For The Daily Beast: While Cairo hands down death sentences, Ankara allows the Brotherhood to open TV stations. A close look at a rivalry shaping many Mideast conflicts. ISTANBUL — Walid Sami fusses over a cup of green tea in the crowded apartment he shares with another Egyptian and six Syrians in a quarter of Istanbul’s Fatih district overlooking the Golden Horn. “Turkish tea is too bitter,” says Sami, 28, tall and thin with a wispy beard, dressed in worn blue jeans and a green…Continue Reading “Turkey Nurtures Egypt’s ‘Terrorist’ Muslim Brothers”
For Foreign Policy: Uzbekistan’s president has jailed, tortured, and murdered his opponents at home. Now, he’s hiring hit men to track down and kill dissidents abroad. ISTANBUL — A cold drizzle fell on Istanbul on the morning of Dec. 10, 2014, as Abdullah Bukhari made his way to teach his students at a madrasa nestled amid apartment blocks and hardware stores in the Zeytinburnu neighborhood. A white prayer cap on his head, Bukhari made two crucial departures from his daily routine, according to one of…Continue Reading “The Hunted: Tracking Uzbekistan’s long arm”
For The Daily Beast: TURBAT, Pakistan—Something fell out of the sky near Arif Saleem’s home at 5:20 a.m. on Nov. 25, 2013. He scrambled outside to find a 25-foot-wide crater just beyond the mud wall surrounding his family compound. The strike was one of three, in quick succession, that morning in the village of Kulahu, in Pakistani Baluchistan, 45 miles east of the Iran border. One of the blasts damaged the local mosque. Pages from the Quran fluttered in the air before landing gently on the…Continue Reading “The Dangerous Drug-Funded Secret War Between Iran and Pakistan”
For Al Jazeera English: Turkey has ruled to recognise Alevis’ places of worship but there are worries over the outcome of this decision. Along a road overlooking a scenic valley in the Turkish Anatolian heartland is a series of giant grainy black and white photos; shackled men being led away, families huddling in bare mountains, surrounded by armed soldiers. The memorial depicts a 1938 massacre of Alevis, an event that serves as a stark example of just how far Turkish society needs to go to…Continue Reading “Turkey’s Alevis beholden to politics”
For Truth-out: Gaziantep and Suruc, Turkey – A dozen men huddle around a campfire in the Turkish village of Ma’sariya, 700 meters north of the Syrian border. They are a fraction of more than 120,000 Kurds who have fled an attack by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Kobani, the strategic town just across the border in Syria. It’s too cloudy to see the US jets flying above, but they make plenty of noise. Applause breaks out at the sound of explosions…Continue Reading “How the US Intervention Against the Islamic State Has Alienated Syria’s Sunni Arab Opposition”
For The Daily Beast with Fakhar Kakakhel: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Half a dozen men sit on the floor in a grimy rented storefront in the crowded Khyber Bazaar. A bottle of locally brewed liquor chills in a water cooler in the corner, a Pepsi bottle next to it for mixing. A Bollywood soundtrack plays in the background. It’s a farewell party for Allah Noor, who has spent the last five years identifying targets in rural Pakistan for U.S. drone strikes. Noor, as we’ll call him,…Continue Reading “Obama’s Deadly Informants: The Drone Spotters of Pakistan”
For The Revealer: KASHGAR, XINJIANG, CHINA — “U-yu-ghur, we say U-yu-ghur,” Hajji Abdulaziz* gently explains to me, as I take a seat at the front of his fabric shop, blankets and seat cushions in a dizzying array of colors, stacked from floor to ceiling. A smile cracks across his face, floating in the middle of short white facial hair, and he reaches for a piece of cardboard and a pen. “See, this is how it is written.” Abdulaziz slowly writes out the word Uyghur, in…Continue Reading “Turning the Uyghur East”
For Al Jazeera English: The government’s attempt to clamp down on religious expression has backfired among Uyghurs. Kashgar, China – Chinese authorities have imposed restrictions on Uyghur Muslims during the month of Ramadan, banning government employees and school children from fasting, in what rights groups say has become an annual attempt at systematically erasing the region’s Islamic identity. Chinese authorities have justified the ban on fasting by saying it is meant to protect the health of students, and restrictions on religious practices by government officials are…Continue Reading “Chinese Uyghurs defy Ramadan ban”
For Al Jazeera English: Protests over poor public services have escalated into challenges to Islamabad’s rule in rugged northern territory. Gilgit, Pakistan – Escalating protests in villages perched on the “Roof of the World” – a mountainous territory disputed between Pakistan and India – have exposed deep animosity towards Islamabad. After 67 years of control by the Pakistani government, many local people want the country to either accept them as a new province – or grant them independence. Pakistan’s authorities have responded to the unrest –…Continue Reading “‘Roof of the World’ rebels against Pakistan”
For IRIN News, with Fakhar Kakakhel: PESHAWAR, 16 June 2014 (IRIN) – More than 60,000 people have fled North Waziristan Agency to safer parts of Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan as Pakistan’s military launches an offensive in the region. Most of the people fleeing are children, and mental health experts are concerned that they will not have access to proper trauma care. The Pakistani authorities have yet to set up camps to shelter the displaced, and what little mental health aid is available – usually at…Continue Reading “Pakistan’s traumatized war children play soldiers and Taliban”