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POPSSaudi Royal Air Force carries strikes against Yemeni rebels
The same dynamic has played out in various forms in Lebanon, where Iran supports the Shiite militant Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia favors a U.S.-backed faction, and in Iraq, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have thrown support to conflicting sides in the Sunni-Shiite struggle. A top Saudi government adviser confirmed "a large scale" military operation underway on the Saudi-Yemeni border with further reinforcements sent to the rugged, mountainous area. "It is a sustained operation which aims to finish this problem on our border," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. He said Saudi troops were coordinating with Yemen's army, but Yemen's defense ministry denied the Saudis were inside the country. The northern rebels, known as Hawthis, have been battling Yemeni government forces the past few months in the latest flare-up of a sporadic five-year conflict. They claim their needs are ignored by a Yemeni government that is increasingly allied wit
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POPSNiqab Debate in Egypt: Divided Scholars Hijab, chador, burqa or niqab? " The veiling of Muslim women continues to provoke controversy. This time it is the niqab, or face veil, at the center of the conflict-charged fundamental debate within the Islamic world.
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POPSHonour killing girl 'wanted love' The court heard Mr Unal was brought up as a Sunni Muslim while the Gorens were from the Alevi branch of the faith. While they came from places no more than 60 miles apart in Turkey, a relationship between the sects "would not have been tolerated". The trial continues.
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POPSWho Are the Taliban? Does anyone understand these fanatics? Restore peace, no! Establish their version of Sharia, maybe, but at what price to human life, mostly not their own?
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POPSSaudis Consider Russian Air Defense System This is what I am talking about. Keep Iran away from this defense system, because Israel will attack Iran before it is in place. Before we are ready. It still may happen, with U.S. help and/ or approval...Saudis are strict and treat women like garbage, but this little act will keep peace a day or two longer....
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POPSMosul From the New York Times archives BY REV. DR. BACON. March 20, 1852, Wednesday Page 1, 1249 words Dr. BACON gave his second lecture on Eastern Travels at the Tabernac'e last evening, The lecturer proposed briefly to speak of the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the adjacent countries. Tile section attended to embraces nearly all the countries noticed in the New Testament as having been visited by the Apostles of Christ--the regions most celebrated in ancient history Babylon and Tyre, the first of tile great empire cities and the Syrian kingdoms. From Diarbakir you descend the Tigris to Mosul ... The scenery is far surpassed by any ever seen by the lecturer. It banks are covered by ancient tombs and cities, and in one place where the ruins of a massive bridge, with some arches and towers, that in its time must have surpassed in strength and beauty, the bridges that span the Thames in London.
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POPSU.S. Forces Didn't Really Hurt Anyone in Iraq: Reuters rewrites history What's more, Iraqis, according to Reuters, don't have a beef with our decision to invade their country, or the fact that we dropped more munitions on them than the allied totals for World War I. It was, you know, Abu Ghraib ... While many Iraqis were grateful Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted, some dark chapters in the U.S. occupation, such as the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, fueled broad resentment. Take-away: this never happened. This stuff is ubiquitous in our reporting, and will help make the next senseless war possible with minimal dissent.
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POPS"Why I threw the shoe," by Muntazer al-Zaidi From the piece: "When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora."
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POPSGay in Iraq The first comment in response to this article : webparent, Tulsa (8/17/2009 7:29:30 AM) "While I do not agree with such measures I also do not agree with homosexuality......these Sunni's are following the way of the curan and the bible. Maybe people should reconsider not being gay. Whether its their choice or not is irrelevant. They can make a change. If nothing else they can be celibate. It is not the natural way of life nor is it in god's will. I and others will pray that this torture stops and new choices are made." Read more at source...
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POPSAre the Taliban Surrounding NATO Armies and Cutting them Off? The logistics war in AfPak were on full view Sunday, with the long fingers of blazing conflagrations jabbing the sky amidst billowing waves of jet black smoke both in Chaman in Pakistan near the Afghan border, and in Kunar Province. The bombing of supply trucks is to this war what u-boat attacks on supply ships were to the two world wars. In Chaman, Dawn reports, "At least 15 oil tankers, trailers and containers caught fire in Chaman on Sunday night after a blast in a vehicle carrying supplies for Nato forces in Afghanistan." The NATO supply vehicle became a sitting duck because the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been closed for the last few days over a dispute about whether Pakistani border guards may search Afghan fruit trucks.
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POPSIran calls for Muslims Nations to Unite to Receive Mahdi Which implicitly means the wish wreak havok, blood, and mayhem in the world. "Since the armed forces are commanded by the Supreme Leader, they are thus obeying the orders of the awaited Mahdi," Saeedi said, adding "the Revolutionary Guards and the armed forces in Iran hold religious authority to prepare for the appearance of the Mahdi." The Mahdi is believed by Muslims to be arriving before Judgment Day to rid the world of injustice. Although present in both major Islamic schools of thought, the Mahdi is more prominent in the Shiite doctrine than the Sunni one."
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POPSIslamic Supremacist Group Holds First U.S. Conference
director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told FOXNews.com. Phares said that Hizb ut-Tahrir, rather than training members to carry out terrorist acts like Al Qaeda, focuses instead on indoctrinating youths between ages of 9 and 18 to absorb the ideology that calls for the formation of an empire " or "khilafah" " that will rule according to Islamic law and condones any means to achieve it, including militant jihad. Hizb ut-Tahrir often says that its indoctrination "prepares the infantry" that groups like Al Qaeda take into battle, Phares said. "It's like a middle school that prepares them to be recruited by the high school, which is Al Qaeda," he said. "One would compare them to Hitler youth. ... It's an extremely dangerous organization." Phares said Hizb ut-Tahrir has strongholds in Western countries, including Britain, France and Spain, and clearly is looking to strengthen its base in the U.S.
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POPSUS "dark night" Policy to Ensure Iraq Remains a Client State In beginning the history of the near future, it will be particularly importamnt to look at how this alleged new policy deals with the growing unrest between indigenous Iraqi factions, notably Shi;ite-Sunni, and Kurds-Baghdad government. A shortish and interesting article which offers a non-western analysis which may connect brain cells.
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POPSKurdistan Intensifies Split from Iraq
<<<"This lays the foundation for a separate state — it is not a constitution for a region," said Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of the national Parliament. "It is a declaration of hostile intent and confrontation. Of course it will lead to escalation." Kurdish officials defended their efforts to adopt a new constitution that defines the Kurdistan region as comprising their three provinces and also tries to add all of hotly contested and oil-rich Kirkuk Province, as well as other disputed areas in Nineveh and Diyala Provinces. Iraq's federal Constitution allows the Kurds the right to their own constitution, referring any conflicts to Iraq's highest court. Susan Shihab, a member of Kurdistan's parliament, said she no longer had faith that the rights of Kurds under the federal constitution from 2005 would be respected. "What is missing the most in the new Iraq is confidence," she said. At the same time, though, some Kurds acknowledge that they have grown frustrated with
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POPSIran Documentaries Right now, there are massive protests in the streets of Tehran , calling the latest election victory of Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a fraud. America has a long, complex history with Iran. Did you know the CIA overthrew the democratically elected president of Iran in the 1950s? Did you know that after Sept 11th, Iranians in Tehran marched in the streets chanting "Death to Terrorists"? Did you know that Iran assisted the US Invasion of Afghanistan? Iran is an ancient, complex culture. In many way, culturally the West has more in common with Shia Iran than we do with Sunni Saudi Arabia. Remember, al Qaeda is a Sunni group, and they consider the Shia to be heretics. They Iranian theocracy is no peach, but A: They are rational and survival-oriented in a way that Sunni terrorists are not. B: Iran has a massively YOUNG population who are on the 'net. They are not fanatic America haters.
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POPSMisguided Rhetoric Krauthammer concludes: Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country.
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