A series of explosions at locations in government buildings and buildings adjacent to the US embassy in Sana, the capital of Yemen, and noisy demonstrations against the regime have shown how angry the Yemeni people are becoming at president Ali Saleh’s undiminished cooperation with the American ‘war against terrorism’.
It was officially confirmed by different Chechen sources late in April that mujahideen commander Omar ibn Khattab has been martyred.
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister, could not have done more for his reputation as a heartless, bloodthirsty war-criminal. Dozens of rotting bodies littering the streets and homes of West Bank cities...
Israel’s murderous attacks on Palestinian towns and refugee-camps, which intensified on March 29 and were continuing at Crescent International press time (April 9), have set the Muslim masses on fire. Massive demonstrations have been held in such places as Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Rabat and Jakarta.
It is not often that one sees a consensus among Arab states on any issue, but the two-day Arab summit held in Beirut on March 27 and 28 unanimously endorsed a Saudi-inspired plan for Middle East ‘peace’, offering Israel normal ties and full peace in return for complete withdrawal from the Arab lands it occupied in the June 1967 war and recognition of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Twenty million dirhams required to make it “a world class event, the first of its kind in the Middle East, featuring live dances by world-renowned dance troupes from 5 continents, combined with a unique laser show, to be completed with the most well-choreographed fireworks display ever seen in this part of the world.”
During his recent gruelling 10-day, 12-country tour of the Middle East and Britain, US vice president Dick Cheney hoped to build a case for an Afghan-style war against Iraq...
Lebanese authorities have broken up a spy ring that provided Israel with information about the activities of the Hizbullah-led Islamic resistance in Lebanon, as well as of the military positions and activities of the Lebanese and Syrian armies...
The second intifada has developed a life of its own, as the blows delivered by Palestinian mujahideen on two consecutive days (March 20 and 21) showed, even as frantic efforts were under way to save the zionist occupiers by an American-brokered ceasefire.
The increasing activity of US military and intelligence officers in Somalia — and the need in general to justify the extension of the “war on terror” — led Washington to announce on March 18 that it had found incontrovertible evidence linking al-Qaeda to Islamic activists in Somalia.
Shaykh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifah, Bahrain's emir, proclaimed himself king on February 14, declaring the emirate the Kingdom of Bahrain and adding a crown to its flag. At the same time, he also conferred assent on constitutional amendments, and called for municipal and legislative elections in May and October respectively.
In a chilling reminder of sights common during the Serbs' war against the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina a decade ago, Israeli troops rounded up all males aged from 15-45 in the Deheishe refugee camp near Bethlehem on March 11, forcing them to strip to the waist before handcuffing and blindfolding them, standing them for hours in the sun, and then force-marching them into an empty factory for interrogation.
Saudi crown prince Abdullah bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz had more than the Israeli-Arab conflict on his mind when he staged his latest subterfuge. This was to disclose that he might propose that the Arab world offer Israel “normalization of relations” in exchange for withdrawal from the territories that Israel occupied in 1967.
The middle of last month saw yet another upsurge in the intensity of the violence in Palestine. From February 14 to February 20 at least 60 people were killed, two-thirds of them Palestinians. At the same time, the West found yet another approach to trying to disarm the Palestinians politically, with a new peace proposal from Saudi crown prince Abdullah.
In addition to suffering caused by the Saudis’ well-known incompetence, this year the hujjaj are being confronted by another ordeal: new security measures in Jeddah. Ostensibly intended to prevent pilgrims from disappearing after completing their Hajj, the plan is both sinister and degrading.
That Israel is a terrorist state and its prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is a war-criminal are undeniable. The murder on January 24 of Elie Hobeika, himself one of the most notorious war-criminals in Lebanon, was almost certainly carried out by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.
Since succeeding his father, Hafez, as president in 2000, Bashar al-Asad has been going through the motions of reforming the political, security and economic policies and practices bequeathed to him. But although he has released most of Syria’s estimated 50,000 political prisoners, declared corruption his principal target, and made some changes to the cabinet...
When leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held their 22nd summit on December 30-31, the air of achievement and success that once marked such occasions was nowhere to be seen.
Israel went on the offensive, both militarily and in propaganda terms, on January 9 after a Hamas operation inside 1948 Palestine (Israel) in which 4 Israeli soldiers were killed and two Hamas activists martyred. Israeli soldiers responded by demolishing 73 homes in nearby Ghazzah, according to the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), making 123 families — adding up to more than 800 people — homeless.
Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika claimed spectacular diplomatic success last month when he concluded security accords with the US and NATO and signed an economic agreement with the EU that provides, on his own insistence, for cooperation in the “war against terrorism”.
