International Politics of the Middle East

The army has acknowledged that bodies have turned up, but its spokesmen assert that the killings are the result of civilians settling scores.

Now, concerns over the army’s methods in the area threaten to further taint Washington’s association with the military, cooperation that has been questioned in Congress and has been politically unpopular in Pakistan.

The Human Rights Commission, a nongovernmental organization, disputed that all the victims had been killed by civilians, saying last month that there were credible reports of retaliatory killings by the military. It said that witnesses had seen mass graves and that in some cases, the bodies appeared to be those of militants.

US special forces carried out the attack early on Monday Washington time.

The official said the operation had been "successful" and he believed Nabhan was dead.

the body believed to be Nabhan's had been taken into custody.

Hundreds of Africans seeking political asylum or jobs in relatively prosperous Israel try to sneak across the border each year. Amnesty International says Egyptian border guards have fatally shot nearly 40 migrants trying to do so since the start of 2008. The London-based rights group and others have criticized Egypt for failing to rein its border guards or investigate the recurrent cases. Egypt's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said the use of force is necessary for Egypt's security in a "sensitive" area where criminal activities — including drug and weapons smuggling — are common.

It deserves attention in ways which many recent al-Qaeda communications have not.

the growing problems that al-Qaeda really does have with its distribution mechanisms

By far the most important technical point about the tape is this:  no English-language subtitles were offered on the video version.  Al-Sahab productions very often provide such subtitles.  For them to be absent in a video ostensibly produced as a direct message to the American people is frankly quite odd.  Does it suggest degraded capabilities?  Poor judgement?  I really don't know, but it's worth noting.

Increasingly analysts are arguing that Maliki is failing in his gambit to blame Syria for his security failures in order to stanch the bleeding of his Shiite support in the run up to elections.

David Ignatius writing in the Washington post, calls for an “international support group,” as was recommended in the Baker-Hamilton Report, that can draw together the neighboring countries to keep Iraq from blowing apart. He writes that “This is where America still has the leverage to help, by drawing together all the volatile powers on Iraq’s borders — Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and, yes, Iran. A regional security framework will aid Baghdad, but it can also reduce tensions in an area that resembles a ticking time bomb.”

President Obama’s speech in Cairo this summer gave the Arab and Muslim worlds heightened expectations. His insistence on a freeze on settlement activity was a welcome development. However, all Israeli governments have expanded settlements, even those that committed not to do so. No country in the region wants more bloodshed. But while Israel’s neighbors want peace, they cannot be expected to tolerate what amounts to theft, and certainly should not be pressured into rewarding Israel for the return of land that does not belong to it. Until Israel heeds President Obama’s call for the removal of all settlements, the world must be under no illusion that Saudi Arabia will offer what the Israelis most desire — regional recognition. We are willing to embrace the hands of any partner in peace, but only after they have released their grip on Arab lands.

What does a security crackdown resembling Saudi-style morality policing have to do with the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization? A lot, given that a serious contender for that UNESCO job is Farouk Hosni, Egypt's culture minister for the past 22 years. During his lengthy tenure, Hosni has alienated many Egyptians by suffocating cultural and intellectual freedom while giving a leg up to religious zealotry.

Hosni's supporters say that it's time for an Arab U.N. cultural chief. It may be. But with his record, Farouk Hosni doesn't deserve to head UNESCO. Those of us proud of our Arab heritage, full of artists who challenge and enlighten rather than restrict in efforts to "protect" our morals, know that Farouk Hosni is not the man to represent us.

the ramifications of an American defeat in Afghanistan would not only be a devastating setback for our nation in what is now the central front in the global war on terror, but would inevitably further destabilize neighboring, nuclear Pakistan.

our problems result from what was, for years, a mismanaged and underresourced war.

We have an exceptional new commander on the ground, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has begun a top-to-bottom overhaul of all aspects of our war policy and put forward a dramatically new civil-military strategy that clearly identifies failed policies and prioritizes the proven principles of counterinsurgency

Mr Mitchell, who arrived in Israel on Saturday, has been trying to secure a deal involving a halt to settlement building and Arab nations taking steps towards recognising Israel.

The US hopes that the renewed impetus will lead to a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York later this month.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas insists he will not meet his Israeli counterparts until there is a freeze on new settlements in the West Bank. The settlement of occupied territory is illegal under international law but Israel last week said it had given permission for 455 new homes to be built. The move prompted Mr Abbas to say that there was no point attending a summit with Mr Netanyahu.

The US says it is willing to accept an offer from Iran for talks on a wide range of issues.

While stressing the offer "does not address our nuclear concerns" the US said it is was ready to "test Iran's willingness to engage".

On Friday, Russia warned against taking any military action against Iran.

Yemen’s army can claim unwonted accuracy in its latest offensive, Operation Scorched Earth

The clashes pit regular government troops, backed by lighter-armed tribal allies, against tribesmen loyal to the Houthi family, a powerful northern clan

would suggest a link to global jihadists. But most of their adherents belong to the Zaydi sect, a normally quietist branch of Shia Islam that is unique to Yemen and which most Sunnis regard as quaintly schismatic.

For more than a year, prosecutors have been cracking down on the corruption and kickbacks that thrived during the boom years in this Persian Gulf city-state

But alongside the con artists and crooks, a rising number of businesspeople have been sent to jail for going into debt. Bouncing a check is a criminal offense here. That fact has begun raising questions about the fairness of Dubai’s laws, especially among the foreigners who make up about 90 percent of the population.

he criminalization of debt has put a formidable weapon in the hands of landlords, banks and other creditors, who can send someone to jail with a single document showing a check has been returned for insufficient funds. It has also complicated Dubai’s efforts to recover from the financial crisis by sending many legitimate but struggling businesspeople to jail, where they find it even harder to repay their debts.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his second address to the nation since the turmoil over the June presidential election, set a tough tone for where the country is heading: No compromises with opponents outside or inside Iran

The comments set the stage for the possible arrest of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

The document, and a public Russian rebuff of the idea of new sanctions against Iran, left President Barack Obama with few options before a deadline he set this month for diplomatic progress.

In the Cuban crisis, Kennedy gave up nuclear-tipped missiles close to the Russian border. The move didn't really reduce American nuclear deterrence. Could Obama likewise withdraw US naval forces from the oil-rich region or some other step that only intelligence agencies would know about? Would such compromises be enough to satisfy an Iran bent on Islamic revolution beyond its borders?

In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb grade material.

Iran has maintained its continuing enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, that the uranium is solely for electric power

But in a 2007 announcement, the United States said that it had found evidence that Iran had worked on designs for making a warhead, though it determined the project was halted in late 2003.

Accurate intelligence about the progress of Iran’s weapons programs has been notoriously poor.

Both the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate and the recent updates for Mr. Obama, according to officials familiar with their contents, are filled with caveats that Iran could be conducting uranium enrichment or weapons design work at remote locations

By the last count of the international inspectors, Iran has installed more than 8,000 centrifuges — the machines that enrich uranium — at its main underground facility at Natanz, the primary target the Israelis had in their sights. At last inspection, Iran was using only a little more than half of them to enrich uranium.

One of the less discussed considerations of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been access to fresh water. Two of the three primary fresh-water aquifers in Israel and Palestine lie under the West Bank: the Eastern Basin and the Northeastern Basin. Israel also shares a coastal aquifer with the Gaza Strip. Israel cannot relinquish control over those aquifers without severely compromising its national security.

Among the many maladies plaguing Iraq, the absence of fresh water has assumed new importance given that some of the country’s other issues are in the process of being addressed. Iraq’s two main sources of fresh water, the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, are drying up

Iraq remains at the mercy of Turkey and Syria for its fresh water resources. Part of Iraq’s problem is that there is no international law that obligates Turkey or Syria to share their water

Text is a very important part of user experience on the web, so it needs and deserves the same sort of design consideration. You must make your text usable in the same manner that you do the rest of your website or social media campaign materials. In short: text is user interface. Here are five rules for writing better for the web.

Unless you have a clear picture of the end result, your writing won’t be as clear as it could be. Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with each bit of text you write. Once you know the objective, you’ll be able to more clearly articulate what you need to get across to your customers in your copy, and you’ll be able to identify any superfluous text that you can throw out.

Any time your audience changes, you may need to make changes in your copy as well.

Hamid Karzai has won 54.1 per cent of the vote in the race for the Afghan presidency - above the 50 per cent needed to avoid a run-off poll, partial results indicate.

James Bays, reporting from Kabul, said: "If these results were to stand, that would mean this is all over - no second round and President Karzai is once again the president of Afghanistan.

Bays said: "We've had the election complaints commission come out, saying they have clear and convincing evidence of fraud in these elections.