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At the height of the media storm over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, otherwise known as MBS, met with a visiting delegation of evangelical Christians from the U.S. for two hours. One of the Saudi attendees was the General Secretary of the Saudi-based Muslim World League (MWL), Dr. Mohammad Al-‘Issa. The MWL was a major engine for the propagation and spread of Wahabist jihad throughout the Western world since it was formed by the Saudi regime in the 1960s. The MWL founded the...

I am already sick of Turkey.I suspect that many Americans feel this way, about the bird and the country. Yet a small group of Washington foreign policy hands — at State Department, at Pentagon and in congressional offices — continue to make the case for Turkey as a “strategically important” partner to the US. On paper, the country looks good: It sits at the center of many of Americas most pressing foreign policy concerns, it is a member of NATO, it's stable, and it can offer foreign partners access to its airbases and intelligence cooperation. I used to think of...

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries will likely need to cut crude supplies, perhaps as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day, to rebalance the market after proposed U.S. sanctions on Iran failed to cut Tehran's output, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Monday.

The 633-word statement of President Donald Trump on the Saudi royals' role in the grisly murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi is a remarkable document, not only for its ice-cold candor. The president re-raises a question that has roiled the nation since Jimmy Carter: To what degree should we allow idealistic values trump vital interests in determining foreign policy? On the matter of who ordered the killing of Khashoggi, Trump does not rule out the crown prince as prime suspect: "King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the...

Mr. Trump’s sidestepping of reports that the C.I.A. believes that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing as “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” was jarring. But every president since Harry Truman has aligned with unsavory Middle Eastern rulers in the service of national interests. The difference here is that Mr. Trump seemed unapologetic about this state of affairs with only a passing nod to the affront to our values that Mr. Khashoggi’s murder represents. That’s nothing to cheer. But it is vitally important to evaluate the policy on its merits more than its mode of expression. And...

Following the sinking of one of the world’s largest dry docks on October 29 in a shipyard in the far northwest part of Russia, officials have finally admitted that they are unable to continue work on Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, for the time being. While Russia’s shipbuilding industry is reportedly looking into alternatives, no timely and viable solution to continue retrofitting work on the Russian Navy’s flagship has emerged to date. “We have alternatives actually for all the ships except for [the aircraft carrier] Admiral Kuznetsov. Our enterprises are in operation, [including] the Nerpa [Ship Repair Factory],”...

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that the country will continue to export oil despite fresh U.S. sanctions, which he described as “psychological war doomed to failure.” “We will not yield to this pressure which is part of the psychological war launched against Iran,” he said on state TV. “They have failed to stop our oil exports. We will keep exporting it ... Your regional policies have failed and you blame Iran for that failure from Afghanistan to Yemen and Syria,” he added, to chants of “Death to America!”. Rouhani also said that the U.S. lacked international support for...

America First! The world is a very dangerous place! The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” Iran is considered “the world’s leading sponsor of terror.” On...

Jamal Khashoggi, serviced Muslim Brotherhood. Mulla / IG reps that now lamment J Cas absence. A Persian, Salman is the man.

So back to the tragic murder of Jamal Khashoggi. My intelligence sources tell me he had worked as an intelligence agent for the Saudi intelligence service, GID, for around 20 years. At one point he was sent by GID to Sudan to meet Osama bin Laden and to try to lure him away from terrorism. He failed. Khashoggi had always been close to the Muslim Brotherhood, the people who took over Egypt under Morsi following the so-called Arab Spring. The Muslim Brotherhood is a hard-line Islamist organisation dedicated to the introduction of Sharia and the creation of an Islamic caliphate....

The true story of Count Laszlo Almasy, the Hungarian explorer and hero of the film The English Patient, is told in MI5 files released to the National Archives today. In the film, Almasy, played by Ralph Fiennes, is a disfigured patient in an Italian hospital who had been the handsome young lover of an Englishwoman (Kristin Scott Thomas) in pre-war Cairo. The truth is more prosaic. Although Almasy was a Hungarian explorer and airman who mapped the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and was prominent in pre-war Cairo society, he was no hero. He was a bungling Nazi intelligence officer who,...

It’s an old joke: How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving. It seems that may be the case for the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. An analyst at the Gatestone Institute presented evidence that Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan lied to voters. The charge comes from Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the institute, who who wrote that most of the media coverage since their election Nov. 6 “has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history.” “Less known is that both...

It turns out that crackpot Ron Paul’s son Rand can understand why poor, innocent Iran might want nuclear weapons—they feel “threatened” by big, bad America (hat tip to Rand Paul: Too Kooky for Kentucky for the video): Watch it at NRB - sorry, can't embed videos here at FR.

BREAKING: It is 10:40am here in Israel and more than 400 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza in the last few hours — more than on any other single day in history. The IDF is retaliating. Children and their parents have had to sleep in bomb shelters all night. More rockets are coming in as I write this. High risk of even further escalation. Please pray for calm to be restored. Pray, too, for all who are being traumatized on both sides to experience the supernatural comfort of the Lord.

One hope for Yemenis is that the international fallout from the death of the Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, which has damaged Prince Mohammed’s international standing, might force him to relent in his unyielding prosecution of the war. Peter Salisbury, a Yemen specialist at Chatham House, said that was unlikely. “I think the Saudis have learned what they can get away with in Yemen — that western tolerance for pretty bad behavior is quite high,” he said. “If the Khashoggi murder tells us anything, it’s just how reluctant people are to rein the Saudis in.”

On Nov. 6, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara posted a notice that “The Department [of State] has authorized rewards for information leading to the identification or location of the senior Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members: Murat Karayilan (up to USD $5 million), Cemil Bayik (up to USD $4 million), and Duran Kalkan (up to USD $3 million).” Such bounties are not uncommon when it comes to master terrorists. In years past, the U.S. government, for example, issued bounties for Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, Islamic State head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Boko Haram head Abubakar Shekau.But the three men...

Archaeologists in Egypt said today that they had discovered dozens of cat mummies, a rare collection of mummified scarab beetles, as well as an apparently pristine Fifth Dynasty tomb they plan to open in the coming weeks. The mummified beetles - the first ever to be found in the area - were among artefacts found in seven tombs discovered over the past six months on the edge of the King Userkaf pyramid complex at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, south of Cairo. The burial chambers also contained wooden statues depicting other animals and birds.

The paychecks of the Hamas members, which were being paid through financial aid by Qatar, were passed on in suitcases in a heavily guarded vehicle. Palestinian protesters pelted the convoy of Qatar’s ambassador to the Palestinians, Mohammed Al-Emadi, with stones Friday as he came to observe the weekly demonstrations along Gaza’s border fence with Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv. Gazan media reported that those leading the attack against Al-Emadi were from the Palestinian faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. PFLP members had earlier refused to take part in the meeting with the...

An Arab newspaper reported on Saturday that Israel and Qatar are hammering out a deal that would allow Hamas to operate a sea crossing between Gaza and Cyprus. According to the Lebanese Al Akhbar, the prospective seaport is part of a wider Egyptian-brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. While Hamas demands that the crossing be monitored through video cameras, Israel wants both Israeli forces and international elements to monitor the seaport to prevent weapons smuggling. The report comes as a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas appears to be gaining traction. A central part of the deal has been Qatar's...

Egypt is considering a law which would ban the burqa in public places in a crackdown on Islamic extremism. The Muslim-majority nation has faced a series of extremist attacks including the shooting of six Coptic Christians by ISIS last week. A draft law to be considered by the Egyptian parliament calls for a burqa ban in public spaces including hospitals, health clinics, schools, cinemas, theatres and museums. Women who wore the full face veil would be punished with a fine of 1,000 Egyptian pounds, equivalent to $56 or £42, the Jerusalem Post reported.