By Anwaar Hussain The text books that are taught to Pakistani children recount exploits of numerous past Muslim heroes in them. Standing tall amongst these heroes is one Arab by the name of Muhammad bin Qasim, born on 31 December 695 in the city of Taif in modern day Saudi Arabia. Following are just some [...]

By Anwaar Hussain Chilcot Inquiry was set up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to inquire into Iraq war covering a period from 2001–2009. The hearings are being held in public unless there are “compelling reasons” for witnesses to be heard in private. The inquiry started at the end of July 2009, after the return of [...]

By Anwaar Hussain President Obama’s decision to surge the troops’ level in Afghanistan is understandable. That is the only thing America can do in fact. They cannot just pack their bags and go home. They are losing the war with the present troop strength. All other conventional tactics have been tried out. The troop surge [...]

By Anwaar Hussain Strange title, eh? Wait a bit please. Hoh is the surname of a former Marine who fought in Iraq and became a diplomat in a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan and who on September 10 this year resigned in a high-profile protest of the Afghan war. In so doing, Matthew Hoh became the [...]

by Milton Bearden As the United States settles into its eighth year of military operations in Afghanistan, and as plans for ramping up U.S. troop strength are under way, we might reflect on an observation made by the Chinese military sage, Sun Tzu, about twenty-five hundred years ago: In military campaigns I have heard of [...]

By Daniel Luban The U.S. State Department fiercely denied claims made by Ehud Olmert about his influence over President George W. Bush, in an incident that has stirred up old debates about the role of the Israeli government and the so-called “Israel lobby” in formulating Middle East policy in Washington. On Monday, Olmert claimed that [...]

The Hippasus Blog The Gaza Strip  sits inside a tiny box some 25 miles long and, for the most part, less than five miles wide. At its widest it is well under eight miles wide. It is bounded to the west by the Mediterranean’s most miserable beaches. To the south-west is a seven-mile border with [...]