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  • Combating Extremism
    Saudi Arabia mobilizes clergy and media against jihadi recruitment

    Informed by its previous experience, the kingdom is using an array of tools against jihadi recruitment apart from the media. A royal decree in February ordered long jail terms for people who went to fight overseas or helped others do so, or for those giving moral or material aid to groups including Islamic State and al Qaeda's official offshoot in Syria, the Nusra Front. Several people have already been convicted. Top clerics including the Grand Mufti and members of the Senior Council of Scholars, the highest religious bodies in the kingdom, have repeatedly denounced militant groups in sermons and fatwas. While some senior government-appointed clerics have described the Syrian war as a jihad, they have made clear it is one that should be fought by Syrians, not by Saudis.

  • Archeology
    The giant stone circles in the Middle East no one can explain

    In the 1920s, a mustachioed British commander named Lionel Rees set out across the deserts of what would become Jordan. Snapping some of the earliest archaeological aerial photographs, he observed numerous immense, nearly perfect stone circles. “All three are almost exact circles, are different from anything else in the country,” he wrote in the journal Antiquity.

  • Military
    How the Pentagon Is Adapting to Globalization

    Google may not need defense contracts, but the Pentagon needs more and better relationships with companies like Google. Only the private sector can provide the kind of cutting-edge technology that has given U.S. troops a distinct advantage for the past 70 years. And beyond courting commercial companies, the Pentagon must also adapt to an increasingly global defense industry, since critical defense technologies are no longer the sole province of U.S.-based companies.

  • Iran
    British-Iranian Activist Ghoncheh Ghavami Sentenced To A Year In Prison For Trying To Watch A Volleyball Game

    Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian woman from Shepherd’s Bush in London, has reportedly been sentenced to a year in prison for trying to watch a men’s volleyball match.

  • Libya
    Benghazi district residents urged to leave

    Libya's army has asked residents in a central district of the port city of Benghazi to leave before a major military operation against Islamists.

  • Islamic State
    Why Islamic State threat is ‘unprecedented,’ but doesn’t change much for US

    The Islamic State is a unique phenomenon that "is unprecedented in the modern age," according to a new report, but a co-author suggests that – for now – the threat to the United States remains limited and the potential for solving the crisis is frustratingly familiar. The investigation, conducted by the Soufan Group, a security intelligence firm in New York, delves into the terrorist group’s own strategy papers and tweets, as well as the observations of defectors and analysis of Soufan's staff, including a former CIA officer. What sets the Islamic State apart is its strategy and organization, says Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer who has worked in the region and was a co-author of the report. That makes the militant group a hybrid between a terrorist group and a nation-state with the ability to switch between the two as needs dictate.

  • OPEC
    OPEC sees oil price fall curbing US shale oil industry

    Speaking from the London Oil&Money conference OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri signalled the cartel does not have the intention of cutting its output anytime soon. OPEC also seems to expect that the decline in prices will force the US shale oil industry to reduce its pace of investments and output, which will eventually lead to a more balanced market. "I don't think 2015 will be far away from 2014 in terms of production," el-Badri remarked.

  • Iraqi Kurdistan
    U.S. says working with Iraqi Kurdistan to stop Islamic State oil smuggling

    The United States is working closely with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government to clamp down on oil smuggling in a bid to cut off a key source of funding for Islamic State, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday. Islamic State militants have seized oilfields and refineries in north Iraq and have been exporting oil through smuggling networks to help finance their campaign, along with ransom, extortion and other criminal activities.

  • Riyadh Metro
    Saudi capital’s $22.5 billion metro a ‘race against time’

    Abdullah Allohaidan told AFP in an interview that the rail and bus development - whose construction is changing the face of Riyadh - is the largest such project under way in the Middle East "and I think in the whole world." Construction began a year ago but has accelerated in the last few weeks, with road closures, digging equipment and hard-hatted workers taking over the city's business core, to the frustration of drivers facing detours and lane-closures. "I think the biggest challenge we are facing is the duration of the project," said Allohaidan, assistant to the metro director. Plans call for construction to be completed by the end of 2018.

  • U.S.-Turkey Relations
    For Turkey and U.S., at odds over Syria, a 60-year alliance shows signs of crumbling

    The increasingly hostile divergence of views between Turkey and the United States over Syria is testing the durability of their 60-year alliance, to the point where some are starting to question whether the two countries still can be considered allies at all. Turkey’s refusal to allow the United States to use its bases to launch attacks against the Islamic State, quarrels over how to manage the battle raging in the Syrian border town of Kobane and the harsh tone of the anti-American rhetoric used by top Turkish officials to denounce U.S. policy have served to illuminate the vast gulf that divides the two nations as they scramble to address the menace posed by the extremists.