Fatal Shooting in Nairobi Reveals U.S. Security Detail (WARNING: Graphic Image)

A Kenyan man was shot dead last week outside the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi after he stabbed a GSU police officer guarding the compound. Police identified the knife-wielder as Abdimahat Ibrahim Hassan, a 22 year-old from Wajir, in northern Kenya. Much of northern Kenya has been inhabited by ethnic Somalis before and since the nation’s […]

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Che Guevara 

On October 9, 1967, Cuban revolutionary, Che Guevara, was executed by US Special Forces-trained Bolivian Army. A few months previously “El Che” had traveled to Africa to offer his guidance as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo. To get back to his support base in Bolivia, the Marxist diplomat disguised himself as a […]

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Bonfire of the Vanities

More Headline Than Content  At the ivory burn activists and politicians were loud and clear – we’re burning ivory to protect the elephants. The message is that ivory should not have any intrinsic value other than on the elephant.  The message itself however remains unclear to Kenyans and foreigners alike.  Yet Kenyans I spoke with […]

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Giveaways That Al-Shabaab’s Video Of The Battle Of El-Adde Was Staged

On Sunday, April 3rd, Al-Shabaab’s media wing released a recruitment video showing the militant group’s January 15th raid at a Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) camp at el-Adde, Somalia. It was the deadliest attack on an AMISOM mission to date, killing 100-200, 12 were reportedly taken hostage. KDF has yet to release any casualty figures to […]

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War and Peace – a Jungian Thing

           Colonel: Marine, what is that button on your body armor?Sergeant Joker: A peace symbol, sir. Pogue Colonel: Where’d you get it? Sergeant Joker: I don’t remember, sir. Pogue Colonel: What is that you’ve got written on your helmet? Sergeant Joker: “Born to Kill”, sir. Pogue Colonel: You write “Born to Kill” on […]

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Trip to South Sudan 2015

March, 2015 I’d been on the hunt for former U.S. security firm Blackwater owner, Erik Prince, for Newsweek. At the time Prince’s Malta-based logistics company, Frontier Services Group, was sending supplies and repairing oil production facilities. Contrary to some reports, sources said he’d also been training police and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army – SPLA – to […]

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Mass Grave Found in Mandera, Kenya

The shallow graves of at least twelve ethnic Somalis were said to have been discovered on the outskirts of Mandera, a town near Kenya-Somalia border. One of the deceased has been identified by  residents as “Isnina”, a mother of five, who went missing just four days ago. Witnesses say two Kenya Defense Forces soldiers in […]

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