SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –New deployments of Kurdish forces in the disputed Kirkuk province in north Iraq are a “dangerous development” and an attempt to reach its oil fields, a top Iraqi general said on Saturday. “They want to reach (Kirkuk’s) oil wells and fields,” Staff General Ali Ghaidan Majeed, the commander of Iraqi ground forces, told AFP, adding that the move breached an agreement whereby Kurdish peshmerga forces and Iraqi soldiers would maintain joint checkpoints. Kurdish security forces…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Hamas called on Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah members and the Palestinian factions to start implementation of reconciliation according to what was agreed upon in Cairo Agreement and the Doha Declaration. An official source in the movement stressed in a press statement on Saturday the need to accomplish the five reconciliation files (formation of the government - the elections - the Palestine Liberation Organization - the public freedoms - community reconciliation) as a single…

SHAFAQNA Sectarian tensions have escalated in Iraq, where the death toll from a wave of violence has passed 200, officials and reports have said. On Saturday, the fifth day of protests, gunmen killed five army intelligence soldiers in two attacks west of Baghdad. "Five soldiers in civilians clothes have been killed near a protest site in Ramadi," Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Baghdad. "The men were stopped by gunmen protecting the protest. It's not clear how things developed and what…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Aided by the Popular Committees, the Syrian army regained the Prophet Mando strategic hill in Homs countryside, and dominated over the military supply lines that lead to Homs and al-Qussayr on the sides of Tel-Kalkh and Al-Qaa. Moreover, the Syrian army retrieved tens of villages in Qussayr countryside; the most important are Al-Borhania and Sakarja. Some villages east and west Assi River were also recaptured. Consequently, the Syrian Army tightened its control over the entrances…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –The first-ever call to Muslim prayer was heard for the Friday prayer at Fittja Grand Mosque in Sweden. Muslim worshippers gathered for the Friday prayer, or Jummah, at a mosque in Stockholm which saw the first-ever call to prayer (adhan) to be recited in Sweden. Sweden's state-run television broadcast live while Fittja Grand Mosque's imam recited the prayer call (adhan) via a loudspeaker from the minaret. "I have been living in Sweden for 25 years…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Hujatoleslam Mohammad Naghdi stated that so far the institute has released the translation of the holy Quran into 7 languages; besides it has finished working on translation of the book into 6 other languages and is having them edited. Moreover, the center has called for translators to render the holy book of Quran into 9 other languages. Elsewhere in his interview, Naghdi highlighted the great need of the Islamic community in the world for…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – France’s defense minister has reaffirmed that the country will keep 1,000 troops in Mali to fight armed groups even after the arrival of more than 12,000 UN peacekeepers later this year. A day after the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of the peacekeeping force, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visited the city of Gao in northeastern Mali. “From now on we are in the post-war phase. The UN resolution adopted yesterday will…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Israeli artillery fired on Friday night several shells towards Palestinian citizens' lands in the north of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. PIC's correspondent reported that a number of Israeli military vehicles raided the liberated area of Dugit and fired several shells at the free zone in the area of Atatra, in the northern Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported. The occupation has escalated its violations of the Egyptian-brokered truce it signed with the…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Israeli security forces overnight Thursday demolished two structures that Jewish settlers had erected to create a "wildcat" outpost in the occupied West Bank, a police spokesman said. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse about 500 Palestinian villagers marching toward another Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank on Friday. Soldiers and border policemen razed the makeshift structures of the Oz Zion outpost near the central city of Ramallah without incident,…

SHAFAQNA-- Two Syrian officials denied Friday that government forces had used chemical weapons against rebels, Damascus' first response to U.S. assertions that it had. On Thursday, the White House and other top Obama administration officials said that U.S. intelligence had concluded with "varying degrees of confidence" that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its civil war. In the Syrian capital however, a government official said President Bashar Assad's military "did not and will not use chemical weapons…