As a Muslim, I Am Shocked by Liberals and Leftists

GATESTONE INSTITUTE: …

If you had grown up, as I did, between two authoritarian governments -- the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria -- under the leadership of people such as Hafez al Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you would have seen your youth influenced by two major denominations of Islam in the Muslim world: the Shia and the Sunni. I studied both, and at one point was even a devout Muslim. My parents, who still live in Iran and Syria, come from two different ethnic Muslim groups: Arab and Persian.

You also would have seen how the religion of Islam intertwines with politics, and how radical Islam rules a society through its religious laws, sharia. You would have witnessed how radical Islam can dominate and scrutinize people's day-to-day choices: in eating, clothing, socializing, entertainment, everything.

You would have seen the tentacles of its control close over every aspect of your life. You would have seen the way, wielded by fundamentalists, radical Islam can be a powerful tool for unbridled violence. It is the fear of this violence, torture, and death, wielded by extremist Muslims, that keeps every person desperate to obey.

…

Read it all here » | Majid Rafizadeh | Saturday, March 25, 2017

Reporting Saudi Arabia's Hidden Uprising

BBC: In Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province, protesters inspired by the Arab Spring have been venting their anger against the government for the last three years. Saudi journalist Safa Alahmad got unprecedented access to the area.

Even inside Saudi Arabia, the protests in the coastal region of Qatif hardly ever make the news. It's nearly impossible for journalists to operate here.

But I travelled in under the radar. I know the area well, as I was born and raised nearby.

I visited the Eastern Province several times in the past two years without the knowledge of the Saudi authorities.

I wanted to find out why activists from the country's Shia minority were risking their lives to demonstrate against the monarchy.

How had frequent protests rumbled on without being silenced? » | Friday, May 30, 2014

Saudi Arabia ‘failing to address human rights concerns’ »

Conflict in the Middle East Is About More Than Just Religion
THE OBSERVER: Recently, Shia-Sunni conflicts have seen Hezbollah help Syrian government forces to recapture Qusair. Battles rage between the two sides in Lebanon while in Iraq the monthly death toll from Sunni-Shia violence has topped 1,000. But religion alone does not explain the escalating tensions. Fundamental political shifts begun by the Arab spring are helping create new regional disputes in the Middle East

Nine days ago the influential Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi denounced the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah movement – whose fighters helped Bashar al-Assad's regime retake the Syrian city of Qusair last week – as the "party of Satan".

Speaking in Doha not long before Qusair's fall, Qaradawi did not stop there: the cleric, whose speeches and sermons are heard by millions, went a dangerous step further, calling on Sunni Muslims with military training to support the Syrian uprising against Assad.

It was a sermon that not only marked a sharp shift in the sectarian tensions in the Middle East between Sunni and Shia but an escalation in Qaradawi's own rhetoric. When I heard him preach on Syria at Cairo's crowded al-Azhar mosque last autumn, he was sharp in his condemnation of the Assad regime, but stopped short of endorsing a jihad.

In Doha, however, Qaradawi's remarks embraced a more dangerous sectarian notion. "The leader of the party of the Satan comes to fight the Sunnis … now we know what the Iranians want … they want continued massacres to kill Sunnis," Qaradawi said. "How could 100 million Shias defeat 1.7 billion [Sunnis]? Only because [Sunni] Muslims are weak."

Qaradawi's comments – endorsed last week by Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh – did not come out of nowhere. They were a direct response to a speech made by Hezbollah's general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut, not only admitting that his fighters were in Syria but pledging that his men would help Assad – a member of the Shia Alawite sect – to final "victory".

If ever evidence was needed of the escalating sectarian dimension to the growing regional instability in the Middle East – in which the worsening conflict in Syria is playing a large part – it was visible last week. » | Peter Beaumont | Saturday, June 08, 2013

Click here for a pdf depicting key Sunni and Shia populations »

Canada Terror Plot: Iran's Complex Al-Qaeda Connection
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: When Canada accused "al-Qaeda elements in Iran" of guiding the alleged plot to derail a train, the veil was briefly lifted on a tangled yet crucial relationship between Osama bin Laden's followers and Tehran.

Iran and al-Qaeda, divided by race and religion, are not exactly natural allies. Bin Laden’s heirs are radical Sunni Arabs with a visceral suspicion of Iran’s Shia Persian regime. Indeed the hardline Salafists of al-Qaeda consider the Shia faith a heresy: in their eyes, Shias are not true Muslims at all.

Yet Iran and al-Qaeda are united by anti-Americanism and the compelling logic of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. With this in mind, there is no doubt that Iran granted refuge to senior al-Qaeda figures after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The fugitives included bin Laden’s daughter, Fatima, and no less than four of his sons: Othman, Mohammed, Laden and Sa’ad. Along with various other key figures, they were kept under house arrest, but given safety.

”The reality is that since 2001, Iran has provided refuge for al-Qaeda elements, including some senior leaders,” said Jonathan Eyal, head of security studies at the Royal United Services Institute. “The Canadian claim that this plot has been engineered on Iranian soil is entirely plausible. Western intelligence agencies have known for a long time about the presence of al-Qaeda operatives in Iran.” » | David Blair | Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Un article lié à cet article »

Two Killed in Saudi Arabia Clashes
THE GUARDIAN: A soldier and an alleged gunman died, with one soldier wounded, in a shootout during Shia protests in Qatif, in the oil-rich Eastern Province

Two people have been killed in clashes between soldiers and Shia protesters in eastern Saudi Arabia, state media reported.

A soldier and a Shia gunman were killed in a shootout in the city of Qatif late on Friday, according to the interior ministry. » | Staff and agencies | Saturday, August 04, 2012

Uprising in Saudi Arabia? America Won’t Allow It

THE FIRST POST: Alexander Cockburn: There’ll be little talk in Washington of democracy in action if Shia protests catch hold

POSE a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia, as Shia protesters are said to to have done in Awamiya, according to reports this week from the country's oil-rich Eastern Province, and you're brandishing a scalpel over the very heart of long-term US policy in the Middle East.

The US consumes about 19 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, about half of them imported. At 25 per cent, Canada is the lead supplier. Second comes Saudi Arabia with 12 per cent. But supply of crude oil to the US is only half the story. Saudi Arabia controls OPEC's oil price and adjusts it carefully with US priorities in the front of their minds.

The traffic is not one-way. In the half-century after 1945, the United States sold the Saudis about $100 billion in military goods and services. A year ago the Obama administration announced the biggest weapons deal in US history – a $60 billion programme with Saudi Arabia to sell it military equipment across the next 20 to 30 years.

Under its terms, the United States will provide Saudi Arabia with 84 advanced F-15 fighter planes with electronics and weapons packages tailored to Saudi needs. An additional 70 F-15's already in Saudi hands will be upgraded to match the capabilities of the new planes.

Saudi Arabia will purchase a huge fleet of nearly 200 Apache, Blackhawk and other US military helicopters, along with a vast array of radar systems, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, and guided bombs. The US trains and supplies all Saudi Arabia's security forces. US corporations have huge investments in the Kingdom. Read on and comment » | Alexander Cockburn | Friday, October 07, 2011

Saudis Crush Dissent and Point Finger at Iran for Trouble in Eastern Province

THE GUARDIAN: Kingdom wary of popular uprising warns unrest will be crushed with 'an iron fist' and plays down protests, blaming outsiders

Saudi Arabia has made clear it will not tolerate unrest in its eastern province, where 14 people, 11 of them policemen, were injured in protests this week. Any further trouble would be crushed with "an iron fist," the government warned, anxious to avoid any perception that the first green shoots of the Arab spring have started to emerge in the Gulf's conservative heartland.

It is no surprise that the regime's instinct has been to play down the dimensions and significance of the trouble – an "isolated incident" is the official line in Riyadh. Initial evidence of an over-reaction by security forces gave way to a pullout from the flashpoint, Awamiyah, near the regional capital Qatif, where the Saudi interior ministry accused protesters of carrying arms and throwing petrol bombs. YouTube pictures showed some of that — along with the sound of gunfire and cries of "Allahu Akbar."

It also alleged that the trouble was directed by an unnamed "foreign country" – no prizes for guessing that meant Iran. Unofficial Saudi experts were far less coy, comparing what happened in Awamiyah to the tactics used by Shia protesters in nearby Bahrain during the Pearl Revolution earlier this year, which was also widely, and misleadingly, blamed on meddling by the Islamic republic. Reinforcing Saudi suspicions, Iranian media have hailed the trouble as a "popular uprising" against the monarchy. » | Ian Black | Thursday, October 06, 2011

Saudi Arabia: Police 'Open Fire' on Protesters
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Saudi forces reportedly laid siege to a Shia village in the east of the kingdom yesterday following the eruption of clashes, raising fears that the world’s biggest oil producer may not be immune to the unrest sweeping the Middle East.

Exiled Saudi dissidents said police had sealed off the village of Awwamiya [sic] after using live fire to disperse Shia protesters on Monday night. They claimed 20 people had been wounded in the worst violence in Saudi Arabia’s [e]ast, home to much of the Sunni kingdom’s Shia minority, for years.

Observers say Sunni-Shia tension is rising in the kingdom and could be exploited by Iran, Saudi Arabia’s greatest rival in the region. » | Tuesday, October 04, 2011

THE INDEPENDENT: Saudi police open fire on civilians as protests gain momentum: Insecure Saudis crack down on freedom protest » | Patrick Cockburn | Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Lebanon Mourns Death of Shia "Spiritual Leader"


Ayatollah Dies
NEW ZEALAND HERALD: Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Shiite Islam's highest religious authorities, died last night at the age of 74, a medical source at a Beirut Hospital said.

Fadlallah had a wide following among Lebanese Shiites and was a supporter of Iran's Islamic Revolution.

He was the spiritual leader and mentor of the Shiite militant group Hizbollah in the first years after it was formed in 1982. [Source: NZ Herald] | Monday, July 05, 2010

Iran Issues Tacit Warning to Saudi Arabia Over Attacks on Rebels
TIMES ONLINE: Iran warned Saudi Arabia yesterday not to become further entangled in supporting the Yemen Government’s drive to put down Shia Muslim rebels.

After a week of Saudi air raids and the imposition of a naval blockade by Riyadh to prevent weapons from reaching the insurgents, Iran issued comments that are certain to escalate tensions between the regional powers.

“Those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows,” said Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, in a clear warning to Saudi Arabia — which attacked Huthi rebels after they took control of a Saudi border town last week.

Iran is a majority Shia Muslim country and supports Shia groups across the region, particularly in Lebanon and Iraq, while Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim state. >>> James Hider, Middle East Correspondent | Thursday, November 12, 2009

Iraqi Gay Men Face 'Lives of Hell'
BBC: Grainy footage taken on a mobile phone and widely distributed around Baghdad shows a terrified young Iraqi boy cowering and whimpering as men with a stick force him to strip, revealing women's underwear beneath his dishdasha (Arab robe).

Mobile footage of gay men being abused is being widely circulated in Iraq. Photo courtesy of the BBC
"Why are you dressed as a girl?" roars one of the men, brandishing his stick as the youth removes his brassiere.

The sobbing boy, who appears to be about 12, tries to explain that his family made him do it to earn money, as they have no other source of income.

The scene, apparently filmed in a police post, reinforced reports of a campaign against gay men in Iraq which activists say has claimed the lives of more than 60 since December.

In the latest manifestation of the campaign, posters have appeared on walls in the poor Shia suburb of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, listing alleged homosexuals by name and threatening to kill them.
Those named have gone underground, while gay men throughout the city and in some other parts of the country also live in fear. >>> By Jim Muir, BBC News, Baghdad | Saturday, April 18, 2009

Watch BBC video: Jim Mui’s report >>>

Shia Crowds Decry US Role in Iraq
BBC: Tens of thousands of supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr have rallied against the US presence in Iraq, six years after Saddam Hussein's fall.

Protesters in Baghdad's Firdos Square carried pictures of the cleric and chanted slogans denouncing what they called the occupation of Iraq.

Six years ago, US troops reached the square and helped Iraqis pull down a statue of their former leader there.

US combat troops are due to pull out from Iraq's cities by the end of June.

Under a recent agreement, they are expected to remain elsewhere in the country until the end of August 2010.

Moqtada Sadr has repeatedly called for a complete and immediate US withdrawal from Iraq.

Protesters carrying Iraqi flags chanted slogans such as "No, no America - Yes, yes Iraq" as they thronged the streets and burned an effigy of former US President George W Bush.

"God, unite us, return our riches, free the prisoners from the prisons, return sovereignty to our country ... make our country free from the occupier, and prevent the occupier from stealing our oil," an aide to Mr Sadr read, as part of a message from the radical cleric.

Mr Sadr has not been seen in Iraq for several months and is believed to be in neighbouring Iran. >>> | Thursday, April 9, 2009

Watch BBC video: The BBC's Jim Muir joins Iraqi protesters on the streets of Baghdad >>>

The World Doesn’t Wish to "Absorb the 'Good Message of Islam'”, Your Highness!
Photo of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia courtesy of the BBC
BBC: Saudi Arabia's monarch has urged Muslims to speak with one voice in preparation for interfaith dialogue with the Jewish and Christian worlds.

King Abdullah was speaking at a three-day conference in Mecca, attended by hundreds of Muslim delegates.

The king, whose country is mainly Sunni Muslim, said extremists were exploiting the tolerant nature of Islam.

As well as extremism, delegates hope to tackle what is seen as the negative perception of Islam in the West.

BBC Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says the meeting is supposed to be the Saudi answer to the controversial "clash of civilizations" thesis of US academic Samuel Huntington.

Muslim writers often cite Prof Huntington's ideas as evidence of Western hostility to Islam in particular.

'Voice of justice'

King Abdullah entered the hall alongside Iranian politician Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who sat beside him on the stage.

Correspondents say the message was that the Sunni kingdom was now in agreement with moderate Shia Muslims such as Mr Rafsanjani, a former Iranian president.

"You have gathered today to tell the whole world that... we are a voice of justice and values and humanity, that we are a voice of coexistence and a just and rational dialogue," King Abdullah told the delegates.

Extremism was a challenge to Islam that targeted the "magnanimity, fairness and lofty aims" of the religion, he said.

"That's why this invitation was extended - to face the challenges of isolation, ignorance and narrow horizons, so that the world can absorb the good message of Islam." Saudis Launch Islamic Unity Drive >>> | June 4, 2008

YNET NEWS:
Saudi King: End Islamic Extremism >>> (Associated Press) | June 4, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Ashura: Shia Holy Day in Iraq – Violent
Photo courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: Around two million pilgrims today marched through the Iraqi city of Karbala in blood-soaked processions - beating their heads and chests in unison and whipping themselves with chains - to mark Ashura, one of the holiest events in the Shia Muslim calendar.

The processions were marred by violence with a deadly bombing in northern Iraq and clashes in the south involving members of a radical cult.

Shias across Iraq observed the Ashura holiday by marching, singing and beating their chests to honour the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in 680 AD. Security was stepped up in Karbala with 30,000 policemen and soldiers deployed in the city, including reinforcements from Baghdad.

But street battles between a messianic cult, the Soldiers of Heaven, and Iraqi troops raged for a second day in two predominantly Shia southern cities. Iraqi authorities said at least 36 people were reported killed in Basra and at least 32 in Nasiriyah, including Iraqi security forces, civilians and gunmen. Seven Iraqis were killed in a rocket attack after observing Ashura in Tal Afar, 260 miles north-west of Baghdad, police Brigadier General Najim Abdullah said. Shia holy day in Iraq marred by violence >>> By David Smith and agencies

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Muslims of the Iraq Unite Against the Common Foe!
THE TELEGRAPH: American attempts to co-opt Iraqi insurgents in Baghdad have suffered a set back after Sunni and Shia Muslim militants in a key district of the city forged an alliance against United States forces.

In the first half of the year, US commanders teamed up with Sunni fighters loyal to the al-Girtani clan to attack al-Qa'eda cells in the Shorta and Amil areas near the airport. But after intense fighting, in which the extremists were defeated, the al-Girtani tribe reached across Iraq's sectarian divide, in what is believed to be the first partnership of its kind.

"We fought the Shia because of pressure from al-Qa'eda," said Turki al-Girtani, the tribe leader. "Now after they were beaten we have to refocus on the real enemy, which is the US army." Shia and Sunni militants unite to attack US (more) By Aqeel Hussein

Mark Alexander

Sunnitische Extremisten im Irak drohen Iran mit ernsthaftem Krieg
NZZ ONLINE: Radikale Sunniten im Irak haben eine Drohung Richtung Iran ausgesprochen. Der Führer des sogenannten islamischen Staates im Irak warnte Iran vor einer weiteren Unterstützung der Schiiten im Irak. Die Organisation gilt als Ableger der Kaida im Zweistromland.

(ap) Sunnitische Extremisten im Irak haben Iran vor einer weiteren Unterstützung der irakischen Schiiten gewarnt. Sollte die Regierung in Teheran diese Einflussnahme nicht binnen zwei Monaten einstellen, drohe ihr ein ernsthafter Krieg, erklärte Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, der den sogenannten Islamischen Staat im Irak leitet. Dabei handelt es sich um einen Dachverband radikaler Sunnitenorganisationen unter Führung der Kaida im Irak. Der Verband versteht sich als islamistische Gegenregierung zur schiitisch dominierten Regierung in Bagdad. Warnung in Richtung Iran: Militante Sunniten im Irak wehren sich gegen Einmischung (more)

MIDDLE EAST TIMES:
Iraq's Al Qaeda threatens to attack Iran

Mark Alexander

Iran’s Global Ambitions
THE BOSTON GLOBE: Iran, in its effort to become a regional and global power, is reaching out across the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, exhorting Muslims worldwide to tolerate their differences -- and march under one Islamic banner.

TEHRAN -- Hamid Almolhoda, deputy director of the Center for Rapprochement of Islamic Schools of Thought, wears the white turban of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric. His budget comes from the world's only Shi'ite theocracy, the Iranian government, better known for bristling revolutionary rhetoric than for sunny public outreach. But Almolhoda's message of brotherhood wouldn't sound out of place at an ecumenical church breakfast.

His mission, approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government, is to convince the world's Muslims that the increasingly violent divide between Sunnis and Shi'ites -- on lurid display in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East -- is no big deal, just a matter of minor theological differences.

"Let's cooperate on what we have in common," he says. "Regarding our differences of opinion, we can tolerate each other."

In a campaign that is little-noticed in the West, Iran is trying to convince Sunni Muslims that Shi'ism, the form of Islam practiced by 90 percent of Iranians but only 20 percent of Muslims worldwide, is not the heresy that many Sunni hard-liners have branded it, nor a dangerous subversion of their faith, but just another legitimate school of thought within a unified Islam. Across the divide (more)

Mark Alexander