MUST-READS

• Middle East Mega Projects
  Saudi Arabia leads the way in regional mega projects

  While the projects are distributed across sectors and geographies, the Gulf Cooperation Council dominates – with 87 percent of the total project volume. Saudi Arabia, the region’s largest economy, represents by far the largest MENA market for projects – with a value of $784 billion or 31.3 percent of the entire pipeline.

• ISIS Strategy
  What’s so new about the Islamic State’s governance?

  According to new global data I collected for my dissertation on the social service provision by all active insurgent groups from 1945 to 2003, over one-third of insurgencies have provided education or health care to either members of the insurgency or civilians. This trend is fairly consistent with insurgencies across time: As the number of insurgencies began increasing in the 1960s before declining in the mid-1990s, so did the number of insurgencies providing social services.

  • VICE - How the Islamic State Uses Horrifying Beheadings As Effective Propaganda
  • WSJ - Opinion: To Defeat Islamic State, Remove Assad
  • LA Times - FBI asks: Do you know the man in this Islamic State video?
• Arabic Language News
  Saudi prince confirms news channel by year-end

  Billionaire Saudi media mogul, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz’s promised new Arabic-language news channel, Alarab, is to launch by the end of the year. Based in Bahrain, the all-news channel will directly compete with Al Jazeera, MBC’s Al Arabiya, Sky News Arabia plus dozens of other news outlets not least Nile News out of Cairo

• US Intelligence
  The US Helped Foil A Iranian Attack On Saudi Oil Rigs In 1987

  A recently disclosed CIA document suggests that the US military's around-the-clock satellite imagery analysis helped Saudi Arabia foil a planned Iranian attack on its offshore oil rigs in 1987.

• ISIS and Air Strikes
  Intensified U.S. airstrikes keep Kobane from falling to Islamic State militants

  The strikes followed the request by Turkey for intensified U.S. efforts to prevent the predominantly Kurdish town, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, from falling to the Islamic State, Turkish officials said. Turkey has lined up tanks and troops within view of the Syrian Kurdish fighters defending Kobane but has not sought to intervene — for a tangle of reasons bound up with its complicated relationship with Kurds and its doubts about the goals of the international coalition fighting the extremists.

  • CNN - Turkey's tough choice: Take on ISIS or the PKK?'
  • Guardian - Opinion: Why is the world ignoring the revolutionary Kurds in Syria?
  • Washington Post - The U.S. acted to save Iraq’s Kurds. Why not Syria’s?
  • Al-Monitor - Is the Islamic State luring the US into sending ground troops
• FBI and Jihadists
  Chicago arrest displays FBI’s wide net for Islamic State recruits

  It marked at least the third time in the last month that federal agents have arrested Americans alleged to have been attempting to support the Jihadists’ fight in Iraq and Syria and underscores the challenge facing the FBI and other federal agents as they cast a nationwide net to try to intercept U.S. recruits bound for the Middle East or Islamic State operatives attempting to retaliate for recent U.S. airstrikes.

• Twitter and Taliban
  How Twitter’s geolocation settings embarrassed the Taliban

  On Friday, however, Mujahid posted several Tweets, apparently accidentally turning the social network's geolocation tracking on. His position came as a surprise to many: Instead of posting from Afghanistan, he seemed to be in Sindh, a Pakistani region in the southeast of the country.

• Women's Health and Fitness
  Opinion: Saudi women need more than a sporting chance

  Over the years there have been many statements by high-ranking officials in the local media in Saudi Arabia that supported integrating girl sports in public schools, opening private clubs, allowing female participation in neighborhood centers, and setting the stage for more Olympic participation. However, logistical challenges remain, as there are no local sports professionals and no space is being made available in these public schools.

• ‘Boots in the air’
  U.S. helicopters return to combat in Iraq for first time

  Until Sunday, U.S. airstrikes in Iraq have been limited to fast-moving Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft and drones. But the use of the relatively slow-flying helicopters represents an escalation of American military involvement and is a sign that the security situation in Iraq’s Anbar province is deteriorating.

  • New York Times - ISIS Moves Into Syrian Kurdish Enclave on Turkish Border
• Qatari Foreign Policy
  Opinion: The Saudi and Emirati response to Qatar is all about domestic unrest

  The UAE and Saudi Arabia would not be grandstanding and threatening their neighbor if they did not sincerely fear that Qatar’s relationships with Salafists fighting abroad and Brotherhood operatives throughout the Islamic world will help them present alternatives to the way the monarchies run things.

• 10 of 61002 results<< 1 … 5,997 5,998 5,999 … 6,101 >>