the second meeting between the two men since each came to office earlier this year, and a calculated demonstration of the US’s partiality towards Israel.
Two major elections took place earlier this month. On June 7 general elections took place in Britain, the supposed birthplace of Parliamentary democracy. Tony Blair’s Labour party was returned to power for a second term by a ‘landslide’.
In order to understand fully the nature of the Revolution, and in particular if lessons are to be learnt by Islamic movements seeking to achieve similar results, it is the essence of Imam Khomeini’s work and vision that must be grasped.
The issue of Palestine is central to the Islamic movement. Obviously, the occupation of Islam’s third holy city by the greatest enemies of Islam and the greatest powers of kufr that history has ever known is a situation that Muslims can never accept. But the experience of opposing that occupation is proving a severe testing-ground for the Ummah.
