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<p>Bahrain’s Sunni government has expelled a top US diplomat citing interference in the country’s internal affairs following his meeting with the main opposition Shia group.</p> <p>Bahrain asked US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Tom Malinowski, to immediately leave the country as he is “unwelcome” because of interference in the country’s internal affairs, the kingdom’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement as cited by Bahrain News Agency.</p>

obama-is-a-terrorist-A recent Gulf News report sheds some light on how and why the United States helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies to power, followed by all the subsequent chaos and atrocities in the Mideast region. Large portions of the report follow with my commentary interspersed for added context: Dubai: For the past decade, two successive US administrations have maintained close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Libya, to name just the most prominent cases. The Obama administration conducted an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2010 and 2011, beginning even before the events...

Israel is ready to meet any Jordanian request to help fight off Islamist insurgents who have overrun part of neighboring Iraq, an Israeli official said on Friday, although he believed Jordan was capable of defending itself. Asked to elaborate on the statement, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said potential Israeli assistance could include sending troops or arms, though he saw that as unlikely. "We have an interest in ensuring that Jordan does not fall to, or be penetrated by, groups like al Qaeda or Hamas or ISIS," he told Reuters. "If, God forbid, there is a need, if such a...

BRUSSELS — Iran is directing surveillance drones over Iraq from an airfield in Baghdad and is secretly supplying Iraq with tons of military equipment, supplies and other assistance, American officials said. Tehran has also deployed an intelligence unit there to intercept communications, the officials said. The secret Iranian programs are part of a broader effort by Tehran to gather intelligence and help Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government in its struggle against Sunni militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, has visited Iraq at least twice to help...

There’s always Tunisia. Amid the smoking ruins of the Middle East, there is that one encouraging success story. But unfortunately for the Obama narratives, the president had about as much as to do with Tunisia’s turn toward democracy as he did with the World Cup rankings. Where administration policy has had an impact, the story is one of failure and danger. The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good....

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has today referred to U.S. President Barack Obama´s approach to Islamic extremism as ´disappointingly complacent´ in a speech to the Margaret Thatcher Liberty Conference in London. The high-profile event was attended by hundreds of political journalists, activists, writers, legislators and other global stakeholders. Howard’s comments were met by nods of approval across the room as he took aim at Barack Obama´s West Point commencement speech of last month. Howard said: "Islamic fundamentalism is a far greater threat than many people in their culturally equivocal way believe. "Obama´s West Point commencement speech… with the greatest

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...