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The Yemeni army said its forces have killed 100 Shiite rebels and wounded a further 280 in the northern Saada province. "Terrorist and destructive elements yesterday evening infiltrated (areas) between military barracks and security posts in Saada province," the military said in a statement cited by Reuters. "Our armed and security forces put a stop to them and inflicted painful and heavy blows on them during which the terrorist 'Houthi' elements lost more than 100 people and more than 280 were injured," the statement said. According to official reports which can not be confirmed, in recent weeks, hundreds of Shiite...

The Yemeni army said on Wednesday that its forces killed 29 Shiite rebels as it presses its offensive in the northern mountains. Yemeni forces killed 12 rebels in clashes on Tuesday in the Harf Sufyan district of Amran province, 70 kilometres north of the capital, the official Saba news agency quoted a commander as saying. The other rebels died in several different clashes in Saada province further north, the commander added. According to AFP, the army said it had also destroyed five lorries carrying explosives to the rebels in Saada. A police spokesman said the seized supplies included 350 bags...

The Yemeni army attacked Shiite rebels near the Saudi border, using artillery and aircraft, local officials said Wednesday. The government offensive, which started late Tuesday, followed reports of Shiite gunmen seizing more control of the northern Saada province. A major security committee, presided over by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, vowed to respond to the latest developments "with an iron-fist." The state-run 26sep.net reported on Wednesday the "Houthi rebels" have seized teachers, dismissed tens of students and took over 63 schools where and used them to fight the government troops. According to the AP, a health ministry official in Saada said...

A multi-billion dollar mystery is unfolding in Iraq, and it may reach to the highest levels of the Iraqi government. It involves what the New York Times calls an "extremist Shiite group" that has now reconciled with Prime Minister Maliki and his regime. The group is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of five British contractors who, according to the Guardian, were installing a sophisticated financial tracking system in Iraq's ministry of finance in 2007. The story so far: Today, the Times reports: "An extremist Shiite group that has boasted of killing five American soldiers and of kidnapping five British...

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military has assessed that Iranian-backed Shi'ite forces were engaged in a military buildup in Iraq. Officials said the military has determined that Shi'ite forces financed and sponsored by Iran were accelerating weapons acquisition to prepare for a civil war in Iraq. They said Shi'ite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, have concluded that the weapons would be required against Sunni forces financed by Saudi Arabia in a renewed power struggle. "Right now, everybody is waiting to see whether and how fast the United States withdraws from Iraq," an official said

A blast at a Shiite mosque in the southeastern city of Zahedan, near the border with Pakistan, killed 15 people and wounded more than 55 on Thursday evening, the news agency ISNA reported. The bomb went off at 7:45 p.m. at Ali-ibn-Abitaleb, the second largest Shiite mosque in the city. ISNA said the bomb had been hidden in a bag in the men’s section of the mosque.

It's official - Cairo and Hizbullah are fighting a full-fledged media war. The Egyptian press and government officials have, for several consecutive days, been hurling insults at the Shi'ite group, in one instance comparing its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to a monkey.

Tiger said in his Friday sermon at the University of Imam Hussein in Awamiya: "It is ready to enter the prison and with the severity of torture and even murder," adding that "refuses to respect the Shiite," he said.

The best way to understand Ahmadinejad's brand of Shitite eschatology (end-times theology) is to listen to Iranians describe it themselves. Amir Taheri is a European-based columnist who used to serve as the executive editor of "Kayhan", Iran's largest daily newspaper. In an April 2006 essay entitled "The frightening Truth of Why Iran Wants a Bomb," Taheri wrote that just before announcing to the world that Iran had "gatecrashed 'the nuclear club," President Ahmadinejad "disappeared for several hours" to have a secret meeting with the Islamis messiah, a figure known as the twelfth Imam or Mahdi. Taheri wrote, "According to Shia...

Hundreds of Shiite men in Iraq struck the heads of boys with daggers in an annual ritual to mark the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein at the 7th century battle of Kerbala, Reuters reports.

Print Send RSS Mohamed Sifaoui was born on July 4, 1967, and spent most of his childhood in Algeria. He holds a master's degree in political science and studied theology for two years at the University of Algiers and for two additional years at Zeitouna University's Institute of Theology in Tunis. In 1994, he began work for the Algerian daily Le Soir and survived a February 11, 1996 bomb attack at Le Soir's headquarters at the Maison de la Presse. In 1999, the French government granted him political asylum after he received death threats both from Algerian Islamists and...

Is Barack Obama the "promised warrior" coming to help the Hidden Imam of Shiite Muslims conquer the world? The question has made the rounds in Iran since last month, when a pro-government Web site published a Hadith (or tradition) from a Shiite text of the 17th century. The tradition comes from Bahar al-Anvar (meaning Oceans of Light) by Mullah Majlisi, a magnum opus in 132 volumes and the basis of modern Shiite Islam. According to the tradition, Imam Ali Ibn Abi-Talib (the prophet's cousin and son-in-law) prophesied that at the End of Times and just before the return of the...

October 4, 2008: Increasingly, Sunni Arab clerics are agreeing with their Shia counterparts, that Iran and the Sunni Arabs are on a collision course. It's not just about which version of Islam is to be dominant, but which Islamic country will control the most sacred Islamic shrines, and, in effect, become the spiritual leader of the Islamic world. No one has held that position for about a thousand years. Saudi Arabia controls the key shrines (Mecca and Medina), but the Saudis are not accepted as the leader of the Islamic world. To most Moslems, the Saudis are a bunch of...

NASIRIYAH, Iraq (AFP) - Groups of Shiite extremists trained in Iran are returning to Iraq with plans to bomb high-profile targets, the chief of Dhi Qar province's police said Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Brigadier General Sabah al-Fatlawi told AFP "Special Groups" (Shiite extremists) of around 10 fighters each are returning by crossing the border from Amara, the capital of Shiite Maysan province in the south. "The Special Groups are returning from Iran after receiving training in using new tactics. We have seized 20 motorcycle bombs in Nasiriyah. Some groups have arrived in Nasiriyah," Fatlawi said, referring to the capital of Dhi Qar,...

Some deadly bombings in Baghdad this year [2008] _July 15: Two suicide bombers blow themselves up in a crowd of army recruits at the Saad military camp in Baqouba, killing at least 28. _June 26: A suicide bomber detonates an explosive belt inside a municipal government building in Karmah, killing at least 20 people at a meeting of tribal sheiks opposed to al-Qaida. _June 26: A car bombing near a government headquarters in the northern city of Mosul kills 20. _June 22: A female suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt detonates herself in front of a government complex in Baqouba,...

Shi'ite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr stepped back into Iraq's political fray Friday with an offer that (if genuine) Washington would be hard-pressed to refuse: Set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and the Mahdi Army will begin to disband. "The main reason for the armed resistance is the American military presence," said Sadr emissary Salah al-Ubaidi, who spoke to reporters in Najaf Friday. "If the American military begins to withdrawal, there will be no need for these armed groups." Sadr in the past has vowed to expand the humanitarian work of his movement but promised to maintain...

Lebanon's 'Soldiers of Virtue' By FOUAD AJAMI July 23, 2008 There have been a dozen prisoner exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel since the early 1990s, but Samir Kuntar was always a case apart. In 1979 Kuntar and his companions killed a policeman, kidnapped a young father, Danny Haran, and killed him in front of his 4-year-old daughter. Then Kuntar turned to the child and crushed her skull against a rock with the butt of his rifle. In the mayhem, Danny Haran's wife, Smadar, hiding in her home, accidentally smothered to death the couple's 2-year-old daughter. Now Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah,...

Bombers kill 50 in Iraq, wound nearly 250 BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three female suicide bombers killed 28 people and wounded 92 in Baghdad on Monday as Shi'ite pilgrims flooded into the Iraqi capital for a major religious event, police said. In the northern oil city of Kirkuk a bomb killed at least 22 people and wounded 150 at a protest against a controversial provincial elections law, Iraqi health and security officials said. The U.S. military said initial reports showed the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. The blasts marked one of the bloodiest days in months and underscored...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's main Sunni Arab bloc rejoined the Shi'ite-led government on Saturday in a breakthrough for national reconciliation after parliament approved its candidates for several vacant ministerial posts. Getting the Accordance Front to return after it quit a year ago in a row over power sharing has been seen as key to healing divisions between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs. Sunni Arabs have little voice in the current cabinet, which is dominated by Shi'ites and ethnic Kurds. "Today, parliament voted to accept our candidates ... This means the Accordance Front has officially returned to the government," a...

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is the most admired leader among the Arab public, a survey released Wednesday showed. Twenty-six percent of respondents in six countries selected Nasrallah as their most admired leader, compared to 16% who chose Syrian President Bashar Assad and 10% who picked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the survey published by the the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The poll was published the same day Israel completed a lopsided prisoner swap with Hizbullah that is likely to further boost Nasrallah's standing in the Arab world. The Shi'ite Hizbullah leader was also the top...