Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi should close down the Israeli embassy in Egypt and not the Syrian one, a Syrian minister said on Sunday. Omran Zoubi, Syria’s Information Minister, was responding to Morsi’s announcement from Saturday that Egypt was cutting diplomatic ties with Damascus and has ordered Syria's embassy in Cairo to be closed.
The Syrian rebels are “cannibals” and should not be given arms, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. "I think you will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines, in front of the public and
In an atmosphere similar to a Friday sermon, a prominent Salafist preacher recently described participants in the upcoming demonstrations against Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi as hypocrites and unbelievers. “I pray to God that the intuitions of these unbelievers and hypocrites will be reversed,” said Sheikh Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, deputy head of the Salafi Legitimate Authority
Some of Cairo’s gas stations have been temporarily turned into paid car parks, in an attempt to drum up business amid a squeeze on fuel supplies. With pumps running dry, entrepreneurial workers at some stations decided to charge motorists to park, rather than fill up, especially in the busy downtown Cairo area. Egypt’s
A video uploaded to the internet Saturday demonstrates the extent to which the Syrian civil war has turned into a merciless religious war between the largely Sunni Muslim populace and the Alawite minority regime, supported by Shiite Iran and Hizbullah. The video shows the demolition of a Shiite mosque by rebel forces affiliated with
Egypt's Salafist al-Nour Party on Saturday boycotted a “support for Syria” rally in which president Mohammed Mursi announced the cutting of ties with the Syrian regime. The group said the boycott was due to party officials questioning the timing of Mursi’s announcement. "The first reason we boycotted the rally is that because we
Iran is to reportedly send 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad in the fight against opposition forces, according to the The Independent on Sunday. In what was described as an Iranian “military decision,” the British newspaper said Iran was now “fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime,” citing unnamed pro-Iranian
Riot police on Saturday used tear gas to clear a central Istanbul square and park that had formed the heart of a broad challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Washington Post reported. Within an hour of a warning from Erdogan that central Istanbul would be cleared by Sunday whether or not protesters
The election of a moderate Iranian president could help rein in hostility between Tehran and its Arab neighbors, but many Arabs doubt he can end a sectarian confrontation that has been inflamed by war in Syria. Hassan Rowhani, a Shiite cleric known for a conciliatory approach and backed by reformists, will have only limited
Israel issued an unusually blunt reaction to the election of Iran's new president on Saturday by saying it was supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who decides on nuclear policy, not the president. "Iran's nuclear program has so far been determined by Khamenei, and not by Iran's president," the foreign ministry said, after Hassan Rouhani
