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The Maldives' first democratically-elected president resigned on Tuesday following a coup attempt by police officers and army troops to plunge the tropical island paradise into turmoil. President Mohamed Nasheed announced he was standing down in a televised press conference in the capital Male in which he said he was not willing to use force against protesters or call in a foreign power to prop up his government. He stood down after protesters were joined by police believed to be loyal to the country's autocratic former president Abdul Gayoom. The unrest appeared to be confined to Male and Britain's Foreign and...

Syria rebels gain foothold in Damascus By Jeremy Bowen BBC Middle East editor, Damascus When the BBC team approached a checkpoint set up by the rebel Free Syria Army in the suburbs of Damascus, masked men with Kalashnikov assault rifles and hand grenades moved towards us - a few of them offering dates and biscuits. It is customary to give mourners something sweet, and a funeral was about to start that they said they were protecting. I had no idea before I saw them with my own eyes that the Free Syria Army was so active in and around Damascus....

Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who preached in Tahrir Square 10 days ago, loathes Israel, justifies suicide bombings against its civilians. 1. Sheikh Dr. Yusuf Abdallah al-Qaradawi is a central figure affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He was expelled from Egypt and found refuge in Qatar, operating from there throughout the Muslim world. 2. Many consider him the supreme religious and ideological authority for the Muslim Brotherhood, although he is not officially its leader. (In the past, he refused to accept the title of the Muslim Brotherhood’s General Guide). He is influential in Egypt and considered one of the most important Sunni...

A bomb tore through a procession of Shiite pilgrims heading toward a largely Sunni town in southern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 53 people in the latest sign of a power struggle between rival Muslim sects that has escalated since the American military withdrawal. Fears of more bloodshed have risen in recent weeks, with the U.S. no longer enjoying the leverage it once had to encourage the two sides to work together to rein in extremists. Most of the latest attacks appear to be aimed at Iraq's majority Shiites, suggesting Sunni insurgents seeking to undermine the Shiite-dominated government are...

Russia is concerned that the Arab Spring revolutions could sow further turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa by provoking a potentially catastrophic rift between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. In written answers to Reuters, Lavrov said the events in the region were still unfolding and cautioned that social, political and religious tensions showed signs of increasing. “There are serious fears about the possible emergence of new zones of instability in the region that could become potential sources of challenges to international stability and security,” Lavrov said. Such threats, he said, included the spread of...

As the civil war in Syria continues and the ethnic tension is rising, the country’s Sunnis are threatening the Alawite minority against their continued support of President Bashar Assad, who is an Alawite himself. Mamoun al-Homsy, a former Syrian MP and one of the country’s opposition leaders, has reportedly recently distributed a recorded message to the Alawite community in Syria, in which he warns its members against supporting Assad. In the message, al-Homsy called on the Alawites to immediately renounce Assad, warning them that if they do not do so, “Syria will become the graveyard of the Alawites.” He also...

A wave of at least 14 bombings ripped across Baghdad Thursday morning, killing at least 60 people in the worst violence in Iraq for months.

A wave of violence ripped across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 57 people and injuring nearly 200 in a coordinated attack designed to wreak havoc in the Iraqi capital just days after American forces left the country.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has urged Kurdish officials to hand over the country's Sunni vice-president on terrorist charges, in a row that has raised communal tension. Mr Maliki, a Shiite. ... Mr Maliki has also called for the sacking of Sunni deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlak, who has decried the Shiite-led national unity government as a "dictatorship". All this comes just days after US troops completed their withdrawal from the country, leaving behind what US president Barack Obama described as a "sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq". Mr Maliki ..."We gave Saddam a fair trial, and we will give Hashemi...

Iraqi authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Muslim Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi on Monday for suspected ties to assassinations and bombings, a decision likely to fuel sectarian tensions after the U.S. troop withdrawal. The move risks unraveling Iraq's fragile power-sharing deal among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs who have struggled to overcome tensions just a few years after sectarian slaughter drove the country to the edge of a civil war. … The political struggle between Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Sunni rivals in the country's delicate power-sharing deal has intensified during the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops...

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber attacked a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Kabul on Tuesday killing at least 54 people in unprecedented sectarian violence a day after Afghanistan's Western allies pledged long-term support once their troops leave. Doctors and police struggled to count the dead from one of the bloodiest attacks in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. The Taliban denied responsibility.

Sunni extremists opened fire on Shiite Muslim pilgrims traveling by bus through southwest Pakistan on Tuesday on their way to in Iran, killing 26 people...Sunni militants with ideological and operational links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have carried out scores of bombings and shootings against Shiites in recent years... The passengers tried to run away, but the gunmen opened fire, killing 26 people and wounding six others...The attackers then drove off, leaving the dying and wounded where they lay. It was nearly an hour before rescue teams arrived, he said. There were around 40 people on the bus.

Why Hezbollah Had a Really Bad Week David Schenker July 1, 2011 | 12:00 am Why America Should Be Hoping Bashar Assad Gets Overthrown Meet the Women of Hezbollah Back in 2006, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah was riding high. Having fought the Israeli army to a standstill, the organization's leader Hassan Nasrallah declared "divine victory." The war was a public relations coup for the militia, which emerged from the campaign as the most favorable personification of Shiism in the largely Sunni Muslim world. So impressive was the alleged victory that the campaign sparked a widely reported trend of conversion...

Army Mutiny Spreads, Syrians Fear Massacre OnIslam & News Agencies Tuesday, 07 June 2011 13:45 Residents and activists say Jisr al-Shughur casualties followed a mutiny among forces sent to quell civilian protests. DAMASCUS – Syrian anti-government protesters warned on Tuesday, June 7, of an expected massacre in the town of Jisr al-Shughur as a long line of military vehicles and enforcements moved towards the tiny town following reports of killing 120 police and army members yesterday. "Thirteen military vehicles are heading to Jisr al-Shughur," where the alleged massacre took place, an activist in the northwestern town told Agence France Presse...

Today, a redneck friend was trying to explain the difference between a Sunni Muslim and a Shi'ite Muslim. He says that, when Osama was dumped into the sea, he was a Sunni Muslim. But after being eaten by the fish and crabs, he was digested and converted into a Shi'ite Muslim. Somehow, my friend does not strike me as an expert on Islam, and I have to seek a second opinion. What is the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'ite Muslim?

Tensions and violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims are often in the news in countries like Iraq, Pakistan and Bahrain, but why are they at daggers drawn? swissinfo.ch: How did it come about that a Sunni minority should rule over a Shiite majority, as for example in Bahrain, where there are currently popular protests? Arnold Hottinger: This is a matter of power which has historical roots. Bahrain has a Sunni government but the majority of the population – 70 per cent - is Shiite. The example of Iraq, which also has a Shiite majority, can be easily explained in the...

Bahrain's Blow-up--Amir Taheri - NYPOST.com - 17 Feb 2011 ... Bahrain, the smallest of the 21 Arab states, is often deemed a success ... " Second, the global recession has hit Bahrain hard, reducing job opportunities. Shiites claim that they're the victims of an undeclared "religious apartheid" that reserves the best jobs for Sunnis, including non-Bahraini Arabs.

Roger Stockham ... The California man accused of plotting to blow up a Detroit-area mosque rejected his court-appointed counsel Friday, upset that the attorney is a Shiite Muslim and a "patron" of the Islamic center where he was arrested. There are two main sects within Islam, Shiite and Sunni. The schism between Sunni and Shiite stems from the early days of Islam and arguments over the Prophet Muhammad's successors as the faith's spiritual leader.

Another grenade exploded Saturday in the Tripoli wheat market of Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood in the northern Lebanon city of Tripoli , according to local reports... This is the second such incident in the same district within 2 days. Nobody was reportedly injured, but some property was damaged. A grenade exploded outside a Sunni Muslim cemetery in the same impoverished district on Friday evening, without causing any casualties or damage. Some reports pointed to Hezbollah as being behind a terror campaign to assume power in Lebanon. Hezbollah reportedly is exerting pressure on the Tripoli MPs to support its candidate for the...

...[Wikileaks] show how Iranian regional ambitions have placed Teheran's fingerprints on myriad political processes across the Middle East. They detail Iran's extensive interference in Iraq, quote the Saudi king’s assertion of Iranian aid to the Houthi rebels in Yemen, outline Iranian and Syrian involvement with illegal arms transfers from North Korea and describe the extensive involvement of Revolutionary Guards personnel in shipping weapons to Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War (using the Iranian Red Crescent relief organization as cover). So the leaked cables provide added and deepened color to an already existing picture of regional cold war. ... Iran is...

A muslim scholar from Verulam is seeking legal advice after an alleged racial brawl at a mosque last week. Tensions erupted at the Verulam Sunni Mosque last Sunday during a special general meeting, where a large group of Malawian Muslims were allegedly physically and verbally attacked

<p>Hundreds of members of the Awakening Councils, a collection of United States-allied Sunni sheiks and their militia forces, have quit or been dismissed from their positions in the past few months, the New York Times reported Saturday.</p> <p>Many have extensive knowledge of the U.S. military, the Times said, adding that it is possible that thousands of the fighters who are working for the government are simultaneously assisting the insurgency.</p>

BAGHDAD - Hundreds of police officers, formerly members of an American-backed Sunni paramilitary force, will be stripped of their ranks in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, tribal leaders and Anbar police said Sunday. The officers called the move by Iraq's Interior Ministry, which oversees police, a threat to security in Anbar, once a stronghold of Sunni insurgent violence. In 2006, a group called the Awakening, some of them former insurgents, rose up with tribal and U.S. backing to battle al-Qaeda in Iraq. The same strategy was mirrored across the country with American backing and funding, and what became the...

Two people were killed in a four-hour firefight between Shiite Hezbollah supporters and a Sunni group in Beirut on Tuesday, an army spokesman said. AFP - Two people, including a Hezbollah official, were killed in clashes between supporters of the Shiite Muslim movement and partisans of a small Sunni group in Beirut on Tuesday, an army spokesman said. Police told AFP the fighters were using shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in the fighting, which continued for some four hours and in which another three people were wounded. "A personal fight between a supporter of Hezbollah and another of Al-Ahbash...

With the official end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, what bodes for Iraq's future in terms of its relations to other nations in the Middle East? One useful way to examine this question is through the lens of what Daniel Pipes describes as the present "Middle Eastern Cold War." This new Cold War represents the current ideological division in the Middle East between the "revolutionary bloc," led chiefly by Iran, Syria, and more recently Turkey, and the "status-quo bloc," led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. While most Sunni Arab states align themselves with the "status-quo bloc," there are notable...

1) Why did you write the book? I was fascinated by Bernard Lewis’ book What Went Wrong, in which he chronicles the decline of the Muslim world. I wanted to find out why it went wrong. And, like most Americans, I was galvanized by 9/11 and wanted to search more deeply into the wellsprings of violence in Islam. Since 9/11, I was also working professionally in the area of the Middle East, most particularly on Iraq for the Defense Department. After years of study and work, I concluded that the Islamism we see today is a spiritual pathology based on...

A suicide bomber has killed at least 43 people and injured 40 more southwest of Baghdad, Iraqi police say. The attack targeted government-backed Sunni militia members lining up to be paid in the town of Radwaniya. The Sunni militia fighters, known as the Sahwa or Awakening Councils, were once allied with al-Qaeda, but turned against the militant group in 2006. Struggle for IraqCoalition questions Baghdad glazier Iraq: Key facts and figures Q&A: Parliamentary polls Among the dead were at least six soldiers and three accountants, the Associated Press news agency reported. At least 13 soldiers were also wounded, along with...

This just in from the “I Can’t Tell The Good Guys From the Bad Guys” department – (photo of al-Maliki and Ahmadinejad above from Michelle Malkin’s website: Gunmen wearing the uniforms of Iraqi army soldiers invaded a village south of Baghdad on Good Friday, rounded up at least thirty-one Sunni Muslims and killed twenty-four of them. Some of the dead had their arms and legs broken prior to being shot and many were beaten beyond recognition. Seven victims were found alive, hands cuffed behind their backs. These killings came on the heels of the recent Iraqi election, the final results...

Breaking News: Security Official: Gunmen Kill 25 People in Iraqi Village

Mumbai is in turmoil after Islamic jihadists attack many parts of this commercial city. At that moment at least 125 people have been killed in this ongoing carnage and clearly the security forces of India are at a loss. After all, the response was rather aimless during the first 24 hours. Therefore, Islamists were given a free reign for far too long during the initial stages. Obviously, at the moment the mass media is clutching at straws with regards to why this attack was so violent. Yet in the "cold light of day" it is clear that terrorism is a...

A woman from Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to receive 300 lashes and 18 months in prison over complaints against court officials. Sawsan Salim, who was taken to court last month in a court in Rass, in Qassim province, was sentenced after a judge decided that a petition she filed had contained 118 spurious complaints against officials, including the judges themselves, and she had appeared before him without a male guardian. Salim also claimed officials had chided her for not being accompanied by a male guardian, as required under Islamic law, during her visits to their offices.

As national elections in Iraq loom on the horizon, Iran continues to subvert its western neihbor’s security and political infrastructure, top American military officials said. Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq, said Iran aims to foment violence in Iraq and to play diplomatic and other nonmilitary roles that call into question Iran’s respect for Iraqi sovereignty. “Iran clearly has a strategy that goes across lethal aims, diplomatic aims and then soft-power aims -- i.e., influencing people through investment in the economy -- and into some other practices inside of Iraq,” the general said yesterday at...

VIDEO - Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Arifi Vilifies Shiites, Calling Iraqi Ayatollah Sistani "an Infidel"

ISLAMIC SUPREMACY - THE FASCIST IDEOLOGY OF: WORLD DOMINATION - TO CONTROL THE WORLD ISLAMIC SUPREMACISM is the belief that Islam is superior to other religions, cultures, and governmental systems, and the belief that Islam's superiority entitles Muslims to dominate, control, and rule non-Muslims. http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2008/12/islamic-supremacism.html 'Islamic Supremacy' - WSJ.comhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB123211637982290301.html British Jihad and Islamic Supremacism http://www.britishjihad.com Study: Iran Indoctrinating Children in Islamic Supremacism - http://www.nysun.com/foreign/study-iran-indoctrinating-children-in-islamic/73162/ Crossroads in History: The Struggle against Jihad and Supremacist... In fighting Islamic supremacism, instead of an approach only based on ... The true challenge of Islamic supremacism to America and the free world... http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/blog/imm-articles/090.html Islamic Supremacism:...

The Iraqi electoral commission has decided to ban as many as over 500 potential candidates allegedly tied to the outlawed Baath Party of Saddam Hussein and will be barred from running in the March 7 elections. Many are known to be Iraq’s minority Sunni Muslims, formerly mostly allied with Hussein. The decision last week by the Justice and Accountability Commission, which handles Iraq’s “de-Baathification” efforts, outraged the Sunni population.

MEDINA, Saudi Arabia – At the cemetery where the Prophet Muhammad's family is buried, an Iranian Shiite Muslim pilgrim overcome with emotion was jerked by a Saudi soldier, who barked a sharp order: "Stop crying!" The soldier, a gun at his hip, then hovered over the pilgrim as he wrapped up his prayers to make sure he didn't start weeping again. The Baqee cemetery is where the bitter rivalry between Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran gets personal. Iranians and other Shiites flock to the graves to pay respects to several revered descendants of Islam's prophet, while Saudi soldiers...

The string of deadly bombings against government buildings and Shiite landmarks in Baghdad that began last August provides a startling reminder that the Qaeda-associated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) remains a clear danger to Iraq’s long-term stability. The three sets of multiple attacks that took place on August 19, October 25, and December 8—the three deadliest attacks since 2007—killed at least 362 people and wounded over 1,233. In an otherwise continuously improving security situation, the ISI claimed responsibility for the spectacular, headline-grabbing attacks in an effort to embarrass the Iraqi government, intensify Sunni disgruntlement with the current political establishment and...

The war against Iranian supported, Shia tribesmen, in northern Yemen, continues. Many of the key rebels have retreated to their fortified villages in the mountains. The Yemeni air force is bombing these villages, and the Shia rebels are complaining about civilian casualties. That's usually a sign that they are losing, and striving to make their use of human shields as effective as possible. The Saudi Air Force is heavily patrolling, and bombing the Yemen border region, hitting rebels (and non-hostile smugglers) caught crossing the semi-desert frontier region. Yemen has had its differences with Saudi Arabia in the past, particularly over...

FBI agents hoping to break up an alleged interstate crime ring dealing in arson, fraud and possibly stolen vehicles, ended up in a gunfight at a Detroit-area warehouse, after which a suspect lay dead. The FBI sought to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a.k.a. Christopher Thomas, 53, who a criminal complaint said was the imam of a radical fundamentalist Sunni group called Masjid Al-Haqq that seeks to establish a sovereign Islamic state inside the United States... Abdullah and 10 others were charged today in a criminal complaint with conspiracy and theft of interstate shipments, mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of...

Group with ties to Al Queda that supports militant Jihad are gonna have their very own conference in the U.S. Experts say the group is more dangerous than the ones on the terror list

Islamic Supremacist Group Holds First U.S. Conference Friday, July 17, 2009 Diane Macedo Print ShareThis YouTube The Khilafah Conference 2009 is scheduled to be held July 19, 2009 at the Hilton Oak Lawn hotel. A group committed to establishing an international Islamic empire and reportedly linked to Al Qaeda is stepping up its Western recruitment efforts by holding its first official conference in the U.S. Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has operated discreetly in the U.S. for...

Iran hanged 13 members of a Sunni Muslim rebel group Tuesday convicted of bombings and killings in the country's restive southeast near the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, the state news agency reported. The mass execution was the largest ever carried out against members of Jundallah and was likely meant as a warning to the group, which is composed of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority. They have waged a low-level insurgency in recent years, accusing the mostly Shiite and Persian Iranian government of persecution. The group, whose name means Soldiers of God in Farsi, took credit for a suicide...

BEIRUT: A tense calm held in the Beirut neighborhood of Aisha Bakkar during the day Monday after armed clashes on Sunday left one person killed and several wounded. A large number of Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers tanks and armored personnel carriers lined Rachidine Street, which divides Aisha Bakkar between supporters of the Future and Amal parties, as the military tried to keep calm in the neighborhood. Despite the military presence, the atmosphere in the neighborhood was strained, as groups of men congregated on sidewalks and around vandalized cars and shattered glass from Sunday's fighting. On both sides of the road...

Abu Zaid, a Shi'ite in the Mahdi Army militia led by Moqtada al-Sadr, says he is simply waiting for word on whether to fight again. With a series of bombing attacks against Shi'ites leaving at least 150 people dead in recent days, many Iraqis have wondered whether the Mahdi Army will continue to stand down or renew death squad killings as they did when sectarian violence raged out of control for more than a year beginning in 2006. Zaid and others associated with Sadr say that for now the militia is effectively dormant. "The Mahdi Army is off the streets...

The Sunni militiamen of the Awakening movement have outlived their usefulness to American forces and the Iraqi government. Some worry these unemployed fighters will relaunch the insurgency they left behind – but they don't stand a chance. Nir Rosen reports. On March 28, clashes erupted in Baghdad’s Fadhil district after Iraqi troops arrested the leader of the local Awakening Council, Adil al Mashhadani, one of many former Sunni insurgents who had allied with American forces in the fight against al Qaeda-inspired Salafi militants in Iraq. Mashhadani’s men staged a two-day uprising, which was put down by Iraqis with considerable help...

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.

Sheik Hamid al-Hayess is not optimistic. A burly man with a thick black mustache and closely knitted brows, he is one of the founding members of the Anbar Awakening. The grouping of Sunni tribal sheiks in the once al-Qaeda–infested western province turned against the insurgents and sided with the U.S. military, providing the model for what became a nationwide campaign known as the Sahwa. But that model is in trouble. "The Sahwa has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda," he says somberly. "A civil war is coming." If it happens, this time the lines in the sand will more likely be between...

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.

February 10, 2009 Part Two: Islam in American Prisons By Kathy Shaidle RightSideNews Copyright © 2009 "One in 10 inmates behind bars turns to Islam." It was small story in a local newspaper called the Daily Herald out of Everett, Washington, but it spread quickly around the internet, thanks to that startling claim. The paper's February 2009 investigation declared that so-called "prison Islam" was the fastest-growing religious group in U.S. correctional facilities. Some of those worshippers claim affiliation with the Nation of Islam (NOR), a black separatist movement that was launched and promoted by two convicts, Elijah Mohammed and his...

A female suicide bomber with explosives hidden under flowing black garments blew herself up in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims including many women and children south of Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 30 people and injuring dozens more, according to initial reports from Iraqi security officials. ---snip--- The suicide bomber had apparently been aiming to pass through the center of Abu Jasim village in al-Musaib, a popular resting place for pilgrims, a local police official said. When she could not get past a checkpoint just outside the village, the attacker went to a tent that had been set up...