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Status quo blocks Western Sahara solution On 11-12 August 2009, Moroccan delgations and representatives from the Polisario Front, a rebel movement working for the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco, met... 05-Nov-2009 A case of dual use: Iran's free zones The former president of Iran, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, envisioned Iran's Free and Special Economic Zones (F and SEZ) as a means of increasing the... 23-Oct-2009 Paradoxes of Egyptian-Saudi relations During the 1960s, Egypt and Saudi Arabia fought an eight-year proxy war in Yemen so fierce that Egypt repeatedly deployed chemical weapons against its Saudi-backed... 12-Oct-2009 Jumblatt turns down the heat on Druze The year 2004 marked an unexpected turn by Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon's Druze religious community, against his longtime patrons in Damascus and its allies... 25-Sep-2009 Iraqi Kurds elect new prime minister On 16 September, the parliament of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq elected Barham Salih as the region's new prime minister. According to Iraqi ... 24-Sep-2009 Cash woes overshadow education in UAE The global economic downturn has taken a heavy toll on the Dubai economy. Yet its speed and severity means the emirate's slump has not been... 24-Sep-2009 Solving Russia's Tatar-Bashkir conundrum A large majority of Russians believe the Kremlin should loosen its control over regional governments according to an opinion poll conducted in mid-June 2009 by... 24-Sep-2009 Tehran's nuclear perspective Viewed from the United States and Israel, the controversy over Iran's nuclear programme seems insoluble. Despite US President Barack Obama's diplomatic opening to Iran, the... 24-Sep-2009 Bashar manages his taxing inheritance Despite numerous coups d'état in the past, Syria's political system today is stable. Indeed, since Hafez Assad seized power in November 1970, politics in Syria... 24-Sep-2009 Iran and Russia face times of trouble Speculation about a significant increase in Russo-Iranian defence co-operation heightened in late July when the Iranian Mehr News Agency announced that the two countries would... 10-Sep-2009 Al-Qaeda brings Leaderless Jihad to book A group claiming to speak for Al-Qaeda publishes an Arabic language magazine called The Vanguard of Khorasan . The June issue (volume 14) containing ... 27-Aug-2009 Grand ayatollahs focus on regime legitimacy In the days following Iran's contentious 12 June presidential elections, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani travelled to the city of Qom, Iran's theological centre, to... 27-Aug-2009 Muslim majority has Bosnia in the balance A leadership challenge has forced members of the main Bosniak (ethnic Bosnian Muslim) party, the Party of Democratic Action (Stranka Demokratske Akcije: SDA), at its... 21-Aug-2009 Arab and Islamic investment in Africa The past year has been a difficult one for Africa, not only in terms of the end of the global commodities boom that underpinned so... 20-Aug-2009 Islamists and the succession in Egypt Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 28-year reign has been expected to end imminently for some time. The 81-year-old's rule has reached its final stages and the... 20-Aug-2009 The future of GCC integration In May, the London-based, pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi delivered a bleak assessment of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) progress on the 28th anniversary of ... 10-Aug-2009 Libya lightens up on Islamic alternatives Dozens of boys and young men mill around the cavernous hall of the Muslim University madrassah each day in Zliten, a Sufi shrine town in... 28-Jul-2009 The West and Hamas/Fatah split By now the process has become familiar. Every few months Egyptian middlemen host a round of talks between the bitterly divided Palestinian factions. Sometimes, these... 27-Jul-2009 Conciliatory Karzai eases faction friction United States policy and most outside assessments of Afghanistan focus primarily on the international effort to defeat an Islamist insurgency led by the Taliban movement... 24-Jul-2009 Al-Qaeda's administration of savagery On 8 April 2009, Arab media reported that Saudi security forces had arrested 11 men in the southern part of the kingdom. The men were... 23-Jul-2009 The concept of 'Ribat' in jihadist mindset To translate and interpret the Arabic term ribat can be contentious. The term is frequently referred to in both jihadist videos and in print literature... 21-Jul-2009 Baghdad gives Sunnis rude Awakening In 2007, Sunni militias in Iraq were confronted with a choice between imminent defeat by government-aligned Shia militias, which they saw at the time as... 13-Jul-2009 North Caucasus insurgents shift focus The various insurgent and terrorist groups in the North Caucasus, while still operationally and often ideologically distinct, are adopting an increasingly homogenous strategy built around... 02-Jul-2009 Angola government cracks down on Islam Government concern over the expansion of Islam in Angolan society was reported on 31 March 2009 by the Angola National News Agency ANGOP. The report... 25-Jun-2009 Chechen president turns to nation building While Moscow formally announced the end of its 'counter-terrorist operation' in Chechnya on 16 April, it is clear that the fighting is far from over.... 17-Jun-2009 Forging Pakistan/Afghanistan links A flurry of bilateral negotiations have taken place between Afghanistan and Pakistan since the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and the fall... 28-May-2009 Deobandi groups and Ahl-e Hadith In Pakistan, both Ahl-e Hadith and Deobandi groups have acted as proxies of the Pakistani military, which used them to wage jihad in Kashmir and... 21-May-2009 Questions about Hizbullah unity The 12 February 2008 assassination in Damascus of Imad Mughniyeh, Hizbullah's long-time operations chief, was a major blow to the organisation. The killing exposed failures... 21-May-2009 Saudi Arabia's king changes the guard saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud carried out a major reshuffle of key ministries and institutions on 14 February, including replacing nearly every ... 12-May-2009 Algeria and France: the quiet Salafists Salafism (salafiyya) is one of the most debated concepts in contemporary Islam. Its name derives from al-salaf al-sâlih ('the pious predecessors') and stems from the ... 01-May-2009 Iran's gas swells economic frustration Located in Central Eurasia, its southern shore bounded by the Persian Gulf, the northern shore by the Caspian Sea, Iran covers a region that is... 27-Apr-2009 Lebanon's March 14 coalition faces test As Lebanon anticipates the next parliamentary election in June 2009, a lively domestic debate has emerged as to where the election results will take the... 17-Apr-2009 Leaders' mortality may sway Iraq's health US President Barack Obama's plan to withdraw troops from Iraq is predicated on an assumption that Iraq's stability is durable. On 29 January 2009, General... 17-Apr-2009 Abu Sayyaf still holds Philippines to ransom On 15 January 2009, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) seized three International Committee of the Red Cross volunteers - an Italian, Swiss and a Filipina... 16-Apr-2009 Securing a stable future for Ingushetia To mark his first 100 days in office, Ingushetian President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov gave interviews to Russian media in which he blamed his predecessor for bequeathing... 09-Apr-2009 |
Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst sponsor
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