The Deadly Golan Protests: Anti-Israel Eruption Gives Syria’s Regime a Welcome Diversion

When Syrian tanks and soldiers poured into the rebellious southern flashpoint city of Dara’a last month, the Twittersphere lit up with wry comments like “Hey army, that’s Dara’a, not the Golan!” mocking the fact that the same army shooting its own people hadn’t fired a bullet in decades to liberate the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 war and still the center of the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Syria. In fact, Damascus has long worked hard to ensure the strategic plateau remained one of the quietest border areas in the Middle East, branding the area a military zone and maintaining tight control.

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Army burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan

Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday. The unsolicited Bibles sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt

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