New York- The fruits of my intellectual East African labors came to bear and my Jubaland article is out in this week’s edition of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor. Though it may appear to be a concise, quiet analysis, a lot of shoe leather went into the production of this piece, not to mention a decent sunburn or two in the thin air of the Ethiopian capital. I must say, after having returned stateside two weeks ago now, I desperately miss my daily helpings of injera, the oddly (at first anyway) delectable Ethiopian national dish. A young Ethiopian-American kid I met in Lalibela told me how I would be in great shape after the combination of high altitude walking and zero fat, zero preservative food. Unfortunately, I am sure I am back to me old habits after multiple trips to some of my favorite DC and NYC eateries and drinkeries since I’ve been back.
Just cranked out yet another issue of Militant Leadership Monitor, should be another great issue. I will post a plug for that when we go live with it. I’ve also added two Wikileaks links along the right side of this page-that connecting to the Guantánamo files and that connecting to the Cablegate Cable Viewer. Take a look.
In other, more dire news, Syria still seems to be burning in it’s own self imposed Hades. Aside from sanctions and further isolation, the internationals are powerless to stop al-Assad from smashing the Syrian people as protests are now reported in all corners of the country-including Qamishle in the very vulnerable northeastern pocket of Syrian Kurdistan.
Latakia, Syria at dusk. Taken from the roof of my hotel en route to the Lebanon war which would change my life. ©2006 Derek Henry Flood
A minaret in Latakia, Syria bellows the azan at dusk. I wonder what it must be like to be in revolutionary Syria now that the fear barrier has been breached.©2006 Derek Henry Flood
New York- The new issue of MLM is out on the Jamestown site for subscribers (and those wanting to join). I have an article about the civil war in Colombia and the death of Mono Jojoy and the search for FARC supremo Alfonso Cano and brief articles on the doings of All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders in Kashmir and the extradition of Mas Selamat Kastari back to Singapore from Malaysia. Colleague and friend Syed Adnan Shah Ali Bukhari has an in-depth biography of the nefarious Qari Hussain of the TTP. The RAND corporation’s Peter Chalk has a profile of Yazid Sufaat and Toronto’s Andrew McGregor has a fascinating piece on Puntland’s Shaykh Atam and his militia movement in northern Somalia’s autonomous region.
Categories: Africa, Latin America, Pakistan, South America, Southeast Asia Tags: Alfonso Cano, All Parties Hurriyat, Andrew McGregor, Colombia, Jamestown Foundation, Mas Selamat, Mas Selamat Kastari, Militant Leadership Monitor, Mono Jojoy, Peter Chalk, Puntland, Qari Hussain, Qari Hussein, RAND, Shaykh Atam, Somalia, Yazid Sufaat
New York- Jason Florio has a big photo essay in the current Winter 2010 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review called The Pirate Port about the quasi ragtag Somaliland coast guard in Berbera and their dealings with pirates based out of Bossaso in neighboring Puntland. The whole issue of VQR is dedicated to Africa and seems pretty interesting. I saw the bold cover shot on the rack at Barnes & Noble and it caught my eye. The photo essay is pretty lush especially in a time when a lot of publications seem to cutting back on their photo budgets. I love that the article shows a different side of the struggle for Somalia than the Shabab/Ethiopia angle. It shows that Somalia, well the breakaway Somaliland region anyway, is a region that you can actually visit and tour around within reason. The Somalilanders who inherited some of the ideas of parliamentary democracy from the British who ran the region as a protectorate, have been running the area as an independent state since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991 but have obviously failed to get anyone to care outside of their own diaspora and the odd internationalist intellectual. This VQR is definitely worth a look for anyone tired of the same stories being run in the MSM.
More of Jason’s work can be seen on his revamped site here. Jason did an article last year for Men’s Journal called “The New War for Hearts and Minds” on Human Terrain Teams in Kapisa Province in Afghanistan that became pretty controversial for some reason (I think having to do with a subset of right-wing bloggers called “Mil (-itary) bloggers.”). There are more great photos on his site than were printed in the original article. Makes me wish I still had my photography site up….
Afghan commandos in Kapisa Province. ©2008 Jason Florio
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