CULF 3331: "Middle Eastern Revolutions"

A security official declared Tuesday the criminal apparatus in Giza directorate arrested a fugitive terrorist, Mohamed Abdel Razek, affiliated to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, according to the Ministry of Interior's statement. Many have been charged, sentences and killed from the Muslim Brotherhood, and this will be even more so enforced as many countries including the United States are calling them a terrorist organization.

On Wednesday, February 24, the Republican dominated House Judiciary Committee voted 17-10 along party lines to require the State Department to take action to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization. The move would be welcomed by Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the United Arab Emirates who have been waiting for such an action to occur. Many believe the Muslim Brotherhood is what is preventing democracy in the Middle East and have a powerful stronghold that greatly affects these changes in the region.

On the Muslim Brotherhood's own news website, they are claiming that hundres of women have been harassed under the new coup in Egypt. This relates to yesterdays National Women's Day and how the Brotherhood is saying that the regime is treating the women of the Brotherhood unfairly and abusing them in numerous ways. Since the July 2013 coup against legitimacy, women became many of the victims. They killed nearly 100 women and girls, and expelled 526 female students from Egypt's universities.

The House Judiciary Committee recently passed a resolution calling on the State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. This resolution resonates with the feverish anti-Islamic politics of the Republican primary, fueled across the spectrum by candidates from Donald Trump to Marco Rubio. Other countries even in the Middle East have officially stated the Brotherhood as a terrorist group. There is much debate on their stance and beliefs and what this should mean to the international community especially in a time of instability in the Middle East.

According to the author, there are six reasons Iran has not directly intervened in Yemen through military action. Among these is that launching a military campaign in Yemen is not a priority considering the conflict in Syria and Iraq.

Iran has provided weapons, medical aid, and training to the Houthis. In 2013, a ship smuggling Iranian weapons to Yemen was seized.

This article takes a closer look at the Houthis and the malapropisms found in the media when reporting on the war. For example, the war is often simplified to Shi'i vs. Sunni when, in reality, not all Houthis' enemies are Sunni.

This article covers Yemen's civil war and rejects the notion that the Houthis are 'Iran-backed.' According to the author, the Houthis are not merely Iran's pawns and, labeling them as such, diminishes the decades of conflict that led to the rebellion.

The United States has seen increases in movement towards chemical weapon use by ISIS members in their attacks. Military forces were able to take out two key facilities that were being used by ISIS to create chemical weapons.

This article approaches understanding ISIS by looking at it from the root cause rather than trying to understand based on their current movements and attacks. The movement has spread so easily because it is fighting for the noble cause, to so many people, of making the world a better place and moving towards the end of the world.

Hundreds of combatants and civilians have been killed over the past week, and Russian aircraft have been dropping supplies to beleaguered army units. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad is battling to retain a foothold in the area. A key city in the country of Syria is being fought over by ISIS militants as we speak. This city is in the middle of the line that has been split between the several groups vying for power in Syria.

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. With this new threat in the middle east there must be something or someone to combat it.

The issue with America fighting ISIS is that the United States and the rest of the world do not understand what we are dealing with in the battle against ISIS. This caliphate is more than just a bunch of radicals who want to run the world, it is a group of religious people fighting for what they believe is a pure Islam.

ISIS supporters and Syrian rebel groups are vowing to turn Syria into a "graveyard for Russians," launching what collectively amounts to an anti-Russia propaganda campaign that in part is calling on fighters to prepare for war against the major world power. Jaish al-Islam, a coalition of Islamist units battling the Syrian regime, is especially contributing to the online fight. This comes after the Russian military upped their bombing efforts against ISIS bases

US special forces captured the head of the Islamic State militant group's effort to develop chemical weapons in a raid last month in northern Iraq, two senior Iraqi intelligence officials have told the Associated Press, the first known major success of Washington's more aggressive policy of pursuing the jihadis on the ground. This is a huge step in obtaining more information regarding the ISIS front.

This report says that the Kremlin approved bombing raids in Syria on Sept. 30 after President Bashar al-Assad requested help in defeating ISIS. The article claims that Russian bombers are hitting 100 ISIS targets a day.

Moscow's coordinated efforts with regional governments, as well as targeted strikes on key assets of terrorist and rebel groups, accomplished politically important objectives for Moscow. With the rapidly growing threat of ISIL, Russia's actions have convinced Western elites to rethink their opinion of Assad.

This op-ed piece by the Hindu, an Indian publication, states the obvious that has been discussed in my blog posts and bookmarks for weeks. It describes how ISIS, due to the relentless bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, has taken advantage of a weak government in Libya and has begun to move its operations to areas of Libya essentially free from the watchful eyes of Western forces.

Syria's economy has been strangled by the ongoing conflict. This follows an orange co-op that has been turning to Russia trying to start an export business.

Yet another doom and gloom article that discusses how bad the Libyan state is in the eyes of the American military. General David Rodriguez, head of American military forces in Africa, called Libya a "failed state," probably one of the starkest declarations in the 5 years since the fall of the Qaddafi regime.

Last chance to stop bloodshed in Syria? This article explains that the truce in Syria sponsored by Washington and Moscow, according to opposition groups, could be the last chance at peace.