TRCB News:Middle East / General

Religious authorities in Egypt have called on unions and youth groups to scrap plans for a wave of strikes, saying the people must show duty to the nation and spare its frayed economy even more damage. Protesters are planning mass walkouts and civil

Somalia’s militant group al-Shabaab have joined ranks with al-Qaeda, the terror network’s chief Ayman al-Zawahiri announced in a video message posted on jihadist forums on Thursday. “Today, I have glad tidings for the Muslim ummah (nation)

A major Iraqi tribe has prohibited the family of an executed Al-Qaeda member from organizing a condolences ceremony and from burying him in the cemetery in his home town north of Baghdad. Iraq executed 14 people convicted of “terrorism

Every day, rockets and mortars fired by regime forces rattle the streets of Homs. Armed rebels ambush government military checkpoints. Hatreds brew on either side of the avenues that divide the bloodstained Syrian city. Homs has become

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comment that his government wants to “raise a religious youth” has touched a nerve in society, fuelling debates over an alleged “hidden agenda” to Islamize secular Turkey. “We want to raise a

Yemeni security forces shot dead two southern Yemeni activists during a demonstration Thursday in Daleh against presidential elections to be held later this month, witnesses and activists said. “Southerner wake up, no more elections,”

Iraqi authorities executed at least 65 people in the first 40 days of 2012 for various offenses, including 14 on a single day, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of the New York-based advocacy

Syria’s top Muslim cleric has thanked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his unwavering support of Syria’s government as it deals with widespread unrest, the presidency website reported Thursday. Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmed Badreddin

China said on Thursday that a Syrian opposition delegation had visited the country this week and met a vice foreign minister, the first contact reported by Beijing in the wake of its veto in the U.N. of a draft resolution on the country. The

Australia denied as “nonsense” Thursday claims in a British newspaper that it played an “integral” part in illegally detaining prisoners of war at a secret Iraqi desert jail in 2003. The Guardian, citing a U.S. military document, said