Month

Archives: Shiites

Iraq Deployed Shiite Volunteers to defeat ISIL, but now has a Militia Problem

Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) |. - The Iraqi government’s next big problem is coming into view: The group of powerful Shiite Muslim militias loyal to Iran seem to want to…

The top 4 Challenges facing the Arab World

By Tarek Osman | (Project Syndicate) | - - LONDON – Fifty years after the Six Days War, the Middle East remains a region in seemingly perpetual crisis. So it is no…

Execution-Crazy Saudi Gov’t railroads 14 Shiite Dissents with unfair Death Penalty

Execution-Crazy Saudi Gov’t railroads 14 Shiite Dissidents with unfair Death Penalty

Human Rights Watch | - - (Beirut) – Saudi Arabia should immediately quash the death sentences of 14 members of the Shia community for protest-related crimes, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch…

Could ISIL attacks in Tehran plunge the Middle East into greater turmoil?

By Mohammadbagher Forough | (The Conversation) | - - Iran experienced its first major ISIL attack on June 7, as armed men and suicide bombers targeted two symbols of the Islamic Republic…

US faces risks as Trump misreads the Middle East

Francis Ghilès | (OpenDemocracy.net) | - - Militarising the region further and taking sides in a recently concocted sectarian conflict will likely end in tears. Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, Saudi King…

What is the Sunni-Shiite Divide into Which Trump just Stepped?

Ken Chitwood | (The Conversation) | - - In his address in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, May 21, while calling on Muslim leaders to lead the fight against terrorism, President Donald Trump…

Revival of Iraqi Communism among Youth alarms Shiite Militias

Mustafa Habib | (Niqash.org) | - - Last week’s kidnapping of seven activists in Baghdad could be another sign of increasing tensions between secular parties in Iraq and the country’s ruling religious…

Syria’s forgotten pluralism and why it matters today

By Andrea Williams | (The Conversation) | - - The Syrian Civil War has been raging for six years. It has killed nearly half a million people and left over 12 million,…

Al-Sadr: Russia, America and al-Assad should all get out of Syria!

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday issued a broadside demanding that Russia and the United States withdraw from Syria and that strongman…

After Mosul: Can Iraq survive without a unified National Army?

By Balsam Mustafa | (The Conversation) | - - The operation to retake Iraq’s second city of Mosul from the so-called Islamic State [group] (IS) has entered its crucial phase. The Iraqi…

Iraqi Leaders Denounce Trump over Oil, Jerusalem; US Troops in Political Crossfire

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Since his inauguration, Donald J. Trump has not been making a good impression in Iraq, where the US has 6,000 troops, according to…

The Future of Iraq? As Police Lose Control Of Streets, Militias Take Over

Mustafa Habib | (Baghdad) | (Niqash.org) | - - The volunteer militias formed to fight the Islamic State group are now policing Baghdad’s neighbourhoods. But as they do, they compete with the…

Does Turkey’s Erdogan Dream of Neighboring Mosul?

By Lucy DerTavitian | (Informed Comment) | - - The battle over Mosul appears to have ignited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s expansionist Ottoman era fantasies. He gained a few more adversaries…

Sectarian Tensions flare in Baghdad as some Sunni Arab families forced from Neighborhoods

By Ibrahim Saleh | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | - - Several Sunni Muslim families were forced out of their mainly Shiite Muslim neighbourhood in Baghdad recently. Locals fear the creeping return of…

In Mosul, ISIL Extremists Wall in Residents, prepare for Armageddon

Special Correspondent | Mosul | (Niqash.org) | - - In Mosul, the Islamic State is preparing for a siege, building walls, tunnels and trenches and boasting that, like the Prophet Mohammed in…

The myth and history of Sunni-Shia divide

By Amir Ahmadi Arian | ( OpenDemocracy ) | - - Sunnis and Shias have lived together in peace for centuries, and up to the new millennium have barely had a history…

Saudi Bigot-in-Chief Declares Iranian Shiites “Not Muslim”

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - `Abd al-Aziz Al Shaikh, the chief jurisconsult or mufti for the interpretation of Muslim law in Saudi Arabia, said Wednesday that Iranian Shiites…

‘Unacceptable’ UN says US-Backed Iraqi Militias Recruiting Children

TeleSur | - - The United Nations said it was “deeply concerned” about reports the groups are using children on the frontlines of the fight against the Islamic State group. Amid reports…

Will Iraq’s next Government be . . . Iran-backed Shiite Militias?

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | - - The [so-called] Islamic State [IS] group has caused a realignment of Iraq’s political map. Next year’s provincial elections will signal who will…