Authorities in Egypt may be preparing to pile on new charges against a popular satirist referred to as “Egypt’s Jon Stewart.” Bassem Youssef was detained last week on allegations of insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, triggering an international outcry that publicly pitted the Muslim Brotherhood against the U.S. State...

An upcoming meeting designed to facilitate Israeli-Turkish reconciliation has been postponed until late April, as worries deepen that backsliding by top Turkish officials may delay or even scuttle rapprochement between the two countries. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was maneuvered last month by U.S. officials into accepting reconciliation terms that he had...

Two fighters from the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah were reportedly killed Monday in Syria near the Lebanese-Syrian border. Meanwhile, battles have been raging around the Syrian city of Homs for several days, and rebel forces claim that Hezbollah fighters have also been killed there. The news underscores the degree to which the Iran-backed...

Iran has brought online new uranium mines and a yellow cake production facility, deepening concerns that the country is diversifying and deepening its critical nuclear infrastructure with an eye toward developing a so-called “virtual arsenal.” Tehran would under that scenario have the technology, material, and know-how to rush across the nuclear...

Al Qaeda’s Iraqi wing is merging with an Islamist opposition group in Syria that the Washington Post describes as “the most aggressive and successful” of the rebel forces fighting in the country. The announcement of a formal merger between Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Syria-based Al Nusra Front was made in...

Hamas is beating, arresting, and forcibly cutting the hair of men who have “immodest” haircuts, part of a campaign to enforce Islamic styles in the Gaza Strip: The human rights group says the men were beaten and forced to sign an agreement to keep their hair short. They are also...

Hamas appears to be stopping short of employing its full force to stop Gaza-based jihadists from launching rockets at Israel, though it has the power to do so. The Iran-backed group knows that clamping down too hard would provoke anger from the Gazan public. Hamas security forces detained a number...

The Israeli military last week published video of Palestinian children as young as elementary school-age being used to hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers. The dramatic footage sparked a debate that deepened this weekend with the publication of legal analysis identifying the tactic as a war crime: As stone-throwing Palestinian children have been...

The head of Iran’s parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy said Sunday that Tehran will never halt its atomic program but suggested that talks between his country and the international community continue anyway: Alaeddin Boroujerdi said the talks were “considered effective and a step forward,” but he added,...

The Syrian government has redeployed as many as 20,000 troops from areas around the country’s Golan Heights border with Israel. The troops are being moved closer to Damascus in what is the largest Syrian redeployment in 40 years. They’re leaving behind an increasingly chaotic power vacuum: “They [the Syrian government] have...