By James M. Dorsey A successful soccer player near the peak of his career, 22-year Nidhal Selmi died last week a foreign fighter for the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq. His death followed that of Tunisian handball goalkeeper Ahmed Yassin and Ahmed El-Darawi, a former policeman and … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey The United Arab Emirates backed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt is spearheading a conservative Arab effort to reshape the Middle East and North Africa in their mould, in parallel with the US-led war against Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq. The effort targets the Muslim Brotherhood and seeks to preserve … [Read more…]
all By James M. Dorsey The struggle for women’s rights to engage in sports and attend sporting events has commanded increased attention with the hunger strike of a British-Iranian national incarcerated in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, the expected arrival in Saudi Arabia of Australian women fans for the Asian Champions League final, and the rare … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey Scotland Yard has opened an investigation into allegations that Prince Nasser bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the commander of Bahrain’s armed forces and head of its National Olympic Committee, was involved in the torture of political detainees, including three national team soccer players. The investigation could prove to be embarrassing for the president … [Read more…]
By James M Dorsey The US-led international response to the Islamic State’s advances in Iraq and Syria is more extensive and fraught with danger than the war on terror declared by President George W Bush in the wake of the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington. It is a response that contains the seeds … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey and Farish A. Noor Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to criminalise British fighters in Iraq and Syria and bar them from returning to Britain has come in for sharp criticism from the former head of counter-terrorism in its intelligence services MI5 and MI6. Richard Barrett hit the nail on the head … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey Newly elected Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined this week a host of Middle Eastern and North African leaders seeking to portray protest as terrorism or a threat to national security with the indictment of 35 militant soccer fans on charges of trying to topple his Islamist government. Turkish prosecutors have … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey The meteoric rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its declaration of an Islamic State straddling the two Arab countries raises the spectre of a militant Islamist state in the heart of the Middle East close to the borders of US allies like Israel, Jordan and Saudi … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey A series of incidents ranging from the killing of a player to the raising of the flag of the Islamic State, the militant jihadist group that controls a swath of Syria and Iraq, to the arrest of militant Egyptian fans signals the return of North African soccer pitches as venues for … [Read more…]
By James M. Dorsey Unable to persuade Qatari leaders to drop their support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, Saudi Arabia appears determined to deprive its tiny neighbour of its regional soccer supremacy. A recent decision to build 11 stadia under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), one of the … [Read more…]