Arab World

5% rise in Umrah pilgrims

SAUDI ARABIA ARAB NEWS | Published — Sunday 29 May 2016 Seen through a decoration window, Muslim pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, during the minor pilgrimage, known as Umrah, in the Muslim holy city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, in this March 10, 2016 photo. […]

How much more extremist?

May 28,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – EDITORIAL Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to appoint ultra hardliner Avigdor Lieberman as defence minister is alarming and provocative in the extreme. Lieberman was added to the Netanyahu Cabinet after the resignation of defence minister Moshe Yaalon who accused Netanyahu of recruiting extremists […]

The path to better days

May 26,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – RAMI G. KHOURI Two years or so since Daesh declared itself and its caliphate in parts of northern Syria and Iraq, we are now finally approaching the moment when decisive, coordinated, pervasive and sustained military force will be used against it to destroy its […]

What to do about Daesh

May 26,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – JONATHAN POWER “ISIS [Daesh] is not an existential threat to the United States,” President Barack Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic magazine recently.  What becomes clear in that long article, much of it Obama’s own words, is that Obama shies away from the […]

The battle for iconic Fallujah

May 25,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – MICHAEL JANSEN Fallujah was a centre of the Iraqi uprising against British occupation in 1920, the first city in Iraq to revolt against the US occupation in 2003 and the first Iraqi city to submit to Daesh rule in 2014. Consequently, Fallujah cannot be […]

Daesh is not invincible

May 21,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – MUSA KEILANI The recapture of the Iraqi town of Rutba by government forces gives two strong indications: that Daesh is not invincible; that the Iraqi military knows how to win a battle when it is determined, without having to use ragtag militias like Badr […]

A last-minute Kerry decision

May 19,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – George S. Hishmeh Once again, Israel has managed to escape scrutiny thanks to a last-minute American intervention from Secretary of State John Kerry. His ploy was that the date of the meeting suggested by France was not convenient to him. For many weeks, French President […]