In a meeting with Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the leader of the Libyan Transitional National Council, French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to intensify air strikes targeting Gaddafi forces. However, France has rejected the proposition of sending ground forces into Libya to protect the residents of Misurata. According to hospital records, Misurata’s death toll is in the hundreds and continues to rise with ongoing battles between revolutionaries and Gaddafi forces. Al-Jazeera reports that Paris and London have pledged to send a limited number of military advisors in noncombat operations to Libya to improve the revolutionaries’ military organizational structures, communications, and logistics, in addition to medical and humanitarian aid.

Al-Alam reports from Yemen, where two people were killed today, each representing a different side of the struggle. A gunman opened fire on an anti-government camp in al-Hodeida, killing one man, and a police officer was later killed in clashes with demonstrators in Aden province. Yesterday, five people were killed and hundreds were injured in Sana'a when Yemeni forces opened fire to disperse an anti-regime demonstration. After three months of protests, several international mediation meetings, and ongoing violence, al-Alam describes Yemen’s political situation as “irreconcilable.”

The BBC reports from Syria, where authorities have arrested Captain Amjad Abbas, the Baniyas Security Chief. The Syrian Human Rights League expressed their hope that other guilty members of the security agencies will be held accountable for negligence. Meanwhile, students at the University of Aleppo joined in the popular protests demanding freedom. Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, hadn't witnessed massive protests before today. Reuters quoted a human rights activist in saying that Syrian security forces and regime loyalists have attacked the rally, arresting 37 protestors and beating several others.

Future TV reports that the Egyptian fact-finding committee that investigated the attack on protestors during the January 25^th revolution has issued a 400-page report. The report provides evidence that high-ranking officials in the former Egyptian regime and National Democratic Party were involved in inciting the deliberate killing of demonstrators in Tahrir Square. The report was submitted to the prosecutor-general, who will now follow up with a formal investigation.

Tonight, New TV features a profile on the Yemeni Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi. The Houthis are a sectarian group derived from a Shiite sect called Zaidiyya. Born in 1979 and educated in Zaidiyyah religious schools, Al-Houthi has been the leader of the Houthis since 2004, when the Yemeni government had the former leader, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, killed. The Houthis call themselves “God's helpers,” and while the group denies having a relationship with Hezbollah, Abdul Malik al-Houthi insists that the Houthis' similarity to the Lebanese organization stemmed from their admiration for Hezbollah's resistance movement.

Protests continue for the 14th day in Egypt. Al Jazeera's Arabic language channel showed protesters saying they will not leave Tahrir Square in Cairo until Mubarak steps down and reported that the army is trying to close off the square.

Iran's Arabic language channel, Al Alam, reported that protest leaders have formed a unified group called the "Youth of the Egyptian Revolution." The group said they will continue protesting until all of their demands are met, including Mubarak's resignation. According to Al Alam, the Muslim Brotherhood said their talks with the regime had failed.

Egyptian state television, Nile TV, reported that Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Shafiq believes it would be "unacceptable" for Mubarak to step down and that the regime was necessary to maintain stability for the next few months. He also said the army is not disturbing the protests and is only there for security. Nile TV also reported that the government approved a draft bill that would increase military and government employee salaries by 15 percent by April.

According to the BBC Arabic channel, U.S. President Barack Obama told Fox News that the Muslim Brotherhood is not the majority in Egypt. Press TV, the English language channel from Iran, showed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's first speech since the demonstrations began in Egypt. He supports the Egyptian protesters, saying they are "restoring the dignity of Arab people," and criticized the United States for supporting dictatorships.

Lebanon's New TV looked back at the life of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. They recount his career and the protests that led up to his 1981 assassination, which left his Vice President Hosni Mubarak in power.

Dubai TV reports that violence has erupted in Tunisia, including in the northwest city of Kef where youth set a police station on fire and the army was deployed in the streets. They also said protests broke out in Algeria, where youth unemployment is 20 percent.

On Wednesday, an Egyptian court convicted 26 men of spying for Hezbollah and plotting attacks on Egyptian soil on behalf of the Lebanese militant group.

The men, including Lebanese, Egyptians, Palestinians, and one Sudanese, received sentences ranging from six months to life in prison.

Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has strongly criticized the Egyptian courts for jailing the men accused of working for his organization. He said the judgment by the Security Court in Cairo was "unjust and politicized."

Amnesty International on Thursday called for a retrial of 26 defendants, criticizing the use of an emergency court.

"These men should be retried by an ordinary court which gives them a chance of getting a fair trial," said the London-based rights watchdog.

Hezbollah’s differences with Egypt hit a pinnacle during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Egypt’s decision to keep the Rafah exits from Gaza sealed infuriated Nasrallah, who, on December 28, 2008, called for the Egyptian people to help the besieged Gazans and called on the Egyptian government to open the Rafah border crossing.

“Oh Egyptian official, unless you open the Rafah border crossing, unless you help your brethren in Gaza, you will be accomplices to the crime, accomplices to the killing, accomplices to the siege, and accomplices in generating the Palestinian catastrophe,” he said in a televised speech.

His statements at the time were interpreted by the Egyptian government and state-controlled media as meddling with Egyptian affairs and a call for a military mutiny and overthrow of the regime in Egypt.

But now Egypt has another issue to account for; on Thursday the Islamic Resistance Movement in Gaza, Hamas, accused Egyptian security forces of killing four Palestinians by pumping poisonous gas into a cross-border smuggling tunnel, a claim Cairo denied.

"Hamas holds the Egyptian side responsible for the killing of four innocent workers after Egyptian security forces pumped poisonous gas into one of the tunnels," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters in Gaza.

Egyptian security officials said, however, that their forces had destroyed four smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border but were not aware of any casualties.

Many analysts in the region believe that the Egyptian government is afraid that having a successful Islamic regime such as Hamas on their doorstep would strengthen their own Muslim Brotherhood, which poses a serious political threat to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. Some Arab media commentators have upped the ante by accusing Mubarak of declaring a war on Muslim organizations. But the Egyptian government and its media have been pointing the finger towards Iran and describing Hezbollah and Hamas as proxies to Tehran.

Egypt, which for many years took the lead in championing Arab causes in Palestine, Algeria, and Yemen, has been replaced by non-Arab countries like Iran and Turkey. For the past several years, the popularity of the ruling regime has been on a steady decline both in Egypt and in the region. Being popular with the people, however, has long ceased being a priority for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: the popularity battle was lost a long time ago to the likes of Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Recep Tayeb Erdogan.

Watch the Video

It's been four months since I described Yemen as a powder keg ready to explode. At the time the entire world was riveted to the television, watching the unfolding events of the "Velvet Revolution" in Iran. The Yemeni keg has since exploded. It is currently on the verge of causing a regional conflict.

For more than a week now, Saudi Arabia has been carrying out military operations on its remote southern border to punish Houthi rebels from neighboring Yemen who crossed over and attacked one of its patrols. Both Yemen and Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of arming the rebels.

Accusations and counter accusations have been flying between the two rival regional powers. On Tuesday, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned that, "those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows".

This is not the first time Saudis and Iranians have faced off in the region. The rivalry between the two countries has been playing its course for years, extending from the Persian Gulf (where the name alone is a point of contention, Saudis refer to it as the Arabian Gulf) into Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Like the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been supporting their factions in all these countries, either militarily, financially or both.

Both Tehran and Riyadh used Lebanon as their own battlefront to settle scores to the point of almost tipping the country into another civil war less than two years ago. Iran has been accused of pumping millions of dollars into Gaza and supplying Hamas with arms, while Saudi Arabia has been supporting the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Many Iraqi Shiites have accused Saudi Arabia with aiding the Sunni insurgency in the country.

Nowadays, even Hajj (Islamic pilgrimage) is not spared from being a subject of contention between the two rivals. The Saudi government has recently issued a warning against pilgrims staging demonstrations during this year's Hajj, which runs from November 25-29. Although Iran was not specifically mentioned in the Saudi statement, Tehran replied it would take "appropriate measures" if Iranian pilgrims were interfered with in any way. The Islamic Republic of Iran has long complained about mistreatment and harassment of its pilgrims to Mecca by Saudi authorities during the Hajj season.

Like the original Cold War, both countries have launched sophisticated disinformation campaigns against one another. A propaganda war has raged between Iranian and Saudi government controlled media. During the Iranian election, Saudi media and its proxies viciously attacked the Iranian regime, highlighting poll irregularities, and the brutality of the Iranian Basij security forces. The Iranian media has constantly questioned, and on many instances mocked, the House of Saud's role as the custodian of the Holy Islamic sites in the Kingdom.

Last week, without warning, two satellite companies, the Egyptian-owned Nilesat and the Saudi-managed Arabsat pulled the plug on Iran's Arabic-speaking news channel, al-Alam, or the World. Nilesat's executive director, Ahmed Anis, announced that the broadcasting was cut due to contract violations; however, media sources throughout the Middle East suggest that al-Alam's support for the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen have angered Saudi officials, who in turn used their influence to take it of the air.

So far, both countries have shied away from direct military contact. Iran and Saudi Arabia, like the US and the USSR of old, have been competing in a series of peripheral surrogate conflicts. Could their relations be strained enough to lead to direct confrontations? Everything seems to be possible these days in the Middle East.

Original article published on the Huffington Post.

Watch the Video