Middle East

 Iraqis burned American flags, brandished banners and thronged the streets of the western city of Falluja to celebrate the withdrawal of US troops. Some 3,000 people flooded the mainly Sunni city carrying Iraqi flags, banners with "Falluja: The City of Resistance" printed on them, and photos of Falluja residents killed by US forces after the 2003 US-led invasion. Part of the crowd …

According to first-hand accounts and reports provided to Boiling Frogs Post by several sources in Jordan, during the last few hours foreign military groups, estimated at hundreds of individuals, began to spread near the villages of the north-Jordan city of "Al-Mafraq", which is adjacent to the Jordanian and Syrian border.   According to one Jordanian military officer who asked to …

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 9, 2011 (IPS) – The world's nuclear powers – both declared and undeclared – have come primarily from Asia: China, India, Pakistan and possibly North Korea. The Middle East was dominated by a single nuclear power – Israel, which has refused to publicly declare its status.  But that domination has been threatened by Iran, which the Western …

I felt quite uneasy when our man in Tehran, Dominick Chilcott, said the attack on the British Embassy was state-supported.  What doesn't he understand about people power? Surely he should have learned a lesson from the Arab Spring that when angry people rebel it's impossible to stop them.  To say the Iranian police stood by and did nothing when our …

CLOUDS of smoke billowed above the city of Isfahan – evidence that the latest strike against Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program had hit its target.  The second blast in as many weeks at an atomic or missile facility has sparked Iranian denials and claims of accidents, but a new phase in efforts to destroy its nuclear ambitions is said to …

Bashar al-Assad, Syria's beleaguered president, has openly defied the Western world, succeeded in splitting the United Nations Security Council and fractured the League of Arab States – even as it imposed unprecedented economic sanctions against his embattled country. With Russia and China, two permanent members of the Security Council, exercising their vetoes to protect him against U.N. intervention, and Lebanon …