US-led airstrikes in Syria hit al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front and rebel brigade Ahrar al-Sham in a rare expansion of weeks of targeted raids at extremist group Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said on Thursday. Additionally, American media have reported that 24-year-old French bomb-maker David Drugeon, a converted Muslim who had joined al-Qaeda offshoot the Khorasan group, was …

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/6/2014) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released a snapshot report on incidents of Islamophobia in the 2014 mid-election. Highlights of the report include:  * The most significant anti-Islam action of the 2014 midterm election, Alabama’s Amendment 1, was approved by voters. Alabama is the eighth state …

French lawmakers are planning to submit a motion to their parliament, asking their government to recognize the state of Palestine, weeks after British parliamentarians successfully passed a similar vote. The move follows the collapse of the peace process between Palestine and Israel after the conflict in Gaza, in which over 2,000 Palestinians were killed. “The (lower house National) Assembly asks …

Israel promised Jordan that it won’t allow Jewish people to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, just as several Jewish extremists tried to advance to the compound. With clashes raging currently in many Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied east Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday spoke with Jordan’s King Abdullah II over the phone to personally assure …

The International Criminal Court said that it would not prosecute Israel over its raid of Gaza-bound ships in 2010, during which ten Turkish activists died, despite a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed”. According to Chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, there won’t be an investigation or a prosecution because the alleged crimes were not of “sufficient gravity”. “The …

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini on Monday stated that she would like to see a state of Palestine by the time her five year term ends. She added that for it to happen will require the EU to get more involved with the Middle East than it has been in the past. The former 41-year-old Italian foreign minister …

US Republicans stormed the Senate by thumping Democrats in the mid-term elections on Tuesday, and now control both houses of Congress, virtually assuring a testy final two years in office for President Barack Obama. Riding on a frustration among voters with Washington’s politicians and policies, Republicans captured at least 7 seats from Senate Democrats in the poll. This will be …

The following are some interesting figures from October: November 2016: the deadline the Palestinian Authority asked the U.N. Security Council to impose on Israel to end its occupation of all Palestinian lands. $50,000 was donated to rebuild U.N. schools damaged during Israel’s summer assault on Gaza by 17-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. The young Pakistani, who has spoken …

Saudi authorities on Wednesday blamed militants linked to the al-Qaeda for Monday’s attack on Shi’ite worshippers that highlighted sectarian tensions in the predominantly Sunni kingdom. Late on Monday, masked gunmen in the Eastern Province killed six Shi’ite worshippers, including children, during the commemoration of Ashura, one of the holiest days of the Shi’ite faith. Interior Ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki …

The UK will send more security force personnel to Iraq to train Iraqi forces in the battle against extremist group Islamic State (IS), UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said on Wednesday. Britain has been supporting the US-led air strikes to force IS militants out of Iraq and has already trained Kurdish fighters in the country. “We will be stepping up …