Imagine you're out alone, say on a bus or a train and a stranger comes up to you, whose possibly not a Muslim, and they ask you to define Islam, what would you say to them?

I thought it'd be a thing of the past to see rape victims being at fault, undeserving of respect and honour and being hated on. There should be no excuses for the rapist whether the girl is dress provactively or not. It's horrible to think that such girls/women will be looked down upon for something they were not responsible for, that guys may not want to marry them because they believe these women are just "like that", have no shame and were at fault. But how common is this view?

The US Central Intelligence Agency has been operating a secret airbase for unmanned drones in Saudi Arabia for the past two years.

The facility was established to hunt for members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen.

A drone flown from there was used in September 2011 to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who was alleged to be AQAP's external operations chief.

US media have known of its existence since then, but have not reported it.

Senior government officials had said they were concerned that disclosure would undermine operations against AQAP, as well as potentially damage counter-terrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.

'High-value targets'

The US military pulled out virtually all of its troops from Saudi Arabia in 2003, having stationed between 5,000 and 10,000 troops in the Gulf kingdom after the 1991 Gulf war. Only personnel from the United States Military Training Mission (USMTM) officially remain.

The Washington Post reported that President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, a former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia, played a key role in negotiations with the government in Riyadh over building the drone base.

Senators are expected to ask Mr Brennan about drone strikes, the memo and the killing of Awlaki when he faces a confirmation hearing on his nomination to become the new CIA director on Thursday.

The location of the secret drone base was not revealed in the US reports.

However, construction was ordered after a December 2009 cruise missile strike in Yemen,according to the New York Times.

It was the first strike ordered by the Obama administration, and ended in disaster, with dozens of civilians, including women and children, killed.

Read full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21350437

SRINAGAR, India — Three young people have died in violence in Indian-controlled Kashmir despite a curfew that continued for a third day Monday following the execution of a Kashmiri man convicted in a deadly 2001 attack on India’s Parliament.

Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged in New Delhi early Saturday. Ahead of the execution, authorities ordered people in most of the Indian-held part of the disputed Kashmir region to remain indoors indefinitely in anticipation of anti-India protests.

Despite the curfew, protests and clashes between troops and demonstrators broke out at a dozen places in the region Monday. Police and paramilitary soldiers fired tear gas and used batons to chase away rock-throwing protesters, police said.

Guru’s execution is an extremely sensitive matter in the Himalayan region, where most people believe his trial was not fair. Several rights groups in India, and political groups in Indian Kashmir, also questioned the fairness of his trial.

Monday’s protests coincided with the 29th anniversary of the execution of Mohammed Maqbool Butt, the founder of the pro-independence Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front. Several activists tried to hold a procession in Butt’s honor in Srinagar, the main city in the region, but police chased them away.

ntelligence officer and he was hanged in 1984 in the same New Delhi jail where Guru was executed.

In Watergam village near the town of Sopore, which was Guru’s home, a 12-year-old boy, Obaid Mushtaq, died early Monday of injuries after police and paramilitary troops fired tear gas shells and bullets a day earlier to disperse an angry crowd, hospital official Aijaz Mustafa said. He said an 18-year-old boy injured in the clashes was on life support. At least two other people were also injured, police said.

Another young man died in Sumbal village in northern Kashmir on Sunday after he jumped into a frigid river while trying to run away from troops who were firing tear gas and swinging batons. The body of a high school student who had been missing since Sunday’s protest was also recovered from the river on Monday, police said.

Thousands attended the funeral processions of the two young men on Monday, shouting slogans such as “We want freedom.”

Read the rest here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/2-dead-in-kashmir-prot…

And why.

Its all in the title.