Foreign Correspondent Margot Kiser
Letters to Annie from Kaftanistan
Write from experience, and experience only… Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost – Henry James, American-born writer (1843-1916)
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 […]
Coffee table books and novels about Africa with ‘Africa’ in their titles seem to stand a better chance of becoming best sellers, or so I hear. “Out of Africa”, “Nowhere in Africa”, “I Dream of Africa” would seem to suggest so. By that formula nothing would sell Africa better than a DVD cover featuring Brad […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A source close to the Kenya Defense Forces said that DNA samples had been taken from 143 bodies (found at the scene), adding that 58 had survived.
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 […]
Nearly three months after the reported crash of a plane outside Mogadishu, the fate of twelve passengers aboard remains unknown.
Unofficial sources in Somalia say the passengers were mercenaries, all captured by militants loyal to the Islamist group al-Shabaab.
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 […]
