Muammar Gadhafi's son, Saif al-Islam vowed to continue the war and retake Gadhafi's capital in his first public appearance.  According to Saif al-Islam, 20,000 armed soldiers are prepared to defend Sirte, the central city that was Gadhafi's birthplace and continues to be his stronghold.  The regime's chief spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim rejected the rebel ultimatum to surrender in Libya's cities, Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha by Saturday. Saif also urged Libyans to ...

After 800 men and women gathered in a park in Tehran several weeks ago for a water gun fight, security forces have been tracking participants through social media websites and arresting them.  Security forces have been using Facebook to find the organizers and participants of the water gun fight through their Facebook accounts.  The Facebook page for "Water Wars in Tehran" now has 19,000 members and 22 local chapters for ...

The latest Amnesty International report on Syria cites a surge in deaths of Syrians held in detention camps since the start of the Syrian revolution five months ago. According to the report, Syria has averaged five detention deaths per year, but has seen the deaths of at least 88 people over the past five months.  Of the 88 who died, ten were children, some as young as 13. There is ...

Eric Trager, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argues the continued use of military trials of civilians by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) "risks confrontation with the public." After the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the SCAF has increasingly used military trials for civilians as a politically expedient alternative to civilian trials as well as a method of quashing dissent. Many high-profile activists and bloggers, including ...

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Relations, introduced a bill to cut U.S. contributions to the U.N. if certain major changes are not made. The announcement was made ahead of the planned vote for Palestinian statehood, a vote Ros-Lehtinen opposes. Her spokesperson Brad Goehner said, "Chairman Ros-Lehtinen felt it was important to introduce the bill, which includes a title withholding U.S. funding to U.N. entities which ...

On the first day marking the Eid El-Fitr holiday, 14 year old Ali Jawad al-Sheikh was killed when security forces fired tear gas canisters at protesters to disperse them. Ali was struck in the head by a tear gas canister that was fired directly at him by a police officer, and was subsequently taken to the hospital. Human rights activists report that Ali was refused treatment at the hospital and ...

Farnaz Fassihi writes in the Wall Street Journal that Iran's support for Syria "has rapidly eroded Tehran's credibility among Arab's" resulting in a "foreign policy dilemma" for Iran.  Fassihi argues that Iran's support for President Bashar al-Assad will further isolate Iran within the region, however, abandoning Assad "will crumble Iran's platform in Syria." Fassihi writes that Iranian officials have taken a "selective approach" to the Arab Spring hailing Egypt's movements as ...

In an interview, Karim Sadjadpour with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discussed the close relationship between Iran and Syria in the wake of the Arab upheavals. According to Sadjadpour, Iran welcomed the Arab unrest until it hit Syria. If President Bashar al-Assad's regime were to fall, it "would be a huge blow" to the Iranian regime and their support of Hezbollah. With the possibility of a new regime in Syria unfriendly towards Hezbollah, ...

Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will pardon 100 political prisoners in light of the end of the holy month of Ramadan.  Additionally, more than 30 inmates have been released over the past several days, including students and political activists arrested in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election.  According to the Green Movement's news site Kaleme, in regards to the pardoned prisoners whose imprisonment ...

Writing in the New York Times, Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers argue that the rebels' seizure of Tripoli signifies "a key victory for an Obama doctrine for the Middle East." It would be hasty to speculate on how this "Libya model" could be transferred to other conflicts such as Syria, and yet administration officials view the U.S. coordinated approach on pressuring the Syrian regime as an indication that the ...