Mideast Daily

The completion of a rare reconciliation agreement between Shias and Sunnis for the cessation of violence in the south-western part of Baghdad may have rekindled faint hopes of a broader act of restraint, but the ultimate road to peace in Iraq is a long one with immense blockades. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Having said that, this one particular act might spur other Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish groups…

This could be the coup of the year. Syria might be one of the sensitive spots in the Middle Eastern region but one would have hardly expected this somewhat small nation to possess nuclear power. But in a world where all nations are vying for more power and control, the emergence of the fact that Syria does possess nuclear facilities inside their own territories shouldn’t really come as a shock….

The US military strategy in Iraq has once more been put to the sword. The fiction between the US officials and the Iraqi authorities is going to increase even more in the wake of another US raid all gone wrong. The center of the controversy this time is Sadr City, which is yet to be purified of militants and terrorists. In an effort to capture an Iran-linked militant in the…

Last year’s war between Israel and the Lebanese militant outfit Hezbollah had strategic consequences. Both Israel and Hezbollah declared victory but the truth is that the Lebanese armed group had lost much of their ammunition stock and was severely depleted. That they have somehow managed to rebuild themselves is a different story but their decimation in credential is hard to ignore. In the wake of last summer’s war, the US…

There is bad news on the Iran nuke issue. Iran’s chief negotiator with the West over Tehran’s nuclear programme, Ali Larijani, has resigned. What’s the bad news one may ask? Well, the bad news is that Larijami, though a conservative, was all for negotiations with the US and the west over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In the US eyes he was a “good guy”; at least when compared to some of…

With the situation in Iraq hardly improving, a strong disagreement has occured between the coalition government and the US forces over some of the miltary operations aimed at the insurgents. The Iraqi government and the US forces firmly disagree over the civilian casualty figures during various anti-insurgency raids. Although it is a fact that ordinary Iraqis often get caught in the crossfires but the Americans have blamed the government of…

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is at a crossroad. The bitter Israeli-Palestinian dispute has for long been dragging on endlessly. One after another peace talks have been held, but everything appears to be stagnated at square one. It is so much so that the embattled Palestinian leader has threatened to resign should the upcoming peace negotiations in Annapolis in the United States fail to deliver any fruitful solution to the…

The US military strategy in Iraq has once more been put to the sword. The fiction between the US officials and the Iraqi authorities is going to increase even more in the wake of another US raid all gone wrong. The center of the controversy this time is Sadr City, which is yet to be purified of militants and terrorists. In an effort to capture an Iran-linked militant in the…

During Saddam Hussein’s reign in Iraq, Sunni community has enjoyed a lot at the political and social levels. But now the time has changed, Iraq has governed by Shiite leaders who have support of US government. In their recent move, Iraqi authorities have shut down the country’s most influential Sunni clerical group. That is supposed to support the extremist group like al-Qa’ida. This group has been vocal in its disdain…

Kurdish guerrillas killed 17 Turkish soldiers in an ambush yesterday, which resulted in crisis talks in Ankara to weigh a military strike against rebel bases in Iraq. If my memory is right, this attack is the worst in more than a decade by rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The pivotal factor here is that this attack has came four days after Turkey’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a motion…