Color revolutions are political term used to describe turbulent political events: mass street protests and riots in order to achieve a revolutionary change of government. Some revolutionary upheavals are successful and some remain only attempts. However, so far they have taken place in a number of countries at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century.
Forty-five years ago this month, a revolution was underway in Iran. It was called an Iranian revolution but its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had a more ambitious project in mind: the founding of a new Islamic empire that would project power throughout the Middle East and far beyond.
In 1989, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei succeeded Mr. Khomeini as “supreme leader” of the misleadingly named the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Latest Developments
Iran has deployed its warship the Alborz to the Red Sea, Tehran’s state media reported on January 1. On January 2, the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the southern Red Sea, said U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The missiles landed near several ships, but none of them was damaged. “These illegal actions endangered the lives of dozens of innocent mariners and continue to disrupt the free flow of international commerce,” CENTCOM said. “This is the 24th attack against merchant shipping in the Southern Red Sea since Nov. 19.”
Islamic fundamentalism has been present in Iran and other Islamic countries for centuries. In Iran, this trend has primarily been associated with autocratic rulers. However, the prevalence of medieval religious ideas had never really become widespread, at least in Iran, until a historical event profoundly marked the contemporary history of Iran and the world. This event was the uprising of the Iranian people against the Shah.
Palestinian airplane hijackings and attacks on Israeli civilians in Israel as well as on Israeli and Jewish targets abroad pockmarked the 1970s and 1980s.
The violence put the Palestinian issue on the world agenda. The violence erupted, and at times, was driven by fierce debate among Palestinian guerilla leaders on whether to drop maximalist demands for replacing the State of Israel with a (Palestinian-dominated) “secular democratic state” and strive for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“I am certain soon we can look forward to a family of rockets named after martyred leader Saleh al-Arouri,” Deputy Chair of the Political Bureau of Hamas and founder of the Martyr Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
It is beyond me how Israel has failed to figure out that a martyred Palestinian leader exerts a vastly more powerful hold on his people’s imagination and will to resist than a living one.
In August 2021, following nearly two decades of armed resistance, the Taliban movement forced their way to power in Afghanistan, coinciding with the withdrawal of international troops from the country. Following their return media attention and international policy discussions have, correctly, focused on the deteriorating economic situation, the looming humanitarian crisis, and the deteriorating human rights situation in the country and on questions such as in which form the Taliban can and should be engaged.1 Less attention has been paid to the security and terrorist threats that are likely to emerge from the new situation in Afghanistan. Therefore, a clear gap in perception among policymakers and the general public seems to exist in this regard.
Rise of TTP in Pakistan and Afghanistan around 2007 was nothing short of resurrection of a hibernating sidewinder known in Muslim history as Khawarij. Historically, this ideology is based on violent misinterpretation of Islamic scripture and it first appeared during the time of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH. It continued to appear time to time and their only motive has remained to use twisted interpretation of Quran to declare other Muslims as Non-Muslims a phenomenon known as Takfir. Their ultimate aim has always remained to seek power, authority, and make people obey them through wrongful methods and reasons.
In 2nd speech this week, Hezbollah chief vows response is coming on the killing of Hamas terror orchestrator Arouri, says Lebanon would be exposed if assassination went unanswered
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah threatened that Israel’s northern residents would be “the first to pay the price if a full-scale war were to erupt” along the front, and boasted of the terror group’s achievements in recent daily skirmishes, in a nationally televised speech Friday.
Salvo of more than 40 projectiles sets off alarms in 90 Israeli communities; no injuries in strikes that targeted Mount Meron area; IDF hits terror infrastructure in response
The Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon fired a barrage of dozens of rockets into Israel on Saturday in a move it called “an initial response” to the alleged Israeli killing of Hamas terror chief Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon last week. There were no reports of injuries.