Foreign Correspondent Margot Kiser
Letters to Annie from Kaftanistan
‘The goal of the extrajudicial executions, according to Kiser, is to “exterminate and intimidate people believed to be associated with the Al Shabaab movement in neighboring Somalia.” Religious leaders told Kiser that Kenyan security forces “are targeting them unfairly for persecution if not indeed for summary execution,” though local authorities say they have intelligence linking imams to al-Shabaab’
“The Americans are very complicated, aren’t they? On the one hand they are helping us by building roads, dispensaries, schools, but they also seem to want to kill us.”
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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.
LAMU, Kenya – Al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, released a statement on its media website claiming recent attacks in parts of northeastern Kenya. At around 6 am on Wednesday, November 25th, Special Forces and Ranger Strike Force battalions were patrolling near the town of Galmagala, the outermost perimeters of the deployment area, when they encountered […]
An acquaintance in Lamu gave me a pamphlet she said had been handed to passengers on a bus from Mombasa to Lamu on September 21, 2015. Perhaps not coincidentally the date marked the second anniversary of the deadly Westgate Mall attack. The group behind the leaflet, Kenya Citizen Coalition (KCC), appears to be pro-government, very […]
LONG GOODBYE 07.27.15 2:20 PM ET How Obama Glossed Over Africa’s Troubles By MARGOT KISER To keep his visit to Kenya and Ethiopia upbeat, Obama declined to address some of the really big problems in both countries. NAIROBI — In what may give the term “birther” new meaning, it’s rumored that in Kogelo, President […]
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