By Mark Woodward and Inayah Rohmaniyah* Earlier this month (December 13-15) we were privileged to participate in a “The 2nd International Conference on Islamic Media” sponsored by the Saudi sponsored Muslim World League (MWL, Rabita al-Alam al-Islami) and the Indonesian Ministry of Religion in Jakarta Indonesia.  Tension between the co-sponsors was evident in the selection [...]

by Steven R. Corman A few weeks ago I did a keynote speech at a public meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission in Public Diplomacy.  Later in the meeting I heard a presentation by Ambassador Richard LeBaron, Coordinator of the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC).  The topic of his talk tied together [...]

by Chris Lundry On Sunday, September 25, a lone suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a Protestant Church in Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, as services were letting out. Along with the bomber, one congregant was killed and several wounded from the shrapnel composed of nails, bolts and buckshot. In the ensuing week there has been [...]

by Chris Lundry Violence between Muslims and Christians broke out in the city of Ambon, Maluku Province, Indonesia on Sunday, September 11. Official sources state that an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver named Darmis Saiman was killed in an accident on September 10. But rumors sent via text message spread the following day when he was [...]

By Jeffry R. Halverson Unlike the protests of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, the campaigns underway against the Assad regime in Syria have a distinctly sectarian character. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawites, a little-known esoteric Shi‘ite sect. However, the majority of Syria’s population is Sunni Muslim (approx. 75%). And caught [...]

by Bennett Furlow In the immediate aftermath of Usama bin Laden’s death there was no shortage of news and commentary trying to explain the significance of his demise. What does his death mean for the U.S. and al-Qaeda, or for the War in Afghanistan? The unilateral action by the U.S. also presented many questions about [...]

by Scott Ruston As details pour in regarding this past weekend’s daring raid in which U.S. Navy SEALs  killed elusive al-Qaeda leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden, the exact details of the events keep changing slightly. The New York Times titled an article covering a recent revision to the sequence of events [...]

by Jeffry R. Halverson Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been abuzz over the release of a video entitled “The Coming is Very Near,” a 28-minute production created by a group of Twelver Shi‘a devotees of the Hidden Imam al-Mahdi, known as the Harbingers of the Coming (perhaps associated with the Hojjatieh Society). It [...]

by Jeffry R. Halverson and Bud Goodall Muammar Gaddafi, “Leader and Guide” of Libya, and Vladimir Putin, current Prime Minister of Russia and former head of the FSB (formerly KGB), have separately denounced (Putin here ) UN Security Council Resolution 1973, approving military action in Libya, as something resembling “the medieval Crusades.” We understand why [...]

by Jeffry R. Halverson Events rapidly accelerated in Egypt on Friday, January 28, as expected. On Thursday night, the regime shut down internet access. This startling graphic by Craig Labovitz shows the precipitous drop in online traffic. Over the course of the day, the U.S. government repeatedly modified its official stance after making questionable remarks [...]