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TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Deep in a violent and lawless slum just north of this coastal city, 12 men whose faces were shrouded by scarves drilled with Kalashnikovs. In unison, they lunged in one direction, turned and lunged in another. “Allah-u akbar,” the men shouted in praise to God as they fired their machine guns into a wall. The men belong to a new militant Islamic organization called Fatah al Islam, whose leader, a fugitive Palestinian named Shakir al-Abssi, has set up operations in a refugee camp here where he trains fighters and spreads the ideology of Al Qaeda. He has...

London, IRNA - A fresh initiative was launched Thursday to develop a new relationship between the West and Islam based upon 'mutual listening' at all levels. "There are many in Europe and US, ex-diplomats, ex-military and those from my background, who are very concerned at the increasing and worsening estrangement between the West and Islam," former British MI6 intelligence agent, Alastair Crooke said. "Many in both are societies are quite angry at what it is doing to our societies and the damage being done to worsen the circumstances of Muslims everywhere," Crooke said, who also referred to the deterioration in...

Putin’s Russia. Do traces of KGB, FSB and GRU lead to Islamic State? Marius Laurinavičius, Rytų Europos studijų centras ir DELFI Friday, January 9, 2015 This time I decided to draw attention to a significant role (which was a surprise for many experts) of Chechen terrorists in a battle of Islamic state that has become a main threat to the West. Based on this role, it is not only possible, but vital to examine the potential links between the Islamic state and Russian secret services. One of the inspiration sources was the article published in ‘The Huffington Post’ called ‘You...

You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia By Alastair Crooke BEIRUT — The dramatic arrival of Da’ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed — and horrified — by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia’s ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, “Don’t the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?”It appears — even now — that Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Efforts to end the five-week standoff at the Church of the Nativity broke down yet again Thursday -- just hours after a partial solution seemed in place -- because of disagreement over sending a European monitor into the shrine, negotiators said. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators accused each other of violating the terms of their arduously reached agreement. The Palestinians said Israel refused at the last minute to implement the deal and the Israelis said the Palestinians had made new, unacceptable demands. "They torpedoed an effort which would have brought almost to a complete close the...

Tim Berners-Lee, the publicity-shy physicist who invented the world wide web, has been awarded a knighthood. An unsung hero of the modern age, Mr Berners-Lee is named in today's New Year's Honours List for "services to the internet" - creating the system that has revolutionised computer use across the globe. The system, which he devised in his spare time in 1991 while working as a researcher at the European particle research laboratory Cern, features billions of web pages used by hundreds of millions of people every day. Crucially, Mr Berners-Lee gave his invention away rather than trying to patent or...

The government of Iraq is secretly holding a Baathist cabal of military officers it claims attempted a coup against Prime Minister al-Maliki. The plotters were rounded up July 5 with the help of American military authorities after the Iraqi government's security warning center sent word to Mr. Maliki, who was in Kuwait on his first official visit as head of state, two highly placed Iraqi sources said. The prime minister quickly canceled a scheduled trip to Amman, Jordan, and returned to Baghdad to attend to the matter. At the time, Mr. Maliki's staff told reporters that the prime minister was...