BEIRUT: Two Lebanese soldiers being held hostage by ISIS on the outskirts of the northeast town of Arsal telephoned their families Monday, urging them to stage violent protests for their release. Rabih Mawri, the uncle of captive soldier Khaled Moqbel, told The Daily Star that Moqbel called his wife to relay the militant’s demands […]

  The army deployed heavily in the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood in the northern coastal city of Tripoli on Monday and detained a number of militants, who have engaged in deadly battles with the military since Friday. The military said in a communique that troops found several arms depots and a factory for manufacturing bombs during […]

  BEIRUT: In another show of solidarity for the Lebanese Army in its ongoing battle against jihadi militants, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale said Monday that the Lebanese government could count on the United States for continued support to the military and security forces. “I can say speaking for the United States of America, […]

Riyadh (AFP) – Activists pushing for women’s right-to-drive in Saudi Arabia declared their online campaign a success Sunday, in the world’s only country where women are not allowed to operate cars.

The campaign that began last year and revved up again since the beginning of the month encouraged women to post online images of themselves driving.

Dozens of women have driven and posted during the latest campaign, one activist said, although she knew of only two who hit the streets Saturday and Sunday as the campaign peaked.

"A day hasn’t gone by without receiving one or two videos" of women driving, said the activist.

Men and women have also posted messages of support.

More than 2,800 people have signed an online petition at www.oct26driving.com asking authorities to lift the ban on women driving.

Archibishop Louis Sako

Vatican City, Oct 26, 2014 / 04:41 am (CNA).- Chaldean patriarch Louis Sako I has suspended a group of monks and priests who fled Iraq without consulting their superiors, saying a priest’s primary duty is to serve his flock wherever he is asked.

“Before his ordination, the ‘Priest’ announces the offering of his whole life to God and the Church. It is an offering grounded in the obedience to his superiors without any conservation,” Patriarch Sako said in his Oct. 22 statement. “For monks, the vows are absolute; chastity, obedience and poverty. Looking for substitutes is considered a grave violation to the vows.”

Published on the Chaldean Patriarchate’s website, the statement gives the names of six priests and six monks who, as of Oct. 22, have been suspended from their priestly duties for leaving their eparchies without consulting their superiors, and for refusing to return when asked. The patriarch noted that those who left are currently living in the United States, Canada, Australia and Sweden, and assured that because of this, his decision “is not an act against a certain Eparchy.”

He explained that the decision was made in accord with the monastic context after consulting Canon Law and monastic regulations, as well as speaking with the permanent synod and informing the Vatican’s Congregation of the Oriental Churches. Patriarch Sako asked that all bishops adhere to Canon Law in order to ensure order in the midst of the crisis unfolding in the Middle East, and to maintain centralization in the Church and Eparchies.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Islamic State is still extracting and selling oil in Syria and has adapted its trading techniques despite a month of strikes by U.S.-led forces aimed at cutting off this major source of income for the group, residents, oil executives and traders say.

While the raids by U.S. and Arab forces have targeted some small makeshift oil refineries run by locals in eastern areas controlled by Islamic State, they have avoided the wells the group controls.

This has limited the effectiveness of the campaign and means the militants are able to profit from crude sales of up to $2 million a day, according to oil workers in Syria, former oil executives and energy experts.

"They are in fact still selling the oil and even stepping up exploitation of new wells by tribal allies and taking advantage of the inability of the enemy to hit the oil fields," said Abdullah al-Jadaan, a tribal elder in Shuhail, a town in Syria’s oil-producing Deir al-Zor province. U.S.-led forces want to avoid hitting the oil installations hard because it could hurt civilians more than the militants and could radicalize the local population, analysts say.

by Alice Fordham, NPR

The heart of downtown Beirut is an elegant area, fringed with expensive buildings. But on a beautiful sunny day, you may not find anyone there — there’s no cafe, no park, no place for people to hang out.

Even though the Lebanese capital is a bustling and even glamorous place, the heart of Beirut is empty.

That’s because the ghosts of this otherwise vibrant city’s past still play out in Beirut’s neighborhoods. Decades after Lebanon’s civil war in the 1980s, those divides still carve up the city and help determine who lives where and who interacts with whom.

To understand why, we’ll first head west to my neighborhood, the Hamra area. My neighbor, Mona Harb, is an architecture professor with the American University of Beirut. And, like me, she likes Hamra because it’s mixed in terms of sect, class and education levels.

But that’s rare, she says — much of Beirut is divided. "It is a fragmented city, made of more or less self-sufficient neighborhoods, or sets of neighborhoods, with clear, segregated lines," Harb says.

  RIPOLI, Lebanon: A civilian was killed Saturday during clashes between the Lebanese Army and militants in the northern city of Tripoli, a security source said. The man, identified as Abdou al-Masri, was shot while he was trying to pull his wounded son away from the site of the clashes in the old souks, where […]

  Militant Ahmed Salim Miqati, who was arrested during an army raid in the town of Asoun in the northern district of Dinniyeh, and 12 members of his terrorist cell, had plans to execute violent attacks on the 27th of Oct against Ashura gatherings in several Shiite Lebanese areas, media reports said. The cell that […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-RAhi renewed on Saturday his call for the election of a new head of state, rejecting to let the Lebanese get used to the vacuum at the Baabda Palace. “There is no justification for not electing a new president,” al-Rahi said during a meeting at the Maronite Diocese of Saint Maron […]