With government complicity, Syrians’ property falls victim to forgery

AMMAN – Marwa’s house, located behind Basateen al-Razi in Damascus, is registered in the name of her husband, “who was killed by a bombing of the area in 2012,” she said. That did not stop her husband’s brother from selling “the house to one of the Hezbollah members who surround the city of Darayya city.” However, “I can’t go to the government institutions in Damascus to make a claim for my family’s right to the property,” the displaced woman now living in northwest Syria’s city of Idlib told Syria Direct.

NDS kills Al Qaeda commander in eastern Afghanistan

د ملی امنيت دلوی رياست ځانګړو ځواکونو د پکتيکا په ګيان کې د القاعدې د هند وچې غړی دولت بیګ مشهور په ابومحمدالتاجکي دتاجکستان تبعه او طالب ترهګر حضرت علي مشهور په حمزه مهاجر د وزیرستان اوسیدونکی ګيان ته پر لاره وژلي. #اعتماد‌_یک‌_ملت#د_یو_ملت_اعتما‌د#TRUST_OF_A_NATION pic.twitter.com/H49C6T2bPv
— NDS Afghanistan (@NDSAfghanistan) March 30, 2021

Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security killed an Al Qaeda commander and a Taliban leader during a recent operation in the eastern province of Paktika. That happened despite the fact the Taliban insists that Al Qaeda operatives, and all foreign fighters, have not been present in Afghanistan since 2001.

Houthis Increase Attacks Amid Decreased U.S. Support for Arab Coalition

Attacks on Saudi Arabian critical infrastructure and civilians in the region are increasing in frequency as the United States reduces its support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. The Iran-backed Houthis have claimed responsibility for a wave of cross-border attacks, including ballistic missile attacks on an Aramco petroleum distribution center over the weekend. The most recent assaults follow a U.N. investigation that determined the Houthis were responsible for a deadly December 2020 attack on a Yemeni airport, which resulted in the death of at least 22 people. Houthi officials have warned that its strikes would continue. Despite its decreased support for the anti-Houthi coalition, the United States has condemned the Houthi attacks and called for a cessation of violence.

Indoctrinated in Hate: ‘This Is the Start of the New Caliphate’

Hate-filled indoctrination and training in violence is not limited to the “schools” of ISIS or Boko Haram. Public schools all around the Muslim world share elements of this indoctrination. Most recently, a March 2021 study exposed how the school curriculum of Turkey — for decades one of the Muslim world’s most secular nations — is also increasingly full of jihadi propaganda.

Palestinians: US Taxpayer Money Going to Terrorists

The memo, however, does not specifically say that the renewed US funding would be conditioned on ending the Palestinians’ “pay-to-slay” program. Instead, the Biden administration is only seeking a “commitment” from the Palestinian leadership to end the stipends.

Jordan prince declares loyalty to king following rift

The United States refers to Jordan’s King Abdullah II as an “invaluable and indispensable strategic partner.”

Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, half brother to Jordanian King Abdullah II and a former crown prince, has signed a statement affirming loyalty to the king, seemingly putting an end to the rift among the royal family that had shocked the country over the past two days.

Tigray Is Being Deliberately Starved to Death

Millions of people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are facing starvation. Until now, it’s been a crisis without pictures. Those wrenching images of emaciated children and mothers with dull-eyed gazes, so sadly familiar from famine zones, have yet to emerge. But that’s because journalists aren’t permitted to travel to the worst-hit areas of Tigray, where hunger is deepening by the day. When the media can finally get access, or when starving villagers abandon their homes and flee to towns, the pictures will surely remind viewers of drought victims from Ethiopia’s 1984 famine, which prompted the famous LiveAid benefit concert and a vast outpouring of charity.

Engaging the World: The making of Hamas’s foreign policy

Hamas has been a strongly maligned actor within the western mainstream media. The concise and well written “Engaging the World” by Daud Abdullah presents a clear picture of Hamas’ attempts to act as an international state actor while at the same time continuing its role as a liberation movement against Israeli occupation. It is a very honest work, describing Hamas’ success in presenting a critical pragmatic formulation of its actions for other state actors, at the same time indicating where it has not succeeded, through its own relative political weakness in relation to considerable outside influences.

Neo-colonialism, White Supremacy and the Challenge of China

The European race has received from heaven, or acquired by its own efforts, such an unquestionable superiority over all the other races composing the great human family, that the man placed in our country, by his vices and ignorance, on the last step of the social ladder, is still first among the savages.

Could Turkish involvement in Yemen free Saudi Arabia?

The Muslim Brotherhood and sources close to the Turkish government are arguing that Saudi Arabia could find a face-saving exit from the Yemen conflict it has been looking for by cooperating with Turkey.

In part as a result of the Biden administration’s shifting policies toward Iran and Washington’s decision to temporarily freeze and review weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over the Yemeni war, Ankara is aiming to turn Saudi Arabia’s growing international isolation to Turkey’s advantage.