Bahraini authorities on May 7 arrested prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, according to the country's Interior Ministry. According to his lawyer, Rajab was arrested for messages he posted on Twitter criticizing the Interior Ministry. Rajab is the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), a group that has been critical of the Bahraini regime's response to protests and demonstrations in Bahrain which have been ongoing since February 2011. Following Rajab's arrest, the BCHR expressed concern that "[t]he authorities in Bahrain have used many methods in attempting to prevent and/or limit human rights defenders in Bahrain from carrying out their work of documenting and reporting on human rights violations in the country." Rajab was charged with insulting a statutory body and will be detained for seven days.

A new Human Rights Watch report charges that Syrian government forces killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses during a two-week offensive in northern Idlib governorate shortly before the current "ceasefire" took effect. The occurred in late March and early April, as UN special envoy Kofi Annan was negotiating with Damascus to end the fighting. (HRW, May 2) Fighting of course continues despite the supposed "ceasefire," and the Turkish government warned May 2 that clashes are once again approaching the border zone between the two countries. Syrian government forces clashed with a group of army defectors who supposedly tried to seize territory near the Turkish border. Recalling the April 9 incident in which Syrian government forces fired on a refugee camp across the border at Oncupinar, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week invoked a threat of NATO intervention, warning: "If border violations continue in a way that disturbs us, we, as a member of NATO, will take the necessary steps." (AP, May 3; The National, UAE, May 2)

An Islamist group calling itself "al-Nusra Front" claimed responsibility for the latest suicide bombing in Damascus—which killed 11 at the city's Zain al-Abideen mosque during Friday prayers April 27. Although it seems two worshippers were among those killed, the assailant blew himself up amid members of the security forces who were gathered outside the mosque, which is popular with Sunni opponents of the Assad regime and has gained a reputation as a launch site for protests. Scores of government troops are now routinely mobilized to the mosque on Fridays. In a statement posted on the Islamist web forum al-Shamukh, the previously unknown al-Nusra also claimed responsibility for a January suicide bombing in the same Damascus district of Midan, and other bombings in Damascus and Aleppo. It said Friday's bombing targeted the "aggressors who surround the houses of God" to attack worshippers after weekly prayers. (Reuters, April 29; IBN, Vatican Radio, April 28; NDTV, April 27)

A man was found dead April 21 after overnight clashes between the pro-democracy protesters and police in Bahrain, as the Formula One Grand Prix car-racing spectacle is set to open in the conflicted Persian Gulf mini-state. Some media reported the man had been beaten to death by riot police, while other said there were gunshot wounds on his body. Claiming Friday the 20th as the first of "three days of rage" against Bahrain's rulers, some 50,000 anti-government protesters gathered in the capital Manama, 25 miles away from the Formula One site. Demonstrators called for the "overthrow of the regime" and demanded freedom for the dissident Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who has been on hunger strike in prison for more than 70 days. Police fired tear gas and sound bombs to disperse the crowds. The protest movement has called a boycott of the Grand Prix, but Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa rules out cancelling the event, saying such a move would only "empower extremists." (AllVoices, April 21)

Ali Mushaima, a 28-year-old Bahraini activist, on hunger strike for 10 days in London, on April 4 began a public vigil outside the US embassy on Grosvenor Square to call attention to US complicity in the repression of Bahrain's civil revolutionary movement and Washington's tacit support to the Saudi occupation of the country. He is also expressing his solidarity with human rights activist Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, who has now been on hunger strike for over 60 days in a Bahraini prison. Al-Khawaja was recently moved to a new facility with medical equipment in anticipation of an onset of coma. His daughter, Maryam al-Khawaja said her father "is entering a critical phase, where his life is at stake." Ali's own father, Hassan Mushaima, is also imprisoned, and suffering from cancer for which Ali says he is not receiving proper treatment inside Bahrain's "torture chambers." (Bahrain Freedom Movement, April 10; CNN, April 6)

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) fighters overran a military checkpoint at al-Milah in Lahj province of southern Yemen March 31, killing 17 soldiers during an intense battle that also resulted in the deaths of 13 AQAP fighters. The AQAP militants seized two tanks and other weapons. Yemeni warplanes killed three AQAP fighters while attacking one of the seized tanks; it is unclear if the tank was destroyed. AQAP fighters fell back to the city of Ja'ar in neighboring Abyan province, one of several towns now under AQAP control. Ansar al-Sharia, or Partisans of Islamic Law, AQAP's political front in Yemen, claimed credit for the attack in text message, according to Reuters. "The holy warriors of Ansar al-Sharia this morning carried out the raid of dignity on the al-Hurur military checkpoint in Abyan, resulting in the deaths of around 30 [soldiers]," the statement said. (Long War Journal, March 31)

Reactions to the passing of Pope Shenouda III, leader of Egypt's Coptic Christians, reveals much about the country's ominous but still tentatively hopeful political situation. Compass Direct News, which documents persecution of Christians around the world, on March 23 noted the effluence of hate that spewed forth from Egypt's newly powerful Salafist movement: