The Lebanese military announced today that it had fired on Syrian aircraft violating Beirut’s airspace, a move that analysts speculated was designed in part as a public response to efforts – driven by both sides of the almost three-year Syrian conflict – to expand that war into Lebanese territory: The move suggests...

• Kindle

Egyptian authorities are intensifying their most recent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood – Friday morning’s Reuters headline tersely noted “Egypt arrests more Brotherhood supporters, more protests anticipated” – days after the country’s army-backed interim government designated the Islamist group as a terrorist organization. At least 32 figures linked to the Brotherhood have...

• Kindle

Egypt’s army-backed interim government yesterday designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, a day after a massive bomb destroyed an Egyptian police station and killed at least 15 people. The Washington Post reports: The announcement was a stunning blow to the decades-old Islamist organization, which survived for years in the shadows and...

• Kindle

The Associated Press on Tuesday reported on what the outlet described as “the latest in a string of Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets in recent days,” after a Palestinian sniper that morning shot and killed an Israeli Bedouin defense contractor who was working on the border fence separating Israel from the Hamas-controlled...

• Kindle

Suspected jihadists detonated a massive bomb early Tuesday morning outside a police headquarters in Egypt’s increasingly restive Nile Delta region, collapsing the five-story building, killing at least 11 people, and deepening concerns that Islamist fighters are mobilizing to disrupt a January 14th constitutional referendum designed to transition the country to a democratically...

• Kindle

An escalating political struggle between two dominant Islamist camps inside Turkey – which in recent days has rocked the country and now threatens to destabilize the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) government – has spilled over into the U.S.-Turkey relationship and generated a sharp rebuke from Washington regarding “continued false and slanderous attacks”...

• Kindle

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last week declared that the Iran-backed terror group would attack Israel in response to the December 4th killing of Haj Hassan Hilu Laqis, deepening concerns that the organization – which has seen its brand as an anti-Israel vanguard shattered by its role in the Syrian conflict – is seeking to...

• Kindle

Egyptian officials announced today that the country’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked former President Mohammed Morsi will stand trial on terrorism-related charges, declaring that he and 35 other Brotherhood figures will face charges for among other things conspiring with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to sow instability within and beyond...

• Kindle

A car bomb detonated early yesterday near a Hezbollah base in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley has deepened concerns that sectarian tensions generated by the Iran-backed terror group’s participation in Syria’s nearly three-year-old conflict are spilling over into Lebanon. Shiite Hezbollah has provided critical support to the Bashar al-Assad regime, allowing it to...

• Kindle

The Associated Press yesterday reported on efforts to prevent escalation in the aftermath of what it described as “a deadly border skirmish” between Israel and Lebanon. Israel and Lebanon on Monday rushed to ease tensions following a deadly border skirmish that left one Israeli soldier dead, with the enemy countries holding a...

• Kindle