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Kuwait has been investigating reports of an Iranian-backed Shi'ite insurgency plot. Officials said Kuwait has launched an investigation into allegations that Shi'ites funded and directed by Iran planned to attack key facilities in the Gulf Cooperation Council sheikdom. The investigation was said to center on Shi'ite soldiers in neighboring Bahrain trained in sabotage. Officials have warned of a growing Shi'ite threat in Kuwait, a Sunni-ruled country with nearly 50 percent of the population being Shi'ite. They said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has increased surveillance and other intelligence operations in Kuwait, which hosts more than 15,000 U.S. military soldiers. "There...

Impoverished Yemen is reeling under the threat of Al Qaeda, northern Shiite rebels and southern secessionists, but a lack of water is putting its ancient capital at even greater risk, experts say. Within a decade - or even less - Sanaa could become the first waterless capital in the world, they warn, adding the outlook is also bleak for the rest of this parched country where wells in some regions are already dry. A conference in London on Wednesday will discuss Yemen's anti-terrorism drive, but it is unclear whether the water woes that experts say are likely to fuel more...

Members of the tiny Jewish community in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, say they have not received their monthly food rations or any government financial assistance for the past three months. Rabbi Yahya Yusuf, leader of the 65-member community, told IRIN the Jews had been “suffering terribly” of late; many had been finding it very difficult to even feed their children. “We have sold everything we possess to buy food for our families. We even sold our women’s gold rings. We have run out of money,” he said. Yusuf said that two weeks ago they had staged a protest outside government headquarters...

Yemeni forces killed anti-U.S. rebel cleric SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- Yemeni forces killed anti-U.S. rebel cleric Hussein al-Houthi and dozens of his supporters on Friday, ending over two months of clashes in which over 200 rebels and troops have died. Houthi was one of a number of rebel leaders in Yemen, but he represented a considerable target having engaged the security forces over a long period. His group is not linked to al Qaeda. The Yemeni defence and interior ministries, in a joint statement, announced that their forces had killed Houthi in a mountainous area north of the capital Sanaa....

The string of deadly bombings against government buildings and Shiite landmarks in Baghdad that began last August provides a startling reminder that the Qaeda-associated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) remains a clear danger to Iraq’s long-term stability. The three sets of multiple attacks that took place on August 19, October 25, and December 8—the three deadliest attacks since 2007—killed at least 362 people and wounded over 1,233. In an otherwise continuously improving security situation, the ISI claimed responsibility for the spectacular, headline-grabbing attacks in an effort to embarrass the Iraqi government, intensify Sunni disgruntlement with the current political establishment and...

The 30th summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, meeting in Kuwait this week, expressed its solidarity with Saudi Arabia in its fight with the Shi'ite Houthi rebels in northern Yemen. The Kuwaiti emir noted that Saudi Arabia is facing "flagrant aggression that targets its sovereignty and security by those who have infiltrated its territory." The formerly little-noticed conflict between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government is now taking on the coloration of an additional hot front in an ongoing region-wide cold war. The conflict in northern Yemen reveals the ongoing Iranian regional effort to convert Shi'ite populations into assets...

An Iranian hospital in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa has been ordered shut down amid reports that the facility was used as cover by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security for support and funding of Shi'ite Zaydi rebels. The 60-bed hospital has four operating rooms and six intensive care units. The ostensible reason for the closing was the hospital’s failure to pay rent. However reports from Sanaa say it was due to the illicit Iranian intelligence activities from the facility.

Jordan has sent several hundred troops from its special operations forces to help the Saudi military with its many Shi'ite units contain the Yemeni Shi'ite rebellion, which has spread deep into the Arab kingdom.

Jordan has sent several hundred troops from its special operations forces to help the Saudi military with its many Shi'ite units contain the Yemeni Shi'ite rebellion, which has spread deep into the Arab kingdom.

The Saudi army imposed a tight sea blockade on northern Yemen to corner Shiite fighters in the country. According to Saudi sources, the no-go zone is 10 kilometers wide along the Yemeni border and thousands of Saudi troops were deployed for carrying out this mission. Meanwhile, Assistant Minister of Defense for Security Affairs Prince Khaled Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz said Tuesday that the Saudi forces will continue their airstrikes against the Shiite infiltrators until they move back from the Saudi frontier. “We are not going to stop the bombing until the infiltrators retreat tens of kilometers inside their border,”...

Smugglers In Iraq Have A New Trade: Corpse by QUIL LAWRENCE EnlargeJoseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images A tomb at the cemetery of Najaf in 2008. The Wadi al-Salam, or Valley of Peace, in Najaf is one of the largest cemeteries in the world. Millions of Shiite Muslims over the centuries have been brought here for burial from all over the world. text sizeAAANovember 4, 2009 Iraqi and U.S. officials have expressed concerns about the traffic of weapons and drugs across the country's porous borders, but there is also an older and more surprising commodity being smuggled into Iraq — cadavers. For centuries,...

The Yemeni army said its forces have killed 100 Shiite rebels and wounded a further 280 in the northern Saada province. "Terrorist and destructive elements yesterday evening infiltrated (areas) between military barracks and security posts in Saada province," the military said in a statement cited by Reuters. "Our armed and security forces put a stop to them and inflicted painful and heavy blows on them during which the terrorist 'Houthi' elements lost more than 100 people and more than 280 were injured," the statement said. According to official reports which can not be confirmed, in recent weeks, hundreds of Shiite...

The Yemeni army said on Wednesday that its forces killed 29 Shiite rebels as it presses its offensive in the northern mountains. Yemeni forces killed 12 rebels in clashes on Tuesday in the Harf Sufyan district of Amran province, 70 kilometres north of the capital, the official Saba news agency quoted a commander as saying. The other rebels died in several different clashes in Saada province further north, the commander added. According to AFP, the army said it had also destroyed five lorries carrying explosives to the rebels in Saada. A police spokesman said the seized supplies included 350 bags...

The Yemeni army attacked Shiite rebels near the Saudi border, using artillery and aircraft, local officials said Wednesday. The government offensive, which started late Tuesday, followed reports of Shiite gunmen seizing more control of the northern Saada province. A major security committee, presided over by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, vowed to respond to the latest developments "with an iron-fist." The state-run 26sep.net reported on Wednesday the "Houthi rebels" have seized teachers, dismissed tens of students and took over 63 schools where and used them to fight the government troops. According to the AP, a health ministry official in Saada said...

A multi-billion dollar mystery is unfolding in Iraq, and it may reach to the highest levels of the Iraqi government. It involves what the New York Times calls an "extremist Shiite group" that has now reconciled with Prime Minister Maliki and his regime. The group is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of five British contractors who, according to the Guardian, were installing a sophisticated financial tracking system in Iraq's ministry of finance in 2007. The story so far: Today, the Times reports: "An extremist Shiite group that has boasted of killing five American soldiers and of kidnapping five British...

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military has assessed that Iranian-backed Shi'ite forces were engaged in a military buildup in Iraq. Officials said the military has determined that Shi'ite forces financed and sponsored by Iran were accelerating weapons acquisition to prepare for a civil war in Iraq. They said Shi'ite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, have concluded that the weapons would be required against Sunni forces financed by Saudi Arabia in a renewed power struggle. "Right now, everybody is waiting to see whether and how fast the United States withdraws from Iraq," an official said

A blast at a Shiite mosque in the southeastern city of Zahedan, near the border with Pakistan, killed 15 people and wounded more than 55 on Thursday evening, the news agency ISNA reported. The bomb went off at 7:45 p.m. at Ali-ibn-Abitaleb, the second largest Shiite mosque in the city. ISNA said the bomb had been hidden in a bag in the men’s section of the mosque.

It's official - Cairo and Hizbullah are fighting a full-fledged media war. The Egyptian press and government officials have, for several consecutive days, been hurling insults at the Shi'ite group, in one instance comparing its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to a monkey.

Tiger said in his Friday sermon at the University of Imam Hussein in Awamiya: "It is ready to enter the prison and with the severity of torture and even murder," adding that "refuses to respect the Shiite," he said.

The best way to understand Ahmadinejad's brand of Shitite eschatology (end-times theology) is to listen to Iranians describe it themselves. Amir Taheri is a European-based columnist who used to serve as the executive editor of "Kayhan", Iran's largest daily newspaper. In an April 2006 essay entitled "The frightening Truth of Why Iran Wants a Bomb," Taheri wrote that just before announcing to the world that Iran had "gatecrashed 'the nuclear club," President Ahmadinejad "disappeared for several hours" to have a secret meeting with the Islamis messiah, a figure known as the twelfth Imam or Mahdi. Taheri wrote, "According to Shia...