CULF 3331: "Middle Eastern Revolutions"

Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, or "Supporters of Jerusalem," claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack on the Egyptian-Israeli gas pipeline. "We bombed the gas stations and pipelines taking gas to the Zionist entity," said a member of the group in video posted on YouTube. The man was wearing camouflage and his face was blurred as he spoke into the camera.

Al-Qaeda-inspired militant organisation Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Champions of Jerusalem) has claimed responsibility for the 24 January bomb attack on the police headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Initially, the group was known for launching attacks on Israeli targets and interests, but after the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, it has started directing its violence against the Egyptian army and police.

Um, I'm not so sure I want to go back to Egypt anytime soon.

Less than a week after denying reports that it had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, militants of the Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or ABM, released an audio clip late on Sunday, declaring their support for ISIS, according to media reports. The nine-minute clip was posted on a Twitter account claiming to be ABM's official account.

The Muslim Brotherhood responds to the Sinai attack. The Brotherhood states that the attacks are linked to the islamist militants. The Muslim Brotherhood "says it is a peaceful movement...believes that shedding blood of any Egyptian is forbidden." 

The Muslim Brotherhood responds to the Sinai attack. The Brotherhood states that the attacks are linked to the islamist militants. The Muslim Brotherhood "says it is a peaceful movement...believes that shedding blood of any Egyptian is forbidden."

On October 25th, 33 security personnel were killed in Sinai by Islamist militants. According to this article, President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi was responsible for the security failures that resulted in the deaths. Sisi was quick to blame the Muslim Brotherhood for the attack, despite the Brotherhoods insistent denial.

Woman is physically and verbally attacked for not wearing a head scard.

pushes for the increased participation of women in conflict mediation and peace processes by shifting the paradigm around the role of women in society at both the grassroots and policy levels

General Khalifa Haftar is suprising many people because he was once a Gaddafi supporter and then against him. Many are accusing him of being a renegade. He is leading many to support the war against the Muslim Brotherhood and ismanic power in Libya.

In this article, Salwa Bugaighis was stabbed and shot through the head by gunmen who broke into her house in Benghazi. Her husband was also abducted and remains missing. Salwa and her husband had just returned from an election and the attack is a reminder of the growing number of extremists taking over Libya. "Her killing triggered outrage on social media, with one supporter tweeting: "Salwa Bugaighis was hope. Shocked and saddened." Salwa was a part of the National Transitional Council, but left after accusing it of freezing-out female members. She also opposed moves to make the wearing of the hijab compulsory, and her views brought her into conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist extremists.

This article discusses Libya and whether or not it would have been better off if Qaddafi had not been killed. The article says that because libya is a resource rich country, and is close to Europe, it had pretty good chances of making a smooth transition to peace and stability.

This video talks about the different groups in Libya who are fighting against each other. General Haftar is one of the major players in the attacks. He is against islamist groups and he says that he will never retreat until islamist groups back down. The main reason for the fighting is to gain as much power and economic gain as they can.

The terror group has been locked in a battle with Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian border town of Kobani since mid-September. The United States and its allies are bombing ISIS positions there, but airstrikes have yet to pry Kobani from the group's hands. Kareem says he fought for a year all across ISIS-controlled territory. He says other fighters he was with were promised wives by ISIS. Most of the fighters were foreigners, he says, and he had difficulty communicating with them because they didn't speak the local Syrian dialect of Arabic. Kareem says he even met a fighter from China at one point.

(CNN) -- He runs his terror group like a CEO -- with spreadsheets on missions, assassinations and captured assets. And reports from Iraq's government suggest ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been hit in airstrikes over the weekend -- though it's not clear whether he was wounded, whose strikes he may have been hit by and in what part of the country he may have been struck.

Orwellian fiction and reality appeared to blur into one on Sunday when reports suggested that an Egyptian undergraduate had been arrested for possessing a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

A jihadist group which has carried out a series of attacks on security forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS). Ansar Beit al-Maqdis announced the move on a Twitter account in Arabic, saying IS promised "a new dawn raising the banner of monotheism".

At the start of the "Arab Spring," I was so optimistic about the prospect of democracy in the Middle East and heartened by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. On my mind was the oppression of millions of Syrians by the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime.

Six weeks have passed since the US-led coalition began its strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants and other jihadist groups in Syria, but recent developments in the stricken country confirm that the mission is facing huge challenges, as BBC Arabic's Feras Kilani reports "We are vanishing before the eyes of the whole world, including our friends in the US," a disappointed moderate commander told the BBC over the phone, after his group's defeat by the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.