A senior Shia religious authority, Ayatollah Bashir Al-Najafi has issued a fatwa in the run up to the upcoming Iraqi elections prohibiting nominees from attracting voters with pay-offs. In the edict, Ayatollah Al-Najafi stated: “The nominees are not allowed to attract the voters by money and the voters are banned …

The leadership of some al-Qaeda affiliates is witnessing a generational shift from older men to men in their 30s and 40s, a UN report says. According to BBC, the study also found some cells were now recruiting members as young as 12. It warned of new international networks emerging from …

Below is a translation of the speech of Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr, dated 18th February 2014: I am not of those who turn a blind eye and keep their mouths shut in the face of corruption and wrongdoing. It has been decreed upon us, the Sadrs, to be those who call …

The twin suicide bombings yesterday in Bir Hassan, south of Beirut, were rightfully described as “an attack on the Islamic orphanage.” In fact, the two blasts shook the neighborhood surrounding al-Majad Center, part of the Social Welfare Institutions, where about 100 children were playing outside and 150 others were attending …

Boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) are big news in 2014. If Scarlett Johansson’s Sodastream fiasco didn’t grab your attention, perhaps the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli universities did, or Netanyahu’s increasing talk of million-dollar PR campaigns, legal offensives and diplomacy efforts to counter the BDS threat. Opinion pages are filled with debate, John Kerry has warned …

Updated at 3:40 pm: The Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for a twin suicide car bomb attack near an Iranian cultural center in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Wednesday morning. The Lebanese National News Agency reported that the 9:20 am explosion appeared to have been caused by …

The ninth meeting of the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union (IIPU) has opened in the Iranian capital, Tehran, with representatives from nearly 50 countries in attendance. The IIPU meeting kicked off in Tehran on Tuesday with a speech by Sudanese National Assembly Speaker Al-Fateh Ezzedin, whose country holds the rotating presidency of …

To mark the fifth anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli military campaign against the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian women’s organization has published a book with details of the deaths of children and women in 89 Palestinian families. Much of the credit for the publication goes to Ibtisam Saymah, a …

An old Kurdish saying goes: “When a cat wants to eat her kittens, she says they look like mice.” In 1962, on the eve of the American invasion of Vietnam, US propaganda movie “Red Nightmare” portrayed the peoples of the Communist Bloc as bellicose, duplicitous, semi-human fanatics. The Warner Brothers-produced …

The leader of Hungary’s Jobbik movement has said that “Islam is the last hope for humanity in the darkness of globalism and liberalism.” During the recent Hungarian parliamentary elections, the Jobbik movement earned 16.67% of the overall vote, securing 47 seats in the National Assembly. Subsequently, the President of Jobbika …