Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Omar Ahmed
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Will Khan’s ousting be Pakistan’s Mosaddegh moment?
The US and British governments denied their roles in the 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, for decades. Although western complicity in the toppling of Iran’s government was common knowledge, it was only in 2013 that America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) finally admitted its involvement...
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Pakistan’s Imran Khan should have learnt from Erdogan’s dealing with the army
Pakistan is going through a constitutional crisis after Prime Minister Imran Khan avoided a no-confidence vote on Sunday which was initiated by opposition legislators late last month in an attempt to oust him amid accusations of economic mismanagement and spiralling inflation. In response, Khan claimed that a “foreign conspiracy”...
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Algeria should welcome and be wary of the attention it’s receiving for its gas
The conflict in the Ukraine has become the latest crisis that has exposed Europe’s dependency on Russian gas, which accounts for some 40 per cent of the EU’s natural gas imports. These concerns have only been heightened following Moscow’s demand that “unfriendly” countries must pay in rubles, in response...
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While the West is preoccupied with pronouns and ‘cancelling’, actual power is shifting eastwards
As the first conflict to take place in the era of popular cancel culture, the widespread social media backlash against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month and ongoing military operations was expected. This was accompanied, not only by Western sanctions against Moscow, but a plethora of major Western brands...
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Ukraine reminds us not to trust the West or give up nuclear development
The announcement this week of the constitutional amendment enabling Belarus to host Russian nuclear weapons following a disputed referendum, could see the country having weapons of mass destruction on its territory for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union. This follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order...
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Accused of ‘sports-washing’, are the Saudis now ‘games-washing’?
Having spent at least $1.5 billion on major international sporting events in order to bolster its reputation, Saudi Arabia has been accused by human rights groups of “sportswashing” which can be described as the investing or hosting of such events, in an effort to obscure poor human rights track...
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Israel PM’s Bahrain visit was an affront to the memory of the uprising
Yesterday’s historic first visit by an Israeli Prime Minister to Bahrain was the highest-profile visit yet since the normalisation of relations between the countries in the US-sponsored agreement, which also included the UAE. Naftali Bennett’s 24-hour trip to Manama saw him being greeted by Foreign Minister, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani,...
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Pragmatic Ibadi Islam at heart of Oman’s neutrality between Axis of Resistance and Normalisation
The Sultanate of Oman is a rather unique country in the Arab world. Not only is it is the oldest independent state having been ruled by the Busaid dynasty since 1749, the country mostly adheres to a sect of Islam that is neither Sunni nor Shia, but Ibadi, making...
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Reuters has finally dropped the misleading ‘Houthi rebels’ narrative
After several years in being at the forefront of Western mainstream media’s coverage of the war on Yemen, describing it as being between the Saudi-led coalition and the “Iranian-backed Houthi rebels”, the news agency Reuters appears to have stopped using this phrase, and even ceased referring to the Houthis...
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Are the UAE’s chickens coming home to roost in its ongoing war against Yemen?
World leaders and diplomats were quick to condemn the missile and drone attack carried out by the Houthi-allied Yemeni armed forces (“the Houthis”) in Abu Dhabi earlier this week which killed three expatriate workers and wounded six others, causing oil prices to rise to their highest level in seven...
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Remembering the Algiers Accords
On this day in 1981 agreements were signed between the United States and the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran in order to bring an end to the embassy hostage crisis in Tehran and the release of Iranian assets which had been seized by Washington. While the accords did lead...
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Lebanon is ‘held hostage by Iran’, yet coercion from the Gulf suggests otherwise
A common trope over the past decade has been the notion that Lebanon has been “held hostage” by the Hezbollah movement and its chief backer, Iran. This is based on concerns of the growing political and military power of Hezbollah, which along with the Amal Movement has been part...
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Yemen unites in celebration after U15 football team beats Saudi to win West Asian championship
Yemen’s under-15 football team won the West Asian Junior Championship on Monday by beating hosts Saudi Arabia 4-3 on penalties. Back home in the war-torn country, thousands poured onto the streets across various cities in celebration, in a rare display of national unity. Warm congratulations #Yemen's juniors football ⚽️ team...
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Whoever lifts the Arab Cup, the true winner is the Syrian Arab Republic
There are just four remaining countries in this year’s FIFA Arab Cup held in Qatar ahead of tomorrow’s semi-final fixtures (15 December, 2021): Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and the host nation. They followed exciting quarter-final games which saw Qatar thrash UAE 5-0 and Algeria’s dramatic victory over rivals, Morocco, on...
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The last time Iraq was free of foreign interference was during the Abbasids—even then it was short lived
It is perfectly reasonable for Iraqi nationalists and patriots to demand that their country be free of foreign interference and patronage. This has been most vocalised in relation to corrupt governance amid increased political influence from neighbouring Iran but also perceptions of Iraq as a client state of the...
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We can expect stronger Algeria-Iran ties as Israel plans to establish a base in Morocco
Bilateral relations between Algeria and Iran have grown ever since ties were restored 21 years ago. They were initially severed in 1993 after the North African country accused Tehran of supporting the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front during the civil war, brought on by the Algerian military’s...
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Remembering the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (1914-1918)
Before the existence of modern-day Lebanon, a devastating famine wiped out a third of the population of the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate...
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Why Yemen’s was the only real revolution, post-Arab Spring
A revolution may be defined as “a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.” With this in mind, it becomes clear that the term had been all too easily or prematurely applied to a number of countries in the aftermath of the...
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Newcastle backtracks on banning fans from wearing traditional Arab clothing
Newcastle United has reversed a decision requesting that fans refrain from wearing traditional Arab attire at games over concerns that it could be seen as “culturally inappropriate”. A statement issued on Saturday by the football club, recently taken over by a Saudi-led consortium, said supporters who wished to wear “appropriate culturally-inspired clothing”...
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Speaking of meaningless statements, I 'condemn' the Security Council's pro-Saudi one on Yemen
The latest UN Security Council’s (UNSC) statement on the situation in Yemen was released on Wednesday amid continued fighting between the Houthi-allied army and the Saudi-backed militia fighting on behalf of the Riyadh-based Yemeni government over the strategic city of Marib – the only pro-government stronghold in the densely-populous...
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The Huseynyun: Iran’s new IRGC-backed movement in Azerbaijan
The distinctive symbol of the clenched fist has become synonymous with various revolutionary, social and political movements across the world. The imagery of a fist clutching an assault rifle is commonly associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and supported armed movements in other countries, such as Lebanon’s...
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A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is often described as the most militant of the main Palestinian resistance factions yet, when compared with the likes of Hamas and Fatah, little is known about it, especially in Western media and academia. The author of A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and...
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Remembering Omar Al-Mukhtar (20 August 1862 – 16 September 1931)
An Islamic scholar turned freedom fighter, Omar Al-Mukhtar is best known for leading an armed revolution and guerrilla campaign against Italian colonisers for the last two decades of his life until his capture and subsequent execution 90 years ago. He remains a Libyan national hero and an inspirational symbol...
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Profile: Musa Al-Sadr — ‘The Vanished Imam’
Before the emergence of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement in 1982, the country’s most charismatic and prominent Shia Muslim leader during the preceding two decades was arguably Sayyid Musa Al-Sadr. He disappeared mysteriously during a visit to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in 1978. The son of an Ayatollah, Musa Al-Sadr was born...
