Asia

Wikileaks and 1974 Anti-Ahmadiyya Agitations

Lutf Blog: US Diplomatic Cables, now declassified (or released) via wiki leaks, give an interesting insight into the Spring and Summer of 1974. United States has always enjoyed great influence in Pakistani establishment and certain details present in the diplomatic correspondence of that time show a government under threat. It appears […]

Robert Fisk: The war has reached Damascus, but for now it is not a warzone The Independent’s Middle East correspondent returns to the streets of Damascus

Damascus under siege? Certainly. But at war? I’m not so sure. The shells swish high over the city, from Mount Qasioun to Deraya, soaring far over the 18th-century Azem Palace and the mosque built on air, the glorious Umayyad with its fragile 8th-century mosaics, last resting place of Saladin, the […]

Mobiles become weapons as tactics change in Syria’s new phoney war – Heavy casualties are reshaping the nature of the conflict. Robert Fisk reports from Damascus

A man was stopped at a government checkpoint on the highway north of Deraa and his mobile phone taken. The soldier found an SMS message which said: “I am in the hospital. The shooting has started.” Assuming that the man was a rebel signalling his whereabouts to his comrades, the […]