Nov 09,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – Michael Jansen At long last the campaign to drive Daesh from Raqqa, the cult’s self-proclaimed capital, has begun. Daesh seized this north Syrian city from Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Al Nusra and groups claiming affiliation with the Free Syrian Army in January 2014. Until insurgents captured […]
Nov 09,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – Daoud Kuttab At about 2:40am Wednesday, Donald J. Trump, the US president elect, spoke to his supporters, the American people and the world. He praised Hillary Clinton, spoke about how he will make America great and then addressed the world. “I want to tell the […]
Some parts welcome victory with calls for Trump to take action, others express alarm By AFP – Nov 09,2016 – JORDAN TIMES An Iraqi man follows the US presidential elections on television at his home in Baghdad on Tuesday (AFP photo) BEIRUT — Uncertainty spread across the Middle East […]
What does Trump actually do when these lands present a “threat” to the West? Dust off his anti-Muslim hatreds? Call up his mate Vladimir? Ask for an atlas? Robert Fisk in Beirut @indyvoices Of course, it will be no change in the Middle East. The one thing which always united […]
By Reuters – Nov 08,2016 – JORDAN TIMES Iraqis displaced by fighting in Mosul carries mattresses at a camp for internally displaced people in Hassan Sham, Iraq, on Tuesday (AP photo) SHAHREZAD, Iraq — Seif Mohammed, his nose cut and swollen, winced and held his back. He had […]
Halt reflects deepening rift between the two countries By Reuters – Nov 07,2016 – JORDAN TIMES Egyptians gather to buy subsidised sugar and oil from a government truck, after goods shortage in retail stores across the country and after the central bank floated the pound currency, in downtown Cairo, Egypt, […]
Image captionCommanders from the rebel forces warned civilians to leave militant-occupied areasA US-backed Kurdish and Arab force says it has begun an operation to capture Raqqa, so-called Islamic State’s “capital” in Syria. The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) will be aided by US-led coalition air strikes. They have warned civilians to […]
Nov 06,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – EDITORIAL As the battle for Mosul rages on, now in its third week, progress is being made on the battlefield but, as expected, at a slow pace. Daesh, which has been controlling this second largest city in Iraq since 2014, is resorting to all […]
King, Duda talk military, economic cooperation, prospects of expansion By JT – Nov 07,2016 – JORDAN TIMES Their Majesties King Abdullah and Queen Rania meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda and First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda in Amman on Sunday (Photo courtesy of Royal Court) AMMAN — Stability and valuing […]
One Syrian lieutenant described to me how he directed his artillery fire onto an Israeli jeep in the Jabhat al-Nusra occupied town of Al-Hamidiya inside Syria and destroyed it. The jeep might have been a gift or borrowed from Israel Robert Fisk Baath City, below the Syrian Golan Heights @indyvoices Friday […]
OIC secretary-general Iyad Madani resigns following Egypt row Al AhramThe secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Iyad Bin Amin Madani has resigned from his post for health reasons, a statement on the OIC’s official website read on Monday. The resignation of the OIC secretary general comes only few […]
SINEM CENGIZ | Published — Saturday 5 November 2016 Sinem Cengiz Last month, while referring to Turkey’s concerns regarding the situation in Iraq to Crimea, Syria to Cyprus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “Turkey is not just Turkey… it is also responsible to the hundreds of millions of our […]
By JT – Nov 04,2016 – JORDAN TIMES AMMAN — At least two US flight instructors were killed in a shooting at the gate of the King Faisal Airbase in Jafer, Maan, on Friday while they were in a car about to enter the premises, the Jordan News Agency, […]
In the village of Soran, near Hama, and the surrounding area, civilians speak of their loss as part of one battle in Syria’s larger civil war, writes Robert Fisk Robert Fisk Soran, near Hama, Syria @indyvoices The Hamdo family collect what is left of their home Nelofer Pazira We arrived so soon […]
Family describes civilains being shot by militia as they seek to escape medical shortages, starvation, and the barrage of air strikes from overhead Robert Fisk Aleppo @indyvoices Kahled Kadoura, his wife Samira and 8-year old son Almuatazbilah in Aleppo shortly after they fled the east of the city Nelofer Pazira Khaled […]
Reuters International OCT 31, 2016 – An armoured vehicle of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) drives south of Mosul, Iraq October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer (reuters_tickers) By Babak Dehghanpisheh AIN NASIR, Iraq (Reuters) – Gun trucks and humvees streamed north on a highway heading to Mosul on Sunday flying the […]
The battle for the city has opened up, with fire arriving not only from the east but from south-west – where the al-Nusra Front and some of its Islamist allies still hold territory. But this isn’t quite the storm of steel the world’s media would have you believe Robert Fisk Aleppo […]
First major exhibit on the Qur’an in the US, at the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery in Washington, displays manuscripts over a period of almost a millennium The Qur’an commissioned by Mongol ruler Uljaytu in Baghdad in the early 1300s and brought back to Istanbul by Suleiman the Magnificent. Photograph: Neil […]
By JT – Oct 24,2016 -JORDAN TIMES AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Monday issued directives to host the Arab League’s 28th session after Yemen apologised for not being able to host the summit. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh informed Arab League Secretary General Ahmed […]
Oct 24,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – James J. Zogby Citizens in several Arab Gulf states appear to have a higher appreciation for the quality of life available to them in their countries than citizens in most European countries. This was one of the key findings of a Zogby Research Services (ZRS) […]