Group items tagged

On Saturday, The United Arab Emirates (AP) made the decision to group together dozens of organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and name them terrorist organizations. According to the United Arab Emirates, these groups should be viewed on the same level as other extremists groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State. The Emirates claim that these Islamist groups are trying to topple the Western ruling system.

According to the article "Mr. Bani Rushaid was arrested on charges of harming relations with a friendly country." The arrest of Mr. Bani Rushaid took place in Jordan because the Muslim Brotherhood's senior leader criticized the United Arab Emirates. Rushaid, had apparently stated that the United Arab Emirates had been "sponsoring terrorism" and "questioned the legitimacy of its rulers." 

Arab states have began to jump on board offering support to the coalition against ISIS. UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon have recently voiced their support. Turkey, the only Arab member of NATO has voiced their lack of support in the coalition thus far. Saudi, the home to major religious cities, feels like a direct threat to ISIS and have made it clear that they will be playing a major role in the war against the Islamic State. UAE allegedly initiated bombings from Egyptian bases on Libya due to islamic militia takeovers of major cities and institutions. Arab states along with France, Germany, and Britain have agreed to form a "coordinated military campaign." Bringing in Assad from Syria is somewhat crucial, but the coalition is hesitant due to the loss of the Assad Regime's legitimacy over the past years of civil strife. Official plans of attack are still sketchy, but are definitely in the works. The coalition of states have made it clear that in order to tackle this ISIS threat, they must band together to dynamically exterminate the Islamic State from all angles.

Any doubts that Libya has pivoted to a proxy war have been eliminated with the recent bombings outside UAE and Egyptian embassies as a backlash against their role in the regional "tug of war" on Thursday. Each side of the conflict has its own government as well as city headquarters. Islamists have occupied Tripoli and Haftar's forces Tobruk. The actions of regional players are escalating the civil war to the utmost extent.

This article conveys that AS has claimed Benghazi as an Islamic Emirate. While Haftar argues that only certain positions are under Islamic occupation, but the fact that they control the whole city is something he denies. 

Caucasus Emirate is another al Qaeda-linked group that is fighting in Syria, Aleppo more specifically. I was surprised by how much detail was divulged by the group about their role in the fighting.

After the fall of Gaddafi a power vacuum allowed rival militias to thrive. Now, Libya has become a proxy war for other Arab nations. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and Algeria on one side and Qatar and Turkey on the other. 

Article explains the civil war that is erupting in Libya. Islamist extremists are trying to take over the country and towns and tribes of Libya are choosing sides. Tripoli has been the biggest battle ground and its airport was destroyed.

This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.

This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.

Qatar, whose former emir was quite close with Assad, not slowly draws from the civil war. A source who wishes to remain anonymous tells that Qatar still supports Syrians, but does not want to fuel the new religious conflict, rather wishes to be useful in finding a peaceful end.

This piece is about the education reform K-12 in Qatar. The program has started to use local education supplies to create a better community attitude toward education. Their have been efforts to create a universal curriculum and higher evaluation and testing. 

The United Arab Emirates has pledged more than $130 million for the refugees, but despite this generosity, many think the country should do more. CNN's Jon Jensen reports on this crisis.

This article provides a detailed outline of the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria through the use of maps, charts, and photographs to allow readers to visualize areas where fighting is taking place. Several maps provide locations of ISIS controlled territory, locations of airstrikes, and locations of ISIS controlled oil refineries. It was really helpful to see different maps outlining this information because I often hear about this conflict on the radio or television programs and it can be hard to understand the scope of the conflict without any visual aids. I really appreciated the effort to show in detail the specific locations.

This article outlined the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq providing detailed maps, charts, and photos to present a more clear picture of where violence and air strikes are occurring.

Plans to set up new military bases in the Middle East are being considered as part of a strategy to tackle extremism, it emerged last night. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman and Bahrain are all being looked at as part of the Government's attempts to contain the terror threat from the wider region, according to The Times. The United Kingdom is severely interested in stopping ISIS.

The UN is concerned by the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan but says the militant group's power to "unite insurgents is more significant than its capabilities in the war-torn country."

This article basically accentuates the driving factors to the ongoing insurgency of ISIL in Libya and how the threat is even more extreme than that of Iraq and Syria. One is the Islamist ideology in itself, rejecting any form of a modern state and the institutions that accompany its success. For example in Libya the leader of the AS branch declares that his militants will not disarm or demobilize until sharia law is imposed. Second, during Gaddafi's rule he unleashed a crackdown on all Islamic expression. The brutality shown towards Islamic groups during this time has fueled their resentment towards sectarian rule and has urged them to push for the rejection of state institutions even more so. The article explains how Islamic groups have claimed power in both Benghazi and Derna, the latter being the historic recruiting ground for Jihad fighters to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The author makes it clear that both military and diplomatic force from the international community is crucial for the reconciliation of security.

This article is about how the Islamic State is being funded by wealthy gulf. These investor are described to be like "angle investors".The money that they receive from these investors is just a jumping off point, then the group finds other ways to get money like "kidnapping, oil smuggling, selling women into slavery."

This article basically states that since the US's withdrawal from Middle Eastern affairs, regional actors were left to fight over who will lead the region's future. The fight is baiscally a run off between Turkey, Qatar, Saudi, and the UAE, each country doing their part intervening in conflicts aiding their supported side. Rather than achieving goals, these proxy wars have fueled the violence, chaos, and polarization deepening the problems they originally sought to mend. While the US has succeeded in abstaining from Mid East affairs, the question now is whether or not they should continue this resignation or step in to urge for order and peace. 

A statement released by ABM read, "After entrusting Allah we decided to swear allegiance to the emir of the faithful Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, caliph of the Muslims in Syria and Iraq and in other countries," according to a Reuters report.

As part of a 2013 agreement signed in the Saudi Arabian capitol of Riyadh, Qatar has agreed to expel exiled leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that have taken up residence in the country that has traditionally supported them. The Muslim Brotherhood is seen as an extremist organization by many Arab states and the West but Qatar and Turkey are still supporters of them however pressures from the threat of ISIS finally coerced Qatar to honor the 2013 agreement. The exiled leaders have already been welcomed into Turkey however.

This article discusses Qatar's agreement to expel any exiled leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is just one of the many agreements that Qatar is forced to abide by under Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This decision was made as a way of shifting political alignments.