SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA-- Jordanians have staged an anti-US demonstration in the capital, Amman, to protest against the proposed deployment of US troops on the kingdom’s border with Syria. Hundreds of Jordanian protesters took to the streets on Friday to express their opposition to the planned deployment of 200 US troops in their country, AP reported.  The demonstrators said the deployment could be just the beginning of a process that paves the way for US interference in the Syrian unrest. They also burned…

SHAFAQNA-- Iraqi security forces have regained control of a town north of the capital Baghdad after gunmen who had seized the town agreed to withdraw without resistance. Iraqi authorities say soldiers backed by tanks entered the town of Sulaiman Bek in Salahuddin Province early on Friday after gunmen retreated under a deal mediated by tribal chiefs and government officials.  The gunmen were given forty-eight hours to withdraw or face an attack by the army.  Gunmen seized the town on Wednesday…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has denied a claim by Israeli military officials that the movement had sent an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over the occupied Palestinian territories. The Lebanese television Al-Manar made the announcement Thursday through a one-line statement flashed as an urgent news bar on its screen. Earlier in the day, the Israeli military said it shot down a UAV belonging to Hezbollah near the northern port of Haifa. A military spokeswoman…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Hamas movement described the results of the students’ elections in the Najah university in Nablus as a victory for the Islamic bloc after six years of boycott. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said on Wednesday that winning 33 seats against 43 seats for the Fatah-affiliated bloc reflected growing popularity for the Islamic bloc that has been absent from those elections for six years. He said that the result pointed to the failure of the policy…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The death toll from a building collapse in Bangladesh rose to 149 as rescuers worked overnight to find people trapped in the rubble, authorities say. Army Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said "many" people were still trapped and a clearer picture of the rescue operation would be available on Thursday afternoon. The eight-story building near Dhaka, housing mainly garment factories, collapsed on Wednesday. Workers had warned a day earleir that large cracks had…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Gunmen have taken control of the Iraqi town of Sulaiman Bek, which is located about 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, officials say. On Wednesday, security forces completely withdrew from the area and gunmen took control of the town, situated in Salaheddin province, Shalal Abdul Baban, a local administrative official responsible for the area, told AFP. Niyazi Maamar Oghlu, a member of the provincial council in Salaheddin province also confirmed the…

SHAFAQNA-- As fierce clashes continue in the border villages of al-Qusayr, there are growing fears that Lebanon is being drawn further into the Syrian conflict. For more than a week, Syrian rebels have fired shells hitting the eastern Lebanese Hermel region, a bastion for the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, in what they say is retaliation for strikes by the group. On Tuesday, two new mortar rounds hit the city of Hermel, causing light damage to a house. Rebels have threatened to…

SHAFAQNA-- A senior official at Syria’s Electricity Ministry has been killed by a magnetic bomb attached to his car by the foreign-backed militants in the Arab country, official SANA news agency reports. The car bombing was carried out on Wednesday in al-Baramkeh neighborhood in the capital, Damascus, and killed Mohammad Abdul-Wahab Hassan, the director of Qualification and Training Department of the ministry.  Hassan was transferred to the hospital where he succumbed to his severe injuries.  Meanwhile on Tuesday, the militants…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Gaza premier Ismail Haneyya said that the scheduled visit of Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Gaza had signaled the end of US hegemony in the region. Haneyya welcomed and appreciated, in a terse statement in Doha on Tuesday, Erdogan’s visit to Gaza. He said that the visit reflected the extent of Ankara’s support for the Palestine cause and people. Erdogan had said that his plan to visit Gaza would not change in response to a…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Triggering fresh controversy over ‘hijab’, a four-year-old nursery girl in Assam was asked to stop wearing traditional Islamic headscarf or face expulsion. According to reports, the incident took place at a Catholic Mission-run Kristo Jyoti School, near Bokakhat in Assam’s Golaghat district, where the authorities refused to allow Muslim girl Fathima Bibi to wear ‘hijab’ along with school uniform. Following the school’s action, the parents of the four-year-old girl have moved Gauhati High Court to…