The Saudi execution of insurrectionist Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr threatens to touch off a conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims across the Middle East and beyond. Massive Shiite protests have occurred across the region over the past few days and have spread into Asia.
When Saudi Arabia executed a Saudi Shiite cleric on New Year’s Eve, the Shiite world ignited in protest. According to the Iranian regime, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr’s execution was not justified. The Saudi government, however, thinks otherwise.
Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s figurehead President who serves the interests of Ayatollah Khamenei, delivered a verbal tirade against the Saudi government on Tuesday after Riyadh executed a prominent Shiite cleric on New Year’s Eve.
The government of Kuwait has become the latest to downgrade its diplomatic relations with Iran after a mob burned down the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran following the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr.
The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on Sunday afternoon titled, “Who Lost the Saudis?” It lays out a convincing case for why Russia and Iran are out to get the House of Saud—which, for all of its many, many flaws, is still an impediment to the agenda of America’s primary geopolitical adversaries.
Protests over Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr have spread through Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey, and now India, especially in districts with a heavy Shiite population.
Bahrain and Sudan have joined their ally Saudi Arabia in formally severing diplomatic ties with Iran, while the United Arab Emirates has “downgraded” its diplomatic team, recalling its ambassador from Tehran and announcing that it would reduce the number of diplomats assigned to Iran.
The most prominent leaders in the Shiite world have issued threatening statements against the Saudi monarchy, pledging that the House of Saud will pay a price for executing Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was an influential cleric among the Saudi Shiite minority.
One particular execution carried out by Saudi Arabia this weekend, that of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr, led to violent protests and the sacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
JAFFA, Israel – The Saudi authorities executed 47 terror suspects over the weekend, including a Shi’ite cleric whose death sentence raised the ire of Iran and its supporters. Since Nimr Baqr al-Nimr’s execution, Iran and Saudi Arabia have traded accusations, the
Footage of a Shiite militia sniper discussing his battles against America and the Jews has surfaced, thanks to a Middle East watchdog group.
The attempted assassination of Nigeria’s Army head has resulted in a major crackdown on a Shiite Islamist group in the nation’s north, and protests from Iran that Nigeria should allow the group to establish a parallel Sharia state on Nigerian soil.
Within hours of the Obama Administration announcing the deployment of a few hundred special-forces troops to Iraq for missions against ISIS, Iran-backed Shiite militias declared they would stop fighting the Islamic State and begin targeting the American troops.
Shiite groups in Iraq have issued a statement vowing to fight any American troops on the ground following the announcement of a new deployment of special operations forces to fight the Islamic State in the war-torn nation.
The Islamic State’s affiliate in Bangladesh claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque that killed one person and injured three others.
Muqtada Al-Sadr, one of the most influential clerics in the Shiite world, has sent out an olive branch to Egypt’s Al-Azhar, a known hotbed for jihadi indoctrination and the most prominent Sunni institution in the world, seeking to unite the sects of Islam against the Jews.
Protesters in Afghanistan stormed the presidential palace in Kabul on Wednesday, carrying the coffins of seven civilians from the Hazara Shiite minority, recently beheaded by Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-linked terrorists.
The regime in Tehran is recruiting Shiite refugees in neighboring Afghanistan and sending them into battle in defense of forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Evidence uncovered on social media indicates that members of Iranian-trained Shiite militias may be entering Europe as refugees, a London-based Iraqi émigré group says. The Foreign Relations Bureau – Iraq (FRBI) identified images of 48 men on Facebook and Twitter who it says fought with Iranian-trained Shiite militias in Iraq and now are in Europe.
On Friday night, a gunman suspected of working for the Islamic State opened fire on a Shiite mosque in the Saudi city of Qatif, killing five people and injuring nine others.
The leader of the al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda offshoot, reportedly called on jihadists to intensify attacks on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite sect of Shiite Islam in retaliation for Russia’s military intervention.
With astonishing speed, American influence—withered by years of Barack Obama’s indecisiveness—is fading, as Iraq realigns around Russia and Iran. Take it from the Iraqis, who are celebrating the arrival of “Putin the Shiite” in Syria, hoping he’ll swing into Iraq to pick up the fight against ISIS.
Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels, who threw the country into civil war this year after a coup attempt against exiled president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, have written a letter to the United Nations accepting a seven-point peace plan led by Oman.
A sizable group of Saudi clerics has called for jihad against the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, and by extension, Assad’s military allies Russia and Iran. The Islamist clerics praised the rebels Russia is currently bombing as “holy warriors of Syria” who are “defending the whole Islamic nation.”
The masked gunmen who kidnapped 16 Turkish construction workers from their job site in Baghdad at the beginning of September have released a video of their hostages, showing them alive and well, and they claimed that the captives will be released soon.
A new Iranian film about the early life of Muhammad is doing brisk business at the box office even as its creative team faces fatwa threats and some of the Muslim world’s most prominent Sunni clerics have called for it to be banned outright.
Sunni vs Shiite sectarian violence has long been a defining factor of Middle Eastern conflict; as ISIS has taken hold thorough the region that conflict has waxed rather than waned. But warnings of violence between the groups have now been
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) released a video of their massacre at the Speicher army base in Tikrit, which left over 1,700 young Shi’ite cadets dead.
As the Shiite Houthi rebels who have taken over Sanaa continue to wage war against troops loyal to deposed Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group has taken credit for another Shiite mosque bombing, stating that they plan to “take revenge” upon the Houthis for attempting to control the country.
Three Islamist attacks on separate continents Friday morning have been tentatively linked to ISIS: an attack against an American factory in France that included a beheading, a shooting spree in Tunisia, and a suicide-bomb attack on a mosque in Kuwait.
Yemeni Houthi Shiite forces launched two separate attacks on Saudi border positions late Wednesday, killing three soldiers amid continuing escalation between both sides of the ongoing conflict in the war-torn country.
Bahrain says that it thwarted an Iran-backed plot to bomb Bahraini territory and Saudi Arabia, Reuters reports.
UN-organized peace talks between the competing Sunni and Shiite sides of the growing Yemeni civil war ended explosively after a journalist threw a shoe at a Houthi leader, prompting a melee between multiple parties at the resulting press conference. United Nations mediators nonetheless stated they were optimistic the two sides would resolve to end violence.
“Top Egyptian intelligence officers met recently with senior Hamas officials from outside the Gaza Strip to discuss the poor relations between Egypt and the Strip’s Hamas regime, senior officials of the Islamist organization confirmed on Tuesday,” Israel’s Haarez wrote on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The growing Iranian influence in the Middle East has brought two historic enemies together, Israel and Saudi Arabia, officials from both countries revealed during a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) event.
(Reuters) Saudi-led air strikes killed a group of around 20 Houthi fighters outside the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Wednesday and also shook the capital Sanaa in the north, militiamen opposed to the Houthis said.
Neither Iran nor the West are friendly with ISIS, but if an Iranian cartoon contest is any metric, their mutual enemy is not pushing the powers closer together.
The Speaker of Iran’s Majles [parliament] reiterated on Monday that Tehran continues its “unwavering” support of the Assad regime in Syria.
The Associated Press reports thousands of Shiites filled the streets in Saudi Arabia on Saturday to mourn the latest fatality from a pair of ISIS bomb attacks against Shiite mosques in the Kingdom.
The Associated Press cites a release from the official Saudi Press Agency to report a second suicide bomb attack against a Shiite mosque in the Kingdom. At least four people were killed in the Friday attack.
