This Blog is intended for use by students in the Islamic Middle East course at Northfield Mount Hermon School and guest students and teachers from other participating schools.
Article found in the Economist:
This current event briefly gives an overview of the state in which Yemen is in right now. Yemen is located in the south of the Arabian Peninsula west of Oman and south of Saudi Arabia. Recentl, two car bombs went off outside the American embassy in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. This attack [...]
I already posted my WMR, but I just found this really interesting article on the CNN website “Hundres Face Saudi Terror Trials” http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/10/21/saudi.terror.trials/index.html
Here is the CNN Story Summary:
“991 suspects were rounded up in anti-terror raids
Rights group asks Saudi govt. for permission to send observers to the trials
Says some of those arrested in sweeps have little [...]
•Kaki Elgin; September 30, 2008.
•Families Shattered by Suicide Attacks: Female Suicide Bombers are Latest War Tactic
•Source of Article – Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091603697.html?sid=ST2008091603731&s_pos=
•Article Summary
Time
—
Place
Iraq
Key People
Women, al-Qaeda, Abu Abdul Aziz al-Mohammadi, Col. Scott Maw, Gen. Abdul Karim Rubaie
Vocabulary
Naseeba al-Ansariya Martyrdom Battalion, Islamic State of Iraq, martyrdom, National Institute for Handicapped and Special Needs
Main Ideas
Women, greatly pressured by Al-Qaeda [...]
Dexter Filkins says it was Pakistan’s regional foreign policy since the mid-nineties (which we have characterized in our class discussions as at least in part ”jihadist”) that landed Pakistan where it finds itself today. One could make an argument that jihadism in Pakistan’s foreign policy goes back even further: to the mid-seventies and the regime of Zia al-Haq.
Dexter Filkins, [...]
UK suspects that arms of Taliban are being given to them by Irans. Taliban members say they are receiving Iranian-made arms from Iran and Iranian smugglers. These weapons are deadly; “The Dragon” can be adapted to fire grenades strong enough to destroy a whole bus. These arms are improving Taliban’s ability to attack American military [...]
A fight between a local Tribe, Doghmush, and Hamas broke out on Sept. 16th, 2008. Eleven died, and 40 were wounded by an attack on the Doghmush stonghold in Gaza. In this case the Hamas were attempting to quel a rising extremist group. The Doghmush have been connected for the kidnapping of a BBC reporter [...]
France, boasting Europe’s largest Muslim population, faces a problem of militant Islam spreading in prisons. It is estimated that over half of French inmates are Muslim, and a large portion of these are considered terrorist threats. The prisons have a small minority of Islamic chaplains and French officials are concerned that these radicals might engage [...]
In the morning of Wednesday, September 17, 2008 there was an attack by militants in Yemen on the U.S. Embassy. 16 were left dead including six of the attackers. There were two forms of attack, the first was armed militants firing at the Embassy guards and the second was a car driving into the building [...]
Tagged http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/world/middleeast/18yemen.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=16%20die%20in%20yemen&st=cse&oref=sloginAt least 40 have died in a suicide bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
Story from the BBC
UPDATED story (9/22) with background from the BBC
More on Pakistan
The war on terror, writes Dexter Filkins, will be decided in the tribal frontier areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Dexter Filkins, “Right at the Edge,” New York Times Magazine, Sept. 7, 2008
More on the Taliban
More on Al-Qaeda
BBC Middle East