Special to WorldTribune.com By Brian M. Downing, FreePressers.com Recent fighting in Damascus and Aleppo has differed markedly from that of only a couple of months ago when the regular army swiftly defeated rebel enclaves in Homs, Idlib, and Deraa. Fighting in Damascus has persisted for several weeks now and while it trails off at times, […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Brian M. Downing For over two weeks, Syrian troops have surrounded Homs, a city of about a million people not far from the northern border with Lebanon. President Bashir Assad’s troops are firing indiscriminately into the hapless town, entering parts of it, and preparing a full assault to crush the resistance […]
Special to WorldTribune.com ABU DHABI — Bahrain has deployed thousands of troops to quell another Shi’ite revolt in part aimed at a largely Pakistani foreign labor force that also mans security and military forces. Bahrain’s military and Interior Ministry have deployed more than 10,000 troops around Manama to stop plans by Shi’ites to storm the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com ABU DHABI — Sunni Islamists have won a majority of Kuwait’s parliament. Authorities said Islamic opposition candidates won 34 out of 50 seats in the parliament. They said Sunni Islamists, bolstered by tribal support, won 23 seats, compared to nine in the previous parliament. No women were elected. “The Kuwait of tomorrow […]
Special to WorldTribune.com ABU DHABI — Kuwait is holding parliamentary elections amid rising violence. Up to 400,000 Kuwaitis began to cast their votes on Feb. 2 in elections described as the most tense in decades. The heated campaign has been marred by tribal and ethnic violence, which prompted an expanded security presence in Kuwait, which […]
Special to WorldTribune.com BAGHDAD — The U.S. military has nearly completed its withdrawal from Iraq. The Iraqi Defense Ministry said the U.S. military presence in the Arab League state has declined to 9,000 troops. The ministry said the remaining U.S. soldiers would leave by the end of December. “The number of remaining U.S. soldiers until […]
By Fariborz Saremi, Freepressers.com The new Middle East Cold War comes complete with its own spy-versus-spy intrigues, disinformation campaign, shadowy proxy war and supercharged state rhetoric and very high stakes. There has long been blood between the Saudis and Iran. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni/Wahabi Muslim Kingdom of ethnic Arabs. Iran is a Shi’ite Islamic Republic […]