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The Iraqi soldiers tell of how they can hardly live with the shame of their rout under the onslaught of the Islamic militants. Their commanders disappeared. Pleas for more ammunition went unanswered. Troops ran from post to post only to find them already taken by gunmen, forcing them to flee. “I see it in the eyes of my family, relatives and neighbors,” one lieutenant-colonel who escaped the militants’ sweep over the northern city of Mosul told The Associated Press. “I am as broken and ashamed as a bride who is not a virgin on her wedding night.”

The Arab Spring is over. Welcome to the Jihadi Spring. Across a huge swath of what, up until recently, had been known as Iraq and Syria, a transnational movement of Sunni Islamic extremists has taken control. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has conquered -- without much effort -- Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, along with most of the province of Nineveh. It's also taken Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. Along the way it has ransacked banks (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars), pillaged weapon stockpiles (including the stuff we left behind for the Iraqi...

White House officials met this month with Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, a deputy of radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who has been banned from entering the United States, reported the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). The June 13 meeting took place on the same day the Obama administration announced plans to arm Syria’s rebel forces, the report noted. IPT noted that al-Qaradawi, the founder of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), endorses Palestinian Authority Arab suicide bombers and supports Hamas in its fight against Israel. The report also said that bin Bayyah,...

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is temporarily freezing its operations in Libya to reevaluate the security situation after a Swiss staffer was killed by gunmen. "We are freezing movement (of personnel) for the time being to analyze the situation so we can adapt our operations," ICRC spokesman David-Pierre Marquet told AFP on Thursday. He said there were no plans to permanently halt the organization's operations in Libya. The announcement came a day after Michael Greub, a 42-year-old Swiss citizen heading the ICRC's office in Libya's third city Misrata, was killed by gunmen in Sirte, 200 kilometres...

Washington (AFP) - The US State Department recommended Americans in Libya "depart immediately," in its latest travel warning on Tuesday.

Saturday, May 24, 2014 Will a Rogue General Undo Obama's Regime Change in Libya? Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog It didn't take Egypt very long to revert back to a military oligarchy with elections. That oligarchy wasn't brought back by an armed coup in the dead of night, but by popular protests. The Arab Spring was trumpeted by liberals as a new era in the history of the Middle East. But the Middle East is better at undoing history than the media is at writing it. In Egypt, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi brushed away the effects...

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- The U.S. military has doubled the number of aircraft standing by in Italy if needed to evacuate Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, CNN has learned. A decision to evacuate as violence in the Libyan capital grows is "minute by minute, hour by hour," a defense official told CNN on Monday. Fierce fighting swept across the city Sunday after armed men stormed the country's interim Parliament. Sporadic bursts of gunfire and blasts could still be heard on the outskirts of the capital Monday evening. The violence appeared to be some of the worst since...

“The Simpsons” cannot catch a break from Arab television. The same Egyptian television channel that recently claimed that an episode of the popular show proved that the United States had conspired to cause the Arab Spring revolutions, is now claiming that the show was devised by Jewish lobbies and think tanks and financed by Rupert Murdoch. The latest claims by Al-Tahrir TV aired on May 11 and were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). During the broadcast, host Rania Badawi claimed, “[The Simpsons] is a very influential TV series in the U.S. This animated series is an...

There has been heavy fighting outside the Libyan interim parliament in the capital Tripoli. MPs fled the building after heavily armed attackers tried to storm it. Some eyewitnesses say the gunmen were from the powerful Zintan Brigade of former rebel fighters. However, a paramilitary force backing retired general Khalifa Haftar claimed it was behind the assault. Authorities are struggling to contain militias that control parts of Libya. A planned new constitution remains unwritten and the country has had three prime ministers since March. On Sunday, the gunmen launched their assault on parliament in armoured vehicles. Black smoke rose above the...

"We are looking for the bishop of this church to slaughter him -- we are tired of the existence of this church near our mosque and the noise they are making." — Church elder quoting Muslims who attacked a priest, Zanzibar."Muslims wanted to punish [him]...because he had recently organised a demonstration against violence in Islam." — Local priest of a murdered Christian, Bangladesh."O people of the Scripture [Christians]. Do not exceed the limits of your religion....Cease! It will be better for you...." — Koran, 4:171, Billboard in Nazareth, Israel.Human rights organization Open Doors published its 2014 World Watch List in...

BRUSSELS - The number of people identified attempting to illegally enter European Union nations in 2013 rose sharply over 2012, the border agency Frontex reported Friday. In its annual risk analysis, Frontex revealed 107,000 detections of undocumented migrants in 2013, compared to 72,500 in 2012. One in four migrants hailed from Syria, it said. The 2013 figure is still lower than in 2011, when 141,000 undocumented migrants arrived in Europe as a result of the Arab Spring movement.

Fierce clashes between rival Libyan rebel groups in the coastal city of Benghazi have killed several people. The BBC's Rana Jawad says the fighting is understood to be between Islamist militias and a paramilitary force led by a retired senior officer. Libya's second largest city is the scene of frequent clashes between the army and Islamist militias. Authorities in the capital Tripoli have struggled to deal with rebels since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in 2011. Eyewitnesses told the BBC that an Islamist militia base in Benghazi was bombed by warplanes. The death toll is unclear but medical sources in the...

A fundamental requirement of the interim deal — Iran’s cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency personnel — is not being fulfilled. The White House’s own fact sheet on the interim deal listed Iran’s obligations. ... It is even more troubling that the administration hasn’t reported back to Congress and the American people on Iran’s refusal to comply. Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies was instrumental in designing anti-Iran sanctions. He warns, “I hope the Obama administration doesn’t adopt an approach of punting on demands for full disclosure on past nuclear weaponization activities or they will find themselves...

Few pay attention to the common agendas shared by Boko Haram (the terrorist group that has kidnapped over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls) and the non-profit organizations ran by the Obama family. The primary goals of both is to eradicate western education in Africa; the evidence is overwhelming. ... the foundation bearing the name of Barack’s grandmother – the Mama Sarah Obama Foundation (MSOF). In the interview, Musa confessed that the MSOF accepts western donations under faulty premises (helping orphaned children with AIDS) and then uses those funds for scholarships to send Kenyan students to extremist Wahhabist schools in Saudi Arabia. In...

What Hillary Clinton is attempting to do is – in a word – despicable. A few days after the ‘Smoking gun’ Benghazi email was revealed by Judicial Watch; two days after House Speaker John Boehner announced that he would form a Select Committee to investigate Benghazi; one day before Rep. Trey Gowdy was tapped to lead it; and one day after we revealed a Muslim Brotherhood connection to the email at Shoebat.com, Hillary Clinton attempted to pivot public attention toward the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls. The motive behind her doing this should be transparently obvious. She is attempting...

Since the start of the ill-named “Arab Spring,” the Muslim Brotherhood has been very much in the news. Coming to power through democratic elections in Egypt and Tunisia, they were toppled within a short time by the people, who discovered their true intentions. There were some in the West – but not all – who saw the light as well. British Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered a comprehensive review of the movement,... its activities in Britain and its impact on the country’s interests. The decision was made because the Brotherhood is allegedly behind terrorist operations in Egypt, and because...

Detailed report... excerpt Sometimes the tail wags the dog. In the case of the tiny Gulf state of Qatar, their small population and tremendous wealth give them an outsized influence in diplomacy and international influence. If Ankara is the heart of the emerging Islamic Caliphate, Qatar is the brain. Through sophisticated international investment and diplomacy, Qatar has acted behind the scenes in each of the “Arab Spring” revolutions that installed Islamist government where once secular dictators ruled. A country rich in natural gas and approximately two million citizens, Qatar has the highest per capital GDP in the world. GDP in...

The Egyptian military recently used American-made Apache helicopter gunships to fire rockets into houses in the Sinai Peninsula, the latest in a series of lethal raids targeting a little-known Al Qaeda-inspired group that has bombed civilians. The April 23 raid came on the same day that the State Department lifted a hold on military aid to Egypt. The Obama administration has struggled for months to limit the political crackdown launched by former Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Sisi, who now heads the Egyptian government.

An Egyptian court sentenced 682 alleged Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to death on Monday, a lawyer and prosecutor said, after two brief sessions the defence partly boycotted. The same court in the southern province of Minya also reversed 492 of 529 death sentences it passed in March, commuting most of those to life in prison. The court, presided over by judge Said Youssef Sabry, had sparked an international outcry with its initial sentencing last month amid an extensive crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The crackdown has extended to secular-leaning dissidents who supported Morsi's...

Tunisia’s elected assembly accepted a petition Wednesday to question the tourism minister over a decision allowing Israelis to use their passports to enter the country for an annual religious pilgrimage. While Israelis and Jews long have traveled to Tunisia for an annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, this is the first year that Israelis have been allowed to use their passports rather than a special document issued by Tunisian embassies. Tunisia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. …