Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not hesitate to use chemical weapons against opposition forces and may have already deployed them, Nawaf Fares, the first Syrian ambassador to defect since the uprising against Assad began, told the BBC on Monday. Fares, a former ambassador to Iraq, insisted that Assad’s days are numbered but warned that
The struggle for Egypt’s future reaches a critical juncture on Tuesday when a court could dissolve a body tasked with writing the new constitution, a step that would open a new front in the power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. The same court will also hear a separate legal case demanding
Protesters threw tomatoes, shoes and a water bottle as members of the press accompanying Clinton walked to their vans.Prominent Christian Egyptians snubbed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday because they feel the U.S. administration favors Islamist parties over secular and liberal forces in society at the expense of Egypt's 8 million Christians. The
Saudi Arabia will make amendments to rules governing religious police chasing people, a newspaper reported on Monday. A group of procedures to govern the country’s Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice Commission’s chasing of people will soon be released, head of the commission, Abdul Lateef al-Sheikh, told al-Watan newspaper. Despite a
Protesters threw tomatoes and shoes at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade on Sunday during her first visit to Egypt since the election of Islamist President Mohammed Mursi. A tomato struck an Egyptian official in the face, and shoes and a water bottle landed near the armored cars carrying Clinton’s delegation in the
Heavy clashes between rebels and regular troops erupted in Damascus on Sunday, in the “most intense” fighting in the capital since the start of the anti-regime revolt in Syria 16 months ago, a monitoring group said. “The regular army fired mortar rounds into several suburbs” where rebels of the Free Syrian Army are entrenched,
The chairman of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says any decision to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows, rests in the hands of the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi says Iran has a contingency plan to close the key
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks Sunday with Egypt’s top military leaders, just hours after calling for them to help smooth the country’s full transition to democracy. The top U.S. diplomat arrived in Egypt amid a complex power struggle being played out between the newly-elected Islamist president, Mohammed Mursi, and the Supreme
Egypt’s army chief said on Sunday the military will not let “one group” dominate the country, intensifying a standoff with the Muslim Brotherhood from which the new president has emerged. “Egypt will not fall. It is for all Egyptians and not just one group... The armed forces will not allow it,” Field Marshal Hussein
A growing terrorist state in Sinai and disputes among Arabs in Lebanon increase the likelihood of more missile attacks on Israel, says a defense analyst. Dr. Norman A. Bailey, Ph.D., is a lecturer at The Israeli National Defense College and an assistant professor at the Washington-based Institute of World Politics, wrote in Globes that
