Pakistan bombings: Many casualties in Quetta and Parachinar – BBC News

At least 24 people have been killed and many injured in bombings in the north and south of Pakistan, officials say. The first explosion in the city of Quetta killed at least 13 people. It happened when a suicide bomber in a car was stopped by police at a checkpoint.

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Shia Muslims Population

According to Pew Research Institute, A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.6 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of…

State-backed discrimination against Shia Muslims in Malaysia

(2017). State-backed discrimination against Shia Muslims in Malaysia. Critical Asian Studies. Ahead of Print. doi: 10.1080/14672715.2017.1335848

EGYPT, For the People or Against the People? – Shia Rights Watch

While the history of Shia Muslims in Egypt is long and extensive, anti-Shiism is prevalent in this nation. Once called the forgotten minority, Shia Muslims in Egypt are lost amidst country’s political unrest. Shia numbers are always undermined in state-issued reports in aims of suppressing the population.

For the rest of the SRW’s recent mailing, including ‘Incidents of Anti-Shiism in May, 2017’, see here.

In wake of Trump visit, Saudi-led Sunni bloc already splintering

Author: Bruce Riedel The Saudi-orchestrated bloc of Sunni Muslim states celebrated at US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh is splintering less than two weeks after the summit. There is growing unease with the summit’s intense animosity toward Iran and increasing concerns that the Saudis are inflaming the sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shiites.

Two conferences spotlight Muslim world’s struggle to counter militancy

Two conferences this week spotlight the Muslim world’s struggle to come to grips with extremism and militancy. The conferences, the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh and a gathering in East Java of youth leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim movement, laid bare the difficulty of reforming cultures in the battle against extremism, called into question the commitment of Muslim states to combat radicalism and political violence, and put on display US President Donald J.

This is the aim of Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia

Donald Trump sets off on Friday to create the fantasy of an Arab Nato. There will be dictators aplenty to greet him in Riyadh, corrupt autocrats and thugs and torturers and head choppers. There will be at least one zombie president – the comatose, undead Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria who neither speaks nor, apparently, hears any more – and, of course, one totally insane president, Donald Trump.

Conflict in the Middle East threatens Pakistan and lynchpin of China’s One Belt, One Road

Increasingly caught up in the Middle East’s multiple conflicts, Pakistan is struggling to balance relations with rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran amid concern in Islamabad that potential US-Saudi efforts to destabilize the Islamic republic could turn its crucial province of Balochistan, a lynchpin in China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, into a battleground.

The Shiʿa Afghan Community: Between Transnational Links and Internal Hurdles

This article aims to present a political analysis of the relationship between the Shiʿa community in Afghanistan and the new political system that emerged after the US military intervention of 2001.

Pakistan’s lurch towards ultra-conservativism abetted by Saudi-inspired pyramid scheme (Part 1)

Saudi funding, a pillar of the kingdom’s more than 40-year long public diplomacy campaign, the world’s largest dedicated effort of its kind, has helped weave ultra-conservatism into significant segments of Pakistani society as well as key branches of government and the state that have fostered an environment capable of sustaining itself, expanding its reach, and spawning institutions that target specific societal groups.