Al-Qaeda too has had a torrid time in 2016. Tribal fighters and forces loyal to Yemeni president Mansur Hadi backed by the Saudi coalition have retaken broad swaths of AQAP-held areas in Yemen’s Hadramout province, including the port of Al Mukalla. Moreover, faced with crushing pressure from US-armed secular forces in Syria, its Jabhat al-Nusra faction also filed for divorce this month, announcing henceforth the group would profess "no affiliation to any external entity." Though IS’s media wing al-Furqan has made public three audio recordings attributed to al-Baghdadi since May last year, they all sound like ex-Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar speaking from beyond the grave. I reference, of course, last July when, amid landmark talks in Islamabad between the Taliban and Kabul, the Afghan spy agency NDS leaked news that Mullah Omar, despite his very recent pronouncements through the group’s media cell, had been dead for years. It turned out his (now deceased) deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansour was impersonating him to prevent the movement from splintering. Is al-Baghdadi also now a sock puppet for some new IS lynchpin? Since intelligence reports suggest he suffered serious, possibly life-threatening injuries in March. It bears noting that despite IS’s wanton brutality at the height of its territorial sway between 2014 and mid-2015 designed to dominate headlines worldwide, al-Baghdadi has always been a shadowy figure. Indeed, what little we know of him comes from IS…
and the Taliban. Even with their leader gone the taliban insurgency is still strong. ”Within 24 hours insurgents killed at least 50 Afghan civilians in Kabul, the capital, and injured more than 300. It was the worst civilian toll in years. Early in the morning a bomb in a lorry killed 15 people. Then a suicide-bomber murdered 28 police cadets, and eight Afghan contractors and an American died in an attack on an American military base.It looks as if the Taliban's leaders are trying to prove to…
Near the end of the 20th century, Afghanistan did not have a stable ruler and continued to switch between the soviets and its independence. But it was soon taken over by the Taliban through multiple civil wars and its influence towards its people (The Taliban). There was one slight problem, its leader Mullah Omar. Omar was not on friendly terms with America and did not support its involvement in the middle east with relations to terrorism (The Taliban). For example, Mullah Omar did not tell the…
In the brilliant film, Love and Basketball directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood she combines a sport genre with a drama. The movie follows two people that share a very similar strong passion for basketball. It begins when they’re kids after a girl who is played by co-lead actor “Sanaa Lathan” moves into the neighborhood of a young star played by co-lead actor “Omar Epps”. Their mutual passion for basketball is evident from the start. Not only is their shared passion obvious, but the audience is…
After some time of doing nothing he was called in by his old friend Omar Bradley. Bradley had a plan that President/General Ike picked for him before he was relieved of his duty with the Seventh Army. When he assumed the role of Commander of the Third Army. His Third Army broke through into northern France and was pursing Nazi Forces. In 1954 Patton led his army into Germany while getting his hands on 10,000 miles of Nazi territory and insure it was out of Nazi control. General Patton was…
nonsense, and pugnacious general stuck in the middle of the fight in North Africa after a humiliating American defeat in the Battle of Kasserine Pass. Patton quickly realizes how poorly disciplined the American troops in North africa truly are and quickly whips them into shape. After defeating Erwin Rommel’s German-Italian Panzer Army in Africa, Patton goes on to lead the successful invasion of Sicily but is soon after put on leave for slapping a G.I. whom Patton accused of being a coward. While…
Noriega took part in drug trafficking. “In 1992, Noriega was found guilty on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering, marking the first time in history that a U.S. jury convicted a foreign leader of criminal charges” (“The U.S. Invades Panama,” n.d.). Noriega was originally elected as the President of Panama. While in office, Noriega devolved into a dictator. Noriega should have been removed from Panama quickly, for he was unfit to be leader. Manuel Noriega was a…
An example, Omar Ahmed Khadr, former child soldier, was detained for eight years, according to Andrea Prasow in an article titled “The Child Soldier on Trial at Guantanamo”, published in The Daily Beast. She said that in those eight years, more information was gathered about Khadr to use against him. There was information that Khadr had supposedly ‘bragged’ about killing a U.S. soldier, as well as claimed that the day he planted landmines to kill U.S. troops was the ‘happiest day of his life.’…
“Take the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a senior al Qaeda operative and the alleged principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and interrogated by U.S. intelligence agents — reportedly using waterboarding — before being transferred to military custody at Guantánamo.” (Parry 2010). He confessed of 31 terrorist operations, planning of the 9/11 attacks in America, beheading of Daniel Pearl, who was a reporter of Wall Street Journal. Later, however, he was named…
King Mohammad Zahir Shah was on the throne and the countries government was stable (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007). During this time women were treated as equals, they had the right to vote, work, and choose the men they could marry. They wore shirts and didn’t have to cover their faces. (Thornhill 2014). Although women were treated well during King Shah reign, it wasn’t until he was overthrown in 1973, by his brother-in-law Mohammed Daoud that women truly prospered in…