Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is alarmed at reports that children may constitute a large part of the force recruited and used by al-Shabab Islamic extremists in Somalia.
Welcome to the party, Tony. Children have been used as soldiers in Africa for about 4,000 years. At least...
Guterres said it is estimated over half its force are children, citing as an example that at least 60 percent of al-Shabab "elements" captured in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region in March 2016 were youngsters. Some of those children said they were approached with the promise of education and jobs, he said.
Somalia has been trying to rebuild after recently establishing its first functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime dictator and plunged the impoverished nation into chaos. But the country is riven by clan rivalries
...there's a surprise...
and threatened by al-Shabab extremists opposed to Western-style democracy.
In a report to the Security Council circulated this week, the U.N. chief said al-Shabab used children in combat, with 9-year-olds reportedly taught to use weapons and sent to front lines. Children were also used to transport explosives, work as spies, carry ammunition or perform domestic chores, he said.
While al-Shabab was the main perpetrator, the report said the Somali army and other groups also recruited and used children.
Of course they did. It's what you do in Africa. Ask the folks in The Congo, Burundi, and the Ivory Coast...
According to the report, a task force in Somalia verified the recruitment and use of 6,163 children — 5,993 boys and 230 girls — during the period from April 1, 2010 to July 31, 2016, with more than 30 percent of the cases in 2012. After a downward trend in 2013 and 2014, the number of youngsters recruited increased to 903 in 2015 and to 1,092 in the first six months of 2016, it said.
Al-Shabab accounted for 70 percent — or 4,213 — of verified cases, followed by the Somali National Army with 920 children recruited, it said.
Guterres said he is "deeply troubled by the scale and nature of grave violations against children in Somalia and their increase since 2015." He urged all parties to stop recruiting children and committing violations against them and to abide by international humanitarian and human rights law.
The report said al-Shabab targeted poor children who lacked opportunities, recruiting primarily in rural areas of southern and central Somalia, frequently at schools, madrasas, mosques and religious events. "Teachers were often coerced into enlisting pupils," it said.
Guterres cited reports of recruitment of children from madrasas in refugee camps in Kenya, of young boys disappearing en masse from al-Shabab-run madrasas and of entire villages forced to give up their children to the extremist group.
"Children recruited and used by al-Shabab were victims of or were exposed to other grave violations including killing and maiming during military operations and air strikes targeting al-Shabab, and subjected to arrest and detention by Somalia security forces during military or search operations," the report said.
As for the Somali National Army, the report said, despite signing an action plan in 2012 to end child recruitment, it continues to recruit and use youngsters including as spies, checkpoint guards and bodyguards. It said al-Shabab has executed children suspected of spying for the army or the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
when your religion tells you to have multiple wives, breed to maximum carrying capacity and never use contraception you end up with 9 kids per woman, 4 wives that's around 36 kids per male
so with all those spare kids, too many mouths to feed, they don't really care if they lose some to war
life is cheap
limit them to 2 kids per family and they won't be so blase about letting the child soldiers fight
#2
The CIA World Factbook has Somalia down to below 6 children per woman despite only a 14% use of contraception, but the point still holds. Under current conditions the men mostly can't afford multiple wives, as is the case even in Saudi Arabia. When Mr. Wife was starting up the factory in Egypt, the men pointed out proudly the one man among them who had a second wife. He was sleeping in a corner, worn out from his husbandly exertions, and they all covered for him. Mr.
Wife had no stories about multiple wives among the people he dealt with in Saudi Arabia.
After months of no pay, Burundi soldiers in Somalia are paid in less than a month, UN envoy tells Burundi during visit.
Amazing what happens when you say, "We quit!" and mean it...
“We have settled this issue with the Burundian authorities. Burundi signed with me a memorandum of understanding that allows the African Union to transfer these salaries to the benefit of the Burundian National Defense and our soldiers,” Smael Chergui told journalists on 19 January. Chergui says that the agreement will allow Burundian soldiers to continue to work in Somalia.
AMISOM’s salaries are paid by the European Union. However, the EU had not paid the monthly €5 million contribution for 5,400 Burundian soldiers 11 months. It had asked the AU to find a way to pay these soldiers directly, without going through the Central Bank of Burundi, in order to prevent the government from using this money for other purposes – a proposal that the Burundi Government rejected.
“According to the agreement concluded, the money devoted to the payment of Burundi troops’ salaries and their arrears will pass through a Burundian commercial bank,” said Gaston Sindimwo, the first Vice-President of the Republic of Burundi. “It is good compromise for the government,” he said.
Chergui’s visit occurred a few days after the Government of Burundi threatened to withdraw its troops on a peacekeeping mission in Somalia if no agreement was reached on the payment of the wages of these soldiers. During his visit, Chergui met with human rights observers, AU military experts and members of the Burundian Government.
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01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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Millions of people in south and central region in Somalia are facing severe famine after after the seasonal rains failed for several consecutive seasons in this Horn of Africa nation.
The biting drought has displaced thousands of people and killed thousands of animals in central Somali regions, whereby hundreds of people, mainly children and animals.
Mo’alim Hassan Sheikh Abdi, an elder in central Somalia said the rural areas near the coastal district of Harardere are the most hit, and people began to die of hunger and lack of water. He has appealed for an urgent humanitarian assistance from the international aid agencies and the federal government to help the drought effected families in the region.
We tried helping you guys over 20 years ago. Not one but two different U.S. presidents tried. Didn't work. Why would it work today?
The drought-affected families are fleeing their homes in search of food. Officials in central Somalia said they haven’t seen such drought conditions for years in the past since 2011.
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#3
It's a Horn of Africa problem -- Ethiopia is experiencing the drought, too. Given many of us can remember the last time that part of the world experienced drought-induced famine, this suggests the problem is cyclical, not the result of man-driven global warming, and is therefore amenable to long-term planning coupled with major cultural changes to allow successful execution of said plans.
#4
I'm 70 years old. I can remember when I was young child hearing about The Starving Children In Africa and The Starving Children in China. We were supposed to send money, of course. It was Our Christian Duty.
Haven't heard that about China in decades.
Still hearing about it in Africa (and probably will for the next 100 years, if nothing changes).
Gee, I wonder why that is? :-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/21/2017 14:21 Comments ||
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#5
Barbara, You've got me by a couple of years but I remember the starving Armenians too.
Oh yeah and the Indians. Haven't heard much about them lately in that regard.
#6
this suggests the problem is cyclical, not the result of man-driven global warming, and is therefore amenable to long-term planning coupled with major cultural changes to allow successful execution of said plans
[FINANCIALTRIBUNE] al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate says a group linked to it carried out the suicide kaboom that killed at least 50 people in northern Mali.
A vehicle packed with explosives detonated at a camp housing soldiers and members of rival gangs in the region’s main city, Gao, BBC reported. The attack targeted soldiers and members of rival gangs who conduct regular patrols to secure northern Mali.
Mali’s northern desert region has been restive since it was captured by holy warriors in late 2012. Despite French military intervention in 2013, the region remains tense.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said the suicide kaboom was meant to punish rebel groups cooperating with La Belle France, according to a statement obtained by the SITE Intelligence Group.
AQIM said a group called al-Mourabitoun was responsible and named the bomber it said carried out the attack. Malian media had earlier suggested several bombers took part.
The victims were involved in conducting patrols in this highly volatile area under a deal backed by the UN to stop the violence there.
Al-Mourabitoun also said it was behind the hostage-taking at the Radisson Blu hotel in the Malian capital, Bamako, in November 2015, and a deadly raid on the Splendid Hotel in the capital of Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other... , Ouagadougou, in January 2016.
It is not the first time the military in Mali has been targeted by a deadly attack. In July last year, about 17 soldiers were killed and 30 others maimed in an attack on a military base in the central town of Nampala.
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01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reiterated its call to disband the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) bringing allegations of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and arbitrary arrests against the elite force.
The US-based rights body came up with the call yesterday, two days into a Narayanganj court found 35 people, including 25 former Rab officials, guilty of abduction and murder of seven people and destroying evidence in April 2014.
Of the accused, 26 people were awarded death penalty while nine other accused were jugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! for various terms, from seven to 17 years.
"It is time for the government to take immediate steps to disband Rab and replace it with a rights respecting force," HRW’s South Asia Director Meenakshi Ganguly said.
She said: "While in opposition the Awami League called for the disbanding of RAB. Before taking office in 2009 Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. said she would reform RAB. This has not happened."
Ganguly also appreciated the seven-murder verdict saying, "The prosecution of Rab members is a welcome step towards ending violence and impunity." She, however, opposed the death penalty and urged the government not to carry it out.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
HRW better hush or find themselves in some lonely upazilla with an urge to wildly fire.
'Right on' critics are ignoring problems caused by immigration, government tsar warns after Muslim groups condemn her 'inflammatory call' for newcomers to take a vow of allegiance
19/01/17
Dame Louise Casey says Ghettos have formed in areas like Bradford because the pace and scale of immigration has been 'too much' and some towns and cities have been transformed 'out of all recognition'. Muslims in some parts of the country are so cut off from the rest of society that they believe the majority of Britons share their faith, according to her shock new report. And there is not just segregation in Muslim communities, Dame Louise said that there are hundreds of electoral wards where there are 40 per cent non-white British residents or more, including the Jewish dominated area of Kersal in Salford. In one borough of Sheffield there is a 6,000-strong Roma or eastern European community living together (bottom left). And the Polish community in Britain has grown by 500,000 in a decade, with many heading to areas like Boston, Lincolnshire. But Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, has condemned the report as 'inflammatory, divisive, pandering to the agenda of the far right'.
#1
When off popped the top (it was smoking!),
It startled a snowflake of Woking.
"I'm woke... and a Marxist."
"I'm Charlie, from Star-Kist.
No, chum, we're Islamic. Just joking!"
[Hurriyet Daily News] Jailed Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtas was acquitted on Jan. 19 of charges of "carrying out terror propaganda" in a speech delivered in the southeastern province of Mardin last year amid a curfew in another southeastern town.
Demirtas, who is currently incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in jail in the northwestern province of Edirne, was acquitted after a Mardin court ruled that "the offense did not have legal grounds."
The ruling is the HDP co-chairs first acquittal, but he still faces 102 summaries of proceedings against him including charges of "managing a terrorist organization," "inciting people to violence and hatred," and "praising crime and the criminal."
On Jan. 17 prosecutors demanded up to 142 years in jail for Demirtas and up to 83 years in jail for Figen Yuksekdag, the party’s other co-chair.
The terrorist organization that is referred to in the indictments is the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Posted by: Fred ||
01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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[Hurriyet Daily News] Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on Jan. 20 reiterated Ankara’s key demands from the new U.S. administration under president-elect Donald Trump, hours before the 45th President’s inauguration, particularly underlining the extradition of Pennsylvania-based preacher Fethullah Gülen, accused of masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt.
“May it be beneficial. We wish for Mr. Trump’s success. There are high expectations in many parts of the world from the new administration. The leading countries of the world, the U.S. and Russia, bear a significant responsibility for global peace, tranquility and security. We expect them to give more support to Turkey’s efforts in making peace in the region permanent,” Yıldırım told reporters in Ankara after Friday prayers.
He highlighted what he described as the “well-rooted” relationship between Ankara and Washington, while also noting recent “mistakes” between the two countries.
“We believe this situation will be removed in the new administration. We hope steps will be taken primarily to extradite [Gülen], the architect of the cowardly coup attempt and to stop giving support to terror organizations in the name of fighting DEASH [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant],” Yıldırım said, referring to U.S. support for the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“Tough days are ahead of Mr. Trump. The decisions and steps that he will take in terms of transforming the global economic crisis into global prosperity will be significant,” he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Odds dropped yesterday, and your "demands" are counterproductive with Trump. Keep it up
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/21/2017 9:45 Comments ||
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#2
Sending Gülen back to a certain death, not likely.
“The many expressions of solidarity and support actions by the ruling AKP and President Erdogan for the Egyptian MB (Muslim Brotherhood), Hamas and groups of armed Islamist opposition in Syria emphasize their ideological affinity with the (broader) Muslim Brotherhood,”
“As a result of the step-by-step Islamization of its foreign and domestic policy since 2011, Turkey has become the central platform for action by Islamist groups in the Middle East,”
"We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones, and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth."
Quote from President Trump's inauguration speech.
The Turkish government either didn't realize what Trump was saying or they believe he isn't serious.
[Hurriyet Daily News] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) jihadist who attacked the Reina nightclub in Istanbul’s Ortaköy neighborhood on Jan. 1 has told police that he "doesn’t regret his actions."
"I would do it again," ISIS bully boy Abdulkadir Masharipov, who was caught by police on Jan. 17 in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district, said in his testimony, adding that he got the order to stage the attack, which killed 39 people and maimed 65 others, from Raqqa via the Telegram smartphone app.
Raids were carried out at more than 30 addresses across The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , including addresses used by the jihadists to recruit and send forces of Evil to warzones in Syria. Some 200 people, mostly of foreign origin, were detained in these operations, including critical names linked to ISIS.
Police also said the $197,000 seized in the anti-ISIS operations were the sum of the money confiscated in all of the raids, and not from Masharipov’s address alone.
Masharipov said three ISISforces of Evil took his four-year-old son from him while he was staying in Silivri in order for the child to not become a "drawback."
"When I was in Silivri, someone came to me. They told me: ’You are being searched for everywhere. The child will be a drawback, we are taking him. We will give him back to you when you are leaving Istanbul,’" he said in his testimony.
According to the authorities, Masharipov has been demanding information about his son, telling police that he would provide more information regarding his ISIS connections if the authorities find his child.
Police operations to apprehend the three ISISforces of Evil and Masharipov’s son are ongoing. It was alleged that the ISIS bully boy’s son was taken to Istanbul’s Pendik district, but he could not be found in the pre-determined addresses.
It also previously emerged that Masharipov managed to escape from police after the attack in Istanbul’s Bakirköy district by opening fire, and police are currently searching for the second person in the car in that shootout.
Masharipov’s formal interrogation has not started yet and he cannot be taken to a hospital for health checks due to security concerns. Instead, officials at the police headquarters have checked his health.
Elsewhere, it has emerged that the explosives Masharipov had planned to use to carry out a suicide kaboom were seized by police in an operation in a raid in the southeastern province of Gaziantep on Dec. 30, 2016, in which 20 people were also detained.
Meanwhile, ...back at the revival hall, Buford bit the snake and Eloise began speaking in tongues... Ali Jameel Mohammed, who was also caught alongside Masharipov, has told police that the Reina attacker had planned to move to Silivri before heading to the northwestern province of Canakkale in order to escape.
He planned to stay in Canakkale for a night and then planned to head to the western province of Izmir before heading to the southern province of Hatay. From there, his aim was to cross the border and reach Raqqa.
[DailyMail] Alleged killer Abdulkadir Mashaipov was sent three women by the terror group as a prize for gunning down 39 people inside the Reina nightclub in Istanbul during New Year's Eve celebrations.
Now we know. And as a good jihadi woman, his wife would not protest aloud.
Alleged killer Abdulkadir Mashaipov was captured on Monday in a police operation in Istanbul and has since admitted carrying out the attack at the Reina nightclub as people celebrated the start of 2017.
Authorities later identified him as being from Uzbekistan and said he had been trained in Afghanistan to carry out the attack from ISIS.
Also tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! in the squalid hideout on Monday were three women from Somalia, Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... and Egypt.
And according to Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, they had been sent to Masharipov by the terror group as a prize for his slaughter in the nightclub.
This comes as four other accomplices were also arrested in the run down flat, which was just 25 miles from the scene of the deadly assault.
Pictures have emerged from inside the apartment and show a shopping bag full of cash and a copy of the Koran lying among other possessions inside his lair.
A handwritten note on paper with red hearts, also apparently left at the scene, read: 'Do what ever u want... I will not care any more and I can't help any one of course I can't help myself. But if you want this it's okay but I will be in other place away from her.'
Photos of the ladies and the note can of course be seen at the link. What had previously been reported about the ladies in question:
One Iraqi man and three African women were also caught in the operation. Masharipov used the African women so as not to draw attention and sent them to do shopping. It was also alleged that the women planned to join ISIS.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... 's all-but-dismissal of human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... as a foreign policy principle could land like an earthquake across a Middle East landscape beset by warring factions and beleaguered governments, with some players eyeing the prospect of once unimaginable new alliances.
Continued on Page 49
[IDAHOSTATESMAN] Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will still have to face a court-martial over leaving his post in Afghanistan in 2009, a step he says he took to draw attention to alleged problems within the military. Bergdahl, who grew up in Hailey, and his legal team in late 2016 asked former President Barack Obama Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back... for a pre-emptive pardon of his charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
Tuesday and Thursday this week, Obama granted commutations and pardons to about 600 people. Bergdahl wasn’t on the list.
Bergdahl attorney Eugene Fidell later Friday confirmed the president’s denial to the Washington Post: "We had hoped that (Obama) would grant a pardon. He didn’t."
President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... has referred to Bergdahl as "a no-good traitor who should have been executed," pantomiming a firing squad at many campaign appearances. A pardon from Obama would have resolved Bergdahl’s situation before Trump took office Friday.
Bergdahl’s attorneys on Friday asked a military judge to dismiss his charges, arguing Trump’s comments have violated his due process rights and amount to unlawful command influence, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reports. The defense team also posted a half-hour video on YouTube of examples of Trump’s statements about Bergdahl.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Bergdahl never mattered. He's always been a distraction.
To continue his worth as political currency. At this point, he's nothing more than a rather dim white schlub; certainly not a darling to the progressive Left.
[Bangla Daily Star] Myanmar's army has detained two Kachin Baptist leaders for giving journalists information about a church allegedly hit by military Arclight airstrikes, accusing them of spying for Lion of Islams.
The two men, named by the army as Didi Naung Latt and Langyaw Gamsai, were placed in durance vile Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! on December 24 in northern Shan state, where thousands have fled weeks of heavy fighting between the army and armed rebels.
In a statement announcing their arrest late Thursday, the army chief's office accused the men of being "recruiters, informers and rumour-mongers for Lion of Islams," including the Kachin Independence Army.
Some 4,000 people have been displaced since the fighting erupted between the military and four major armed ethnic groups in November, including the powerful KIA.
The unrest has rippled across Shan and Kachin states, threatening the next round of peace talks between the government, military and ethnic groups scheduled for February.
The arrest of the two religious leaders -- Kachin has a large Christian community -- has caused grave concern in an area where the army has long faced accusations of unlawful killings, torture, rape and forced labour.
Rights groups said they were detained for showing a local photographer damage to a Catholic church in Mong Ko.
Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights this week said the "disappearances raise grave concerns for the safety of the two men and witnesses to the incident".
The government denied UN human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... official Yanghee Lee access to violence-hit parts of Shan and Kachin states during a 12-day monitoring mission, which ended yesterday.
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[Ynet] Denmark will deploy up to 60 special forces to fight ISIS in Syria, the Danish government said on Friday.
NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... member Denmark is part of the US-led operation "Inherent Resolve" against Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... and already has ground troops operating in Iraq.
"Based on a concrete approach from the coalition, the government has decided to expand the tasks of our special forces in Iraq and Syria," said foreign minister Anders Samuelsen.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/21/2017 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Months before his death, the late Osama bin Laden ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... fretted about the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's impatient, violent tactics and the fading of al-Qaeda, documents released by the CIA Thursday showed.
The latest release from the trove of documents found when Navy Seals stormed the al-Qaeda chief's secret Pakistain compound and killed him in 2011 show bin Laden trying to keep his jihadist followers around the world aligned in his war against the United States.
They also reveal a worried father warning his sons that they could be injected with electronic chips to track them, and advising al-Qaeda soldiers in Northern Africa that it was okay to masturbate.
He also spent significant time trying to manage the handling of foreigners kidnapped by far-flung affiliates of his radical Islamic group.
And he showed a strong focus on affairs in his family's original homeland, Yemen, where a powerful new branch -- al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) -- was having a strong impact.
One letter to AQAP founder Nasir al-Wuhayshi warns not to move too fast against the government because conditions were not yet right anywhere to form an Islamic state that could govern effectively and resist attacks from outside.
"Blood should not be shed unless we have evidence to show that the elements of success to establish the Islamic State and maintaining it are available or if achieving such goals is worthy of shedding such blood," he wrote. "There might be a huge reaction that could drag us into a real war."
- Worried about Qaeda unity, focus -
The documents -- which appear to date mostly from around 2010 -- some written by bin Laden and others on his behalf, show the al-Qaeda chief determined to keep his group's focus on the United States as its enemy.
"The Ummah's enemies today are like a wicked tree," he wrote, using the term for the world community of Moslems. "The trunk of this tree is the United States."
The letters also reveal that Anwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, zapped in Yemen, al-Awlaki was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He was an Islamic holy man who was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... , a U.S.-born al-Qaeda holy man in Yemen, was a candidate to be named emir or chief of AQAP, with bin Laden asking for more biographical detail about him.
Bin Laden registered his doubts at the same time, noting that "here we trust the people after we send them to the front line and test them."
Awlaki, whose writings inspired numerous converts to the jihadist cause, was killed by a U.S. dronezap in September 2011.
A letter written by one of his aides suggests bin Laden's rising frustration over his organization nearly a decade after the shock 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Bin Laden "talked about the fear of our organization aging, and reaching decrepitude like other organizations," the letter said.
But the jihadist leader also had time for personal advice for al-Qaeda gunnies in Northern Africa bound by "unfortunate celibacy" because of a lack of available wives.
"God is not ashamed of the truth," an aide wrote in a letter, citing bin Laden's advice. "As we see it, we have no objection to clarifying to the brothers that they may, in such conditions, masturbate, since this is an extreme case."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
After months of no pay, Burundi soldiers in Somalia are paid in less than a month, UN envoy tells Burundi during visit.
[FINANCIALTRIBUNE] al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate says a group linked to it carried out the 
[Bangla Daily Star] The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reiterated its call to disband the 
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
[Hurriyet Daily News] The 
[AnNahar] 
[Bangla Daily Star] Myanmar's army has detained two Kachin Baptist leaders for giving journalists information about a church allegedly hit by military 
[AnNahar] Months before his death, 
