Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 23-6-Africa-26

By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 23-6-Africa-26

Chad, Niger, and Cameroon to contribute to joint force that will be headquartered in Chad with a Nigerian commander.

Together with Al Shabab and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram is one of the main “extremist threats” cited by the Pentagon to justify its constantly expanding military presence in Africa.

The Somalia theatre is no longer of interest to the al-Shabaab,". "They've been defeated there. They are losing momentum, and their rare operations there don't get much media attention.. "What will stop the victims from harbouring resentment against their government, and having a soft heart for terrorists?" - a Western security source told AFP

We say again to our brothers that we are well. All praise and thanks are due to Allah, the One and Only. The Qur’an schools, Hadith schools, and courses for technology, weapons, and other fields of knowledge are carrying on securely.- Boko Haram

"It's a repeat of the strategy of AQIM [al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb]," commented another Western security official, pointing to the growth strategy of the Islamists in the Sahara, notably into northern Mali

“The world desperately needs a victory against cultist jihadism,” Buhari said

Chad, Niger, and Cameroon to contribute to joint force that will be headquartered in Chad with a Nigerian commander.

11 Jun 2015 19:34 GMT Nigeria and its neighbours have agreed to set up a joint military force to counter Boko Haram, a sign of President Muhammadu Buhari's intent to crush the armed group early in his tenure. At a one-day summit at Abuja airport on Thursday, the 72-year-old former military ruler, who was inaugurated just two weeks ago, welcomed the leaders of Chad and Niger, and the defence minister of Cameroon. A statement afterwards said the joint force, based in the Chad capital Ndjamena, would be up and running by July 30 with a permanent Nigerian leader, a concession to Buhari's opposition to rotating commanders. Changing the force's leadership would hamper "the military capacity to sustain the push against the insurgents, who also have the uncanny ability to adapt and rejig their operational strategies," Buhari said before the meeting, according to a Reuters report. Chad and Cameroon have deputy commander and chief of staff posts in the force, whose mission is to crush Boko Haram, which has killed thousands and displaced 1.5 million people in its six-year fight to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria's northeast. Squashing the insurgency was one of Buhari's main campaign promises, in contrast to his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, who was accused of dithering and incompetence, particularly after the kidnapping of more than 200 girls from a

Cees: Intel to Rent Page 1 of 10 15/04/2023


school in the town of Chibok in April last year. In his two weeks since assuming office, Buhari has focused on little else, travelling to Niger and Chad and shifting the military command centre from Abuja to Maiduguri, the capital of northeast Borno state and birthplace of the insurgency.

Video Shows IS’s “West African Province” in Combat, Fighters Touting Victories

Last Updated: June 2, 2015 The Islamic State’s (IS) “West African Province,” formerly known as Jama’at Ahl al-Sunnah Lil Dawa Wal Jihad (Boko Haram), released a video showing fighters explaining the areas controlled by the group and also showed scenes of combat. The nine-minute, 59-second video, titled, “Attacks by the Soldiers of the Caliphate in West Africa,” was released on June 2, 2015.The release marks the first video showing combat from IS’s West African Province with Nigerian forces. In the video, a fighter countered claims that attacks by the government were diminishing its operations, and claimed that the group was thriving in the areas it controls: We say again to our brothers that we are well. All praise and thanks are due to Allah, the One and Only. The Qur’an schools, Hadith schools, and courses for technology, weapons, and other fields of knowledge are carrying on securely. All praise is due to Allah. I swear by Allah that no one can demolish the religion. Even if they were to kill all of us, if only one or two survived, they would rebuild the wilayah. And we are uncountable in the forest of Sambisa! We are thousands of mujahidin here.Scenes of combat showed fighters firing from trucks while driving down a highway, and also showed dead bodies on the ground afterward. Later in the video, fighters showed what was presented as a downed “Nigerian military jet,” which they alleged was shot down the morning of the scene’s filming: Good news to our brothers all over the world. Allah the One and Only downed this Nigerian military jet throughout our hands this morning. This was not by our power and ability buy by the power of Allah. Here are the pieces of the jet engine and the other parts. Here are its bullets, which were not fired but were exposed to fire and are now burning. Here is the jet propeller. Everyone can see this. Thus is the jet. President of Nigeria Jonathan, here are your goods.

June 10, MAIDUGURI, Nigeria: Three female suicide bombers died in the flashpoint Nigerian state of Borno when the explosives strapped to their bodies detonated, police said Wednesday, adding no one else was killed. State Police Commissioner Aderemi Opadokun said the bombers died Tuesday on their way to the state capital Maiduguri, which has been hit multiple times by Boko Haram suicide attacks. "All three suicide bombers were killed and there were no other casualties," he said. It is unclear whether Boko Haram was behind the attempted attack but the militant group has previously used female suicide bombers and homemade explosives in its bloody six-year insurgency. News of the deaths came as Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari, who has made stopping the group's insurgency a top priority, prepares to meet his regional counterparts on the issue. Heads of state from Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin are due in the capital Abuja on Thursday to discuss plans for an enhanced multinational force to take on the militants. Since Buhari took office on May 29, Boko Haram attacks have gathered pace in northeast Nigeria, with a total of 109 people reportedly killed. June 3, Nairobi - From hit and run attacks and massacres to a shopping trip, Somali-led al-Shabaab militants are on the march in northeastern Kenya. With large numbers of troops in southern Somalia but seemingly unable to effectively police its own outer regions, Kenya must react quickly to stop the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists from gaining significant ground and finding a new generation of recruits, Western security officials say. "The Somalia theatre



is no longer of interest to the al-Shabaab," a Western security source told AFP. "They've been defeated there. They are losing momentum, and their rare operations there don't get much media attention. It's the opposite in Kenya, where they have found a new playground for their jihad, a new source of recruits and a very strong potential to destabilise." The upsurge in cross-border attacks and the emergence of Kenya-based al-Shabaab cells is now Kenya's number-one security headache, and a strategic blow given that it deployed troops into southern Somalia in 2011 in the hope they would serve as a buffer and protect the long, porous border. Instead, Shebab units, hunted by African Union troops and US drones inside Somalia have flanked the Kenyan contingent to mount a string of gruesome cross-border raids. This week, suspected al-Shabaab members moved into a village in Mandera County, another impoverished border region, forcing schools to close and some residents to flee, the Nation newspaper reported.The paper said the gunmen chatted with residents who remained in the village, and even shopped for goats. "It's a repeat of the strategy of AQIM [al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb]," commented another Western security official, pointing to the growth strategy of the Islamists in the Sahara, notably into northern Mali. He said there was an urgent need for the Kenyan government to reassert its control over the border region, pointing to the fact that many paved border crossings were simply unmanned.There are signs Kenya's leadership may be taking stock of the shift in al-Shabaab strategy, and that the question of pulling out of Somalia, up to now dismissed as akin to giving in to terrorism, may at least be up for discussion.

Towards a Somalia exit strategy? Quoted by Capital FM news on Tuesday, the chairperson of the Kenyan Senate's National Security and Foreign Relations Committee, Yusuf Hajji, signalled that an exit strategy was no longer taboo."The aim is to come up with a 'white paper' that will detail a strategy on how to fight insecurity in Kenya," he was quoted as saying, adding the plan would also include measures to "de-radicalise youth" in the impoverished, Muslim-majority border regions. He nevertheless stressed that any pull-out from Somalia was dependent on Kenya's African Union troop-contributing partners, according to Capital FM, and notably the possibility of finding another country that could take Kenya's place in southern Somalia. Even if it can redeploy significant manpower to the border region, Kenya also faces an uphill task in winning over hearts and minds.Kenyan police said earlier this week they were investigating photos posted on social media, allegedly by a senior member of the force that appear to show officers mercilessly whipping a group of young Somali men in Garissa County with a rubber hose. Local MP Abdikadir Ore said such incidents were commonplace, and the reason why Kenya's fight against Islamic extremism "cannot be won" without a major change in the conduct of it security forces. "How will the security agencies expect the local people to work with them while they torture people in this manner?" said Khalif Abdi, co-ordinator of the North-Eastern Forum for Democracy. "What will stop the victims from harbouring resentment against their government, and having a soft heart for terrorists?" - AFP

Multiple Nigerian and international news outlets are reporting that the nation has fired between 200-290 soldiers for alleged “cowardice” while conducting operations against jihadist terror group Boko Haram, a sacking numerous soldiers are protesting as unfair, as they were improperly armed and directed during said operations, they claim. The BBC reports that the Nigerian military has not confirmed the number of those expelled from the military over a video allegedly showing Nigerian soldiers fleeing a Boko Haram battle rather than engaging the enemy, but that the number could be anywhere between 200 and 4,500 by the time the purging of Nigeria’s armed forces is complete. The national website Naij suggests


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32897935


that the number has increased to 290 since the initial reports began circulating in Nigeria. One soldier speaking out and using his name, Aguloye Sunday, similarly told Nigeria’s Premium Times that the government had refused to properly arm the soldiers, leaving them at the mercy of Boko Haram, calling the charges against the soldiers “untrue, false and malicious.” “The bombs given to us were made in 1964,” he alleged, “they were expired, so we could not use them.” As for the conventional arms, “each of us was given five bullets, not five rounds, to fire. While in the forest, our biggest weapon was to cover just a distance of 400 meters, but our enemy had aircraft weapons that could cover a distance of more than 1 000 metres, aside other dangerous weapons.”

US preparing direct military intervention in Nigeria, Together with Al Shabab and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram is one of the main “extremist threats” cited by the Pentagon to justify its constantly expanding military presence in Africa.

By Thomas Gaist 30 May 2015 The Obama administration is preparing for direct military intervention in Nigeria, according to unnamed US State Department officials, the New York Times reported Friday. The announcement coincided with the swearing in of Nigeria’s former military dictator and newly elected president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, who delivered his first official address Friday. According to senior US officials, initial insertions of US military personnel into Nigeria could include deployments of military advisers as well as intelligence and logistical personnel. The official purpose of US deployments to Nigeria is to support counterinsurgency efforts in Nigeria’s northeastern provinces, where, with quiet support from Washington, the militaries of Chad, Cameroon and Niger already crossed the border and began operations earlier this year. The alleged purpose of these military operations is to combat Islamic extremism. They are being launched in one of the continent’s most strategic and resource-rich areas. Nigeria is the largest economy and largest oil producer on the entire continent, and substantial deposits of oil, gas, uranium, timber, and diamonds are dispersed throughout the neighboring countries. The escalating US military and political moves in the area are largely directed against growing Chinese influence in West Africa.US Secretary of State John Kerry travelled to Nigeria Friday to formally congratulate the new Nigerian president. First in line to speak with Buhari after his inaugural address, Kerry was accompanied by US Africa Command (AFRICOM) supreme commander General David Rodriguez. The three met in private to discuss the US proposals for joint US-Nigerian military operations, according to reports.Buhari takes office under conditions of deepening crisis, with rampant unemployment, especially among youth, growing anger among Nigeria’s 70 million-strong working class. Fuel shortages have ripped through the oil-rich country in recent weeks, as the value of the Nigerian currency, the naira, has rapidly eroded. The new government, which relies on export of oil for some 90 percent of its budget, will have to contend with steeply falling tax revenues resulting from the drop in oil prices worldwide. Under these conditions, Buhari is calling for strong measures to “stabilize the system,” while claiming he will rule by strictly constitutional and democratic means.In his public remarks Friday, the 72-year-old military ruler proclaimed that Nigeria now has “a truly democratically elected government in place.” The new flowering of Nigerian democracy was owed largely to “strong support from friends abroad,” Buhari said. The US corporate media have been all too eager to burnish Buhari’s democratic credentials. In its report Friday, the New York Times proclaimed Buhari’s ascendency “a turning point in Nigeria’s democratic evolution,” describing Buhari as a “born-again democrat.” Despite efforts to present the new government as having enthusiastic popular support, Buhari is


http://www.news24.com.ng/National/News/Army-dismisses-200-soldiers-for-cowardice-20150528


bitterly remembered by many Nigerians for suspending democratic rights and violently suppressing protests and strike actions during his 1984–85 dictatorship.Together with Buhari’s gratitude to his “friends abroad,” such effusive praise for the new government by the leading mouthpiece of the US corporate and financial elite only underscores that the retired military chief has been brought to power as a friend a servant of US imperialism. The new president practically admitted as much Friday when he warned that “the international community has high expectations” for the incoming government. Indeed, the Chicago-based consulting firm AKPD, run by close confidant of the White House and campaign adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, has organized political work on behalf of the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) for years. AKPD was intimately involved in preparations for the March 2015 elections, a fact which only came to light after leaked emails between APC leadership exposed as lies claims by AKPD executives that the company ceased involvement in Nigeria in early 2014.Buhari’s presidential run was characterized by “a well-disciplined message campaign, run on a clear and singular message of change,” an anonymous source told the Washington Free Beacon in February. “It sounds very familiar to another campaign some Americans might remember from seven years ago,” the source said. “These guys are running a Western-style, Western-directed campaign that has identified a message through polling and research,” he said. Signaling his full alignment with US imperialism and its “Global War on Terror”—the official ideological cover for constantly expanding US military interventions throughout the African continent and worldwide—Buhari announced that the central priority of his government will be the military struggle against Boko Haram.“The world desperately needs a victory against cultist jihadism,” Buhari said Friday.In the name of fighting Boko Haram, the US has already launched regular drone missions over Nigeria in 2014. The US-backed a joint invasion of northern Nigeria by Cameroon, Niger and Chad earlier this year, amid US and NATO-led AFRICOM-led war games involving the same countries and other African militaries. It is significant that Chadian forces have already crossed the border into Nigeria. Chad's military has served increasingly as a primary regional gendarme for the US and European powers since the dissolution of the USSR. Chad’s capital city currently hosts a permanent garrison of several thousand French soldiers, and US military teams began publicly deploying to Chad last year.Since last year’s kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls, which became the centerpiece of a propaganda campaign spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama, Boko Haram has been brandished by the ideologists of the war on terror as the home-grown African version of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Together with Al Shabab and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram is one of the main “extremist threats” cited by the Pentagon to justify its constantly expanding military presence in Africa. The US media has hyped the threat of Boko Haram with growing intensity over the past year, in a clear indication that Washington's planned for military intervention were far advanced.In its report on Buhari’s inauguration Friday, the Washington Post warned that the Boko Haram militants “have given the Islamic State its first foothold in sub-Saharan Africa.” In reality, Boko Haram is a loosely affiliated federation of militant formations and ethnically based factions with ties to the political establishment in Nigeria and broader West African region. Like the various Al Qaeda and Islamic State groups, Boko Haram represents dissident factions of the ex-colonial bourgeoisie. While they pose as ferociously anti-imperialist, in practice these forces function as instruments of the US and European imperialists, serving simultaneously as proxy forces and as convenient bogeymen. The supposed "war against Boko Haram" is a prextext to transform growing areas of Nigeria into a staging area for military operations throughout the oil rich Lake Chad Basin and broader West African region.



African militaries are being mobilized by the US and European powers in service of their drive to reimpose colonial forms of rule on the continent. As his first act in office, Buhari announced Friday that he will establish a massive new Nigerian military headquarters in the northern city of Maiduguri.The UN children's agency says there has been an "alarming" increase in the number of suicide attacks in northern Nigeria, with many of them involving women and children. There had been 27 attacks so far this year, compared with 26 for the whole of last year, Unicef said in a statement. Three-quarters of the attacks were carried out by female bombers, some as young as seven, it added. Militant Islamist group Boko Haram is waging an insurgency in Nigeria. Suicide bomber hits mosque in northern NigeriaAttack in Maiduguri kills at least 16, hours after Boko Haram assault on outskirts of city leaves at least 10 dead. A suicide bomber has killed at least 16 people at a mosque in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, police say. Dozens more were wounded in the attack. It follows an overnight assault on the north-eastern city by Boko Haram, in which at least 13 people were killed before troops were able to push back the militants' advance. The attacks came hours after Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as new president.

31 May 2015 04:21 GMT A suicide bomber has blown himself up inside a mosque in Nigeria's Maiduguri city killing at least 16 people, local sources said, after a night-time attack blamed on Boko Haram fighters on the outskirts of the city. The attacks on Saturday occurred a day after the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari, who swore to crush the armed group and move the command centre for military operations away from the capital Abuja to Maiduguri. The bomber blew himself inside the Alhaji Haruna mosque next to the Monday Market just after afternoon prayers began, Borno police chief Aderemi Opadokun and witnesses said. "The roof was blown off and fire destroyed the mats and a few Qurans," market trader Nura Khalid told the AFP news agency. Buhari condemned the attack in a statement and vowed to take action against those responsible.

June 2, Somalia's militant Islamist group al-Shabab has entered a remote village in north-eastern Kenya, despite the fact that it is only about 15km (nine miles) from a military base , residents say. Hundreds of people have now fled Warankara and schools have shut, they said. This is only the second time that al-Shabab is known to have occupied territory in Kenya. The al-Qaeda-linked group has its headquarters in neighbouring Somalia.

May 26, An al-Shabab military spokesman says the armed group has killed about 25 Kenyan police officers in a village north of the town of Garissa, where fighters killed 148 students in April. However, Kenya's interior ministry via its official Twitter account said no police officers were confirmed dead. Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab said on Tuesday that 20 officers were killed when al-Shabab fighters ambushed them on Monday night in Yumbis village, 70km north of Garissa, while more officers were killed when a police vehicle hit a landmine planted by the fighters, Reuters reported. // Kenya has rejected claims by the Somalia-based al-Shabab group that it ambushed and killed more than 25 Kenyan police officers in the country's northeast. Al-Shabab has carried out several attacks in Kenya in retaliation over Kenya's military involvement in Somalia. "The number of casualty we have is just one," Mwenda Njoka, Kenyan interior ministry spokesperson, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday

May 26, South Sudan's military has gained 'full control' of the strategic oil town of Malakal, after days of fierce fighting with rebel forces, the government has said. Army spokesman


http://www.unicef.org/media/media_82047.html


Philip Aguer said troops loyal to President Salva Kiir had "completed their control of Malakal town" after several days of fighting during which "whole enemy force was destroyed". Fighting broke out in December 2013 when President Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of attempting a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings across the country.

May 22, The Somalia-based al-Shabab group has raided a village in northeastern Kenya, days after a similar operation in a nearby town. A statement released by the Kenyan interior ministry on Friday said the al-Qaeda-affiliated armed group attacked the village of Yumbis, about 70km north of Garissa - the scene of last month's bloody university siege. "Security forces on Thursday evening thwarted an attempted attack at Yumbis village," the statement said. "Security forces swiftly mobilised and engaged the militants in a gun battle. No casualties were reported." Speaking to Al Jazeera from an unknown location, Abdulaziz Abu Mus'ab, al-Shabab's spokesman for military operations, said the group's fighters were in Yumbis for more than eight hours. "The Mujahideen carried out an operation in Yumbis. This was part of our ongoing operations to free the Christian-occupied Muslim lands of Northern Frontier Districts [NFD]. The coward enemy ran away before our Mujahideen arrived. We spoke to the Muslim residents and left more than eight hours later." Abu Mus'ab said. "We will not rest or stop until NFD is free," he added.

May 23, Deaths as al-Shabab fighters attack two Somali towns Fighters attack two towns in south before being driven out by government troops, as shooting in Mogadishu kills MP. 23 May 2015. Dozens of fighters from the armed group al-Shabab have attacked two towns in southern Somalia, sparking clashes with government troops that left at least 18 dead, according to a Somali military official. Mohamed Abdullahi, a Somali military commander in Somalia's Lower Shabelle region, said the clashes on Saturday happened in Awdhegle and Mubarak townships, but that fighters were driven out after government troops launched a counter-attack. He gave no more details on the causalties, saying only that there were deaths on both sides, the Associated Press news agency reported. The fighting in southern Somalia came as gunmen attacked two Somali MPs in the capital Mogadishu, killing one.

Chad: At War With Boko Haram, The Nigerian based Boko Haram insurgency has been plaguing the country since 2009, but last year the armed group dramatically stepped up its campaign of violence - capturing large areas of territory, displacing many tens of thousands of people, and killing 4,000 more, the vast majority of them civilians. By the beginning of 2015, the group had seized and taken control of several major towns in northern Nigeria and were seeking to extend their influence across West Africa by launching further attacks in neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and in and around Lake Chad, which adjoins the borders of the four nations.

In February, the governments of those four countries - Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon - responded by forming a military coalition to take on the insurgents. The charge would be led by Chad; its troops among Africa's most battle hardened and feared. The central African nation committed 2,000 men to a proposed African Union force of around 8,000. Its aim: to smash Boko Haram and end a conflict that has caused the death of 13,000 people and made refugees out of 1.5 million more.

In March 2015, two French filmmakers, Charles Emptaz and Marine Courtade, joined a unit of Chadian troops as they flew into Boko Haram's northern Nigerian heartland, where some of the fiercest fighting had been taking place. In the preceding weeks, the Chadian army had



enjoyed a string of successes and had managed to push the rebels back, liberating key Nigerian towns in the process. In the face of this unexpected onslaught, Boko Haram's response had been typically defiant. In a video released on the internet, the insurgency's leader Abubakar Shekau publicly swore allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and rebranded his organisation as the Islamic State's West Africa Province - a direct challenge to the region's established powers. He even had a personal message for Chad's President, Idriss Deby: "You, Idriss Deby, the 'King of Africa', you're too late! I dare you to attack me, I'm ready!"

Emptaz and Courtade arrived in Nigeria around the same time and were immediately whisked by the Chadian military (and by Colonel Azem, its enthusiastic media relations officer) to Dikwa, a town that had been at the epicentre of the fighting and which had only just been liberated. Soldiers proudly paraded the bodies of defeated militants killed less than 24 hours earlier and took the journalists to Boko Haram's now trashed headquarters - a villa the militants had forcibly requisitioned from the area's emir. But the most macabre moment of the trip came when the filmmakers were ushered out to the courtyard and encouraged to point their cameras at a fatally wounded insurgent left lying in the dirt. The young man had not been treated and it was clear that to make some kind of revengeful point, he was merely being abandoned to die slowly and in agony – against all the supposed conventions of modern warfare. Certainly, when the filmmakers suggested he needed help, their protests were brushed aside. Yet for all the brutality exhibited by the combatants towards each other in this conflict, it is the local civilian population who are probably suffering the most. Splitting off from their military minders, the filmmakers drove 350km towards the Lake Chad region and the town of Ngouboua, just across the border, inside Chadian territory. Boko Haram had crossed over from Nigeria and raided this community two weeks earlier – looting, burning property and killing seven local people. Such attacks are frequent along this porous border and the violence and destruction has thrown thousands of refugees out of their homes and onto the roads. Ordinary life has become impossible. Since the beginning of this year over 25,000 people have left Nigeria and sought sanctuary in Chad. Some are Nigerians fleeing the violence, others Chadians who had emigrated and are now returning to their place of birth, leaving behind their businesses and land in a bid to survive. All are desperately in need of aid, precious little of which is available. While the increased presence of Chadian soldiers in their villages and towns over the past few months may have relieved some pressure on the local population, few are yet willing to believe that this brutal conflict is going to end any time soon. For the foreseeable future, it appears that ordinary civilians will continue to suffer and be driven from their homes.

DROC, découpage: Earlier this year, angry demonstrators filled the streets of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were outraged by President Joseph Kabila’s attempts to extend his last term as president through a new electoral law that would likely have delayed the November 2016 elections by at least two years. One of the most keenly contested provisions of the law required a national census before elections could take place, a laborious effort that was never budgeted. Kabila responded violently to the protests—his security forces killed around 40 people.The new law was eventually passed in late January of this year without the census provision, but it appears that Kabila has yet another card to play. On March 2, he set a 120-day deadline for the implementation of découpage, a constitutional change introduced in 2006 intended to divide Congo’s 11 provinces into 26. The 2006 constitutional change was a milestone in the country’s transition from almost a decade of civil war and was meant to transform Congo into a fully fledged democracy. However, while Kinshasa should have completed découpage by



2010 in accordance with the constitution, the process has not yet even begun. The delay is not surprising given that découpage is one of the most complex processes that the government has had to grapple with since the official end of the war. As a result, it neither budgeted nor In pursuing découpage now, Kabila can ostensibly hold on to power. In the last few months, a number of his former supporters, such as the political party Union of Federalists and Independent Republicans, defected from the ruling majority. In December 2014, one of his allies, Moïse Katumbi—the powerful governor of Katanga Province and representative of the ruling party in Katanga—publicly opposed Kabila’s quest to extend the presidential term limits and run for a third term. The speech sent shock waves across the business and political scene; although Katumbi was widely believed to harbor his own presidential aspirations, his ties to Kabila were generally seen as essential to his potential ascension.If implemented, découpage could allow Kabila to marginalize such power brokers and defectors. Katumbi and many others would be replaced once their provinces were dissolved and reconfigured into smaller ones. At the same time, if logistic, financial, and political reasons prevent the successful implementation of découpage (and that is quite likely), the process may not only help delay the electoral process but also serve as a convenient justification for Kabila to amend the constitution. After all, if the constitution’s call for découpage is no longer practical, Kabila might argue that other conditions—such as the two-term limit—also require amending.designed an execution plan for découpage.

Katanga, Congo’s industrial mining hub, is perhaps the only province in which découpage is viable. Its districts are relatively well established and the province generates most of the country’s revenues. Yet even there, issues with the division seem nearly insurmountable. Katanga would be divided into four new provinces, and at least two of those are fiercely resistant to the change. Meanwhile, leaders from the mining town of Kolwezi insist that their district should constitute an independent fifth province.The prospect of dissecting Katanga has heightened ethnic tensions, with some groups in the south of the province such as the Lunda viewing découpage as a means to increase regional influence and others, such as the Balubakat—Kabila’s own ethnic group—seeing it as a recipe for marginalization. In an effort to discourage the government from implementing découpage, some members of the Balubakat have thrown their support behind a regional militia,



prompting a major humanitarian crisis in the so-called Triangle of Death in north-central Katanga.

Regards Cees

Osama bin Laden dreamed of staging more spectacular attacks against America and hoped his son would one day succeed him as the leader of al-Qaeda, according to newly declassified documents seized from his compound. In a note to al-Qaeda’s North African offshoot, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), he urged commanders to focus on attacking the "obnoxious tree" that is America and not to become distracted with local conflicts. "Work on breaking the power of our main enemy by attacking the American embassies in the African countries, such as Sierra Leone, Togo, and mainly to attack the American oil companies," he wrote. Commanders were also warned they "shouldn't be stingy in the quantity of explosives to be used or the number of martyrs."


Documents

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 23-6-Africa-26