Jihadi John Identified

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jihadi-john-the-islamic-state-killer-behind-the-mask-is-a-young-londoner/2015/02/25/d6dbab16-bc43-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html

The infamous Islamic State executioner "Jihadi John" as allegedly been identified as British student Mohammad Emwazi. However, early news reports are not generally reliable on identification of perpetrators like "Jihadi John", like what happened at Sandy Hook a few years ago. At Sandy Hook, an unfortunate man named Ryan Lanza with a similar name to the perpetrator (perpetrator's name was Adam Lanza) was identified as the shooter by early reports. Ryan was however the brother of Adam according to some reports. He got death threats (some include "you are a dead man walking" and "baby-killer") on his Facebook page, despite the fact that the gunman committed suicide in the crime. In the online age, the media often hounds on "information" about sensational event before it is actually confirmed as true. So this apparent identification of "Jihad John" thing, I will wait a week until more reports investigates the claim.

A Brief Overview of the Boer War

The Boer Wars were some of the rare examples of European colonial wars against people of European decedent. In the 1st Boer War, the British were taken by surprise at the use of sniping by the Boers. Hundreds of British troops were killed for just a few dozen deaths for the Boers. The British were forced to recognize the Boer South African Republic. The British Empire wanted to make ups for its humiliating defeat, declared war on the Boer Republics again. With frustrations to heavy causalities to Boer sniping, the British resorted to the ruthless method of forcing Boer families into concentration camps. Watching their families starve to death, this had a profound impact on the morale of the Boer commandos. The Boers were forced to sue for peace, and the Boer South African Republic was annexed into the British Empire. The experiences in the Boer Wars and experiences in the North-West frontier of India taught the British painful lessons of sniping. However, these lessons were forgotten with horrific consequences in WW1.

Irish Civil War of the 1920s

The Irish Civil War started over disagreements within the Irish Republican Army (IRA) over the matter of the peace treaty with Britain. The IRA was split into pro treaty and anti treaty factions. The British intervened predictably on the side of the pro treaty faction. The pro treaty IRA became the government army of Ireland, and it became the provisional government known as the Irish Free State. The war ended in the Irish Free State victory. Political parties in Ireland are descended from the warring factions in the Irish Civil War.

Northern Mali Conflict

In 2012, the Malian Army was driven out of the Azawad region by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) Tuareg rebel group with Islamic Jihadist "allies" like the Ansar Dine. However clashes between the "allies" erupted in the Azawad region while the government is distracted by a coup. The Malian government intervened allying itself with the MNLA against the Jihadist factions. Weakening the Jihidists even more was the French intervention. Peace talks occurred, until the deal was broken when government troops apparently opened fire on protesters. Small scale violence still continues despite ceasefire agreements with the Jihadists and the Tuaregs. This is not the only Tuareg revolt, several Tuareg revolts occurred in the 2000s, 1990s, and the 1960s. The Tuaregs even revolted against the French Colonial government in 1917.

Somali Civil War 90s Phase

Somali military dictator Siad Barre's regime had fallen in 1991. What had taken his place was the various clan warlords that fought for control of Somalia. Some of the warlord factions include United Somali Congress (USC) with splinter factions of USC/Somali National Alliance (USC/SNA) and USC/Somali Salvation Alliance (USC/SSA) among with splinter factions of those splinter factions (such as USC/SSA-OMF and USC/SNA-OF), Somali Salvation Democracy Front (SSDF, not to be confused with the Sudan pro government militia of the same initials), Somali National Front (SNF), among countless other factions. For a while, none of the warring factions were strong enough to defeat its rivals. Famine was created during this fighting, causing the deaths of thousands of people. The UN intervened, but its intervention was scandalously incompetent. The warring factions especially the USC/SNA started to attack the peacekeepers and stealing 80% of the food given to aid the Somali people and trading it for weapons. The UN backed special forces (most famously the American Delta Force) started to launch operations against the warlord factions. This lead to disaster at the infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident with the deaths of 19 Americans and c.100 wounded at a disastrous attempt to capture a lieutenant of the USC/SNA. The UN pulled out, with Somalia still in the control of warlords. Mohamed Aidid, one of the leaders of USC/SNA and the self declared president of Somali, was later killed in a clash with his rivals. In 2000, a federal government called the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFG) was finally established, but with a group called the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) threatened the weak government. The Ethiopians intervened on the TFG side and defeated the ICU. A splinter faction of ICU called Al-Shabaab declared war against the government, and is still a threat to this day.

Rwandan Genocide/Civil War

The Hutu-Tutsi feud, which escalated after the Belgians left the nations surrounding the Great Lakes in the post WW2 decolonization period. The Belgian colonizers used the animosity between the Hutus and the Tusis to their advantage, and used the ethnicity card to separate those groups. Several African nations, like Burundi, Zarie (renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo after the AFDL takeover), and most infamously Rwanda was devastated by the feuds between the rival ethnicity. That is why all the civil wars surrounding the great lakes, like the Congo Wars, Burundi Civil War, and the Rwandan Civil War are all tied together. However, I will cover the Rwandan Civil War in these post. In the 60s, the Hutus and the Tutsis had a power-struggle over the control of the government after the Belgians had left. This period of Rwandan history is known as the Rwandan Revolution. The Hutus emerged victorious, and they purged out the Tutsis elite. The Tutsis then organized groups with the dehumanizing name given by the Hutu government as "inyenzi" (cockroaches). These "cockroaches" launched border attacks on Rwanda, until they were gradually defeated. During the early 90s, a Tusti dissident group known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched its insurgency against the Hutu Government,  and within two years a lose peace treaty occurred between the RPF and the government. However this "peace treaty" failed after an unidentified group (mostly likely the RPF) shot down the plane with the Rwandan president was in, killing the Rwandan President. This gave a convenient excuse for its planed genocide of the Tutsis. Soon the radical Hutus assassinated the moderate prime minster Agathe Uwilingiyimania, and horrifically slaughtered her Dutch Peacekeeper bodyguards at the hands of the presidential guards. The Peacekeepers unwisely surrendered to the Presidential guards, and they were killed with their genitals used as gags. The gruesome killing of the peacekeepers gave the outside world a message to stay out and foreshadowed the horrific methods of killing in the genocide. Then once with the moderates out of the government, the Extremists with the help of the civilian militia Interahamwe. Using popular radio stations to dehumanize the Tutsis. Tutsis were portrayed as parasites, and needed to be killed and raped.  The result ended with 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed and 200,000 women raped and their genitals mutilated in just 100 days. The killings stopped when the RPF toppled the Hutu government, and several of the Hutus fled to neighboring Zarie. The Hutu refugees started to form their own groups like the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in order to topple the new RPF government. Mobutu's regime in Zarie supported those Hutu groups, and in retaliation the RPF government backed an anti Mobutu group known as the Alliance Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (AFDL) led by Laurent Kabila. The ADFL quickly conquered Zaire and renamed it the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However critics of the Kabila's AFDL regime accused it of being a Rwandan puppet, so  Kabila expelled his backers from his government.  This angered Rwanda, and Rwanda created rebel groups like the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) against the Kabila regime. So in retaliation, Kabila supported his former enemies in the exiled Hutu refugees. This started the 2nd Congo War. Just a year after the 1st Congo War ended.

The victims of the Rwandan Genocide have to live with literally having their next door neighbors being the ones that raped them or killed their entire families. It was an embarrassment for Western governments for not intervening in the killings. Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the genocide was the fact that many of the perpetrators were literally random civilians attacking their neighbors with machetes or sticks. This genocide leaves a chilling reminder of the dark side of human nature.

More Photos of Fighters from the Battle of Monrovia of 1996

I have found an amazing photojournalist website of photos of NPFL and some ULIMO-J fighters that I have never seen before. I wish to share them on this post.

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Political Goals of Insurgent Factions

Their are several political goals among rebel groups. Some rebel groups want to topple the existing government with the rebel group replacing the regime, with others (especially ethnic or religious based ones) want to create their own country at the expanse of the mother government. However, studying political goals of various rebel groups is a complex, broad, and contradictory one because rebel groups often betray their alleged agenda for political power. Some don't even have any particular ideologies other then vague and open to interpretation slogans like "power to the people".  For example, several rebel groups like the SPLA-Nasir of Sudan, RCD-K-ML of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, KNLA of Myanmar, ULIMO-K of Liberia, KPD of Iraq, and various other rebel groups often ally themselves with the government that THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE OPPOSING against other rebel groups (mostly splinter factions allying themselves with the government against the mother rebel group). Their are cases of rebel groups fighting to control resources like diamonds and oil. Examples include MEND of Niger Delta and the RUF of Sierra Leone. MEND's stated political goal was to "control the oil supply of the region to the people", while the RUF claimed to be fighting to "liberate" the people of Sierra Leone. With the RUF, strong evidence suggests that it was only fighting to control the diamond mines in the country. With MEND, the nature of the attacks located only in that particular region suggests that MEND only is interested in controlling oil not toppling the government. However, I will try with great difficulty try naively to group rebel actors by the apparent political goal.

Topple government; AFDL, NPFL, various Afghan Mujahedin factions, Contra, Sandinista, RUF, RPF, FDLR, UNITA, Taliban
Create Country; ISIS, Chechen groups, various Kurdish groups, Novorussyia, SPLA, HVO, LTTE, Boko Haram (due to this years attack on neighboring countries like Cameroon, Niger, and Chad)

General Butt Naked

Blahyi in his "uniform" preparing for battle.

Joshua Blahyi (or better known as General Butt Naked), a commander of a ULIMO-J militia in the 1st Liberian Civil War, was infamous for his cruel and bizarre behavior. As his nickname suggests, Blahyi fought almost entirely nude in combat, along with his milita "the Butt Naked Brigade" (sometimes they cross-dressed too in wedding dresses). This is either disturbingly inappropriate or humorous to the eyes of Westerners, but they believed if they fought naked into battle, they would literally be "magically" protected from bullets. Blahyi was also quite mentally unstable if you couldn't predict that already, with claims that Satan actually called him on the phone (apparently, they have phones in hell) to fight naked and preform human sacrifices. He also claimed to have talked to Satan regularly. If Blahyi's claims are to be believed, he would eat the hearts of children and drink their blood. He also claimed to have chopped off the heads of victims and used them as soccer balls. His apparent early life as a priest was he allegedly committed his 1st human sacrifice at age 11. Blahyi also have claimed to have taken part of gladiatorial duels to the death as a Krahn priest before his involvement in the War. Blahyi is now to this day unexpectedly a pastor for some Evangelical church. His converstion to Christanity was that allegedly, Jesus Christ came to him "in a blinding light" and told him to repent of his sins or die. In his pastor life, he has allegedly felt "remorse" for his crimes, and he frequently is extorting forgiveness from his former victims. His claims are that he was not responsible for his crimes, but he was possessed by Satan. To my personal opinion, Blahyi has actually committed several of the atrocities that he claimed to have commited,  but due to drugs and mental illness, he added the religious elements to his story.

Albigensian Crusade

During Medieval France, a new religious movement known as the Cathars was rapidly growing in popularity. In simplified terms, the new religion believed that the Catholic God was a satanic being, they worship his more benevolent counterpart. Both deities created this world, but the evil god has trapped Humanity in a belief similar to the Buddhist cycle of rebirth. Their sexual teachings were the mirror opposite of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church taught that sexual behaviors that were reproductive in nature was better then non-preventive sex. The Cathars taught the exact opposite of that teaching. This has led to Catholic propaganda that Cathars were homosexual. The Cathars were also had women in almost identical roles to men, which was horrifying to the Catholics at that time. Several key differences among the two faiths along with political reasons led to tensions so high that the Catholic Church ordered a genocidal crusade against the Cathars. The Cathars were theoretically pacifists, but they were not above hiring mercenaries for the obvious practical reasons. The Crusade was fought with a series of massacres of Cathars and sieges on Cathar castles. On notable siege on the Cathar Castle of Toulouse, Simon de Montifort, one of the Crusader generals was killed when a projectile from a Cathar catapult hit Simon in the head. However, the Crusades ended with a Crusader victory with the Cathars theoretically wiped out.

Mai Mai Militas

The Mai Mai (the word "Mai Mai" means "Water, Water" basing on the rituals that those militias believe will make themselves immune to bullets), as mentioned in a few of my previous posts is a broad term for tribal militias that warred against various rebel groups and the Kabila regime. Several Mai Mai militias groups also allied themselves with the Kabila regime. Several Mai Mai groups formed to protect their villages from the Rwandan backed insurgents, but many of these groups took advantage of the conflict to solve a variety of tribal disputes like cattle rustling and raiding rival villages. As they are only a label, their is no cooperation between several of the Mai Mai groups and several even war against each over.  The Mai Mai don't answer to any of the peace treaties, so it is problematic to disarm them.

Mai Mai group A;  Some of the more better equipped Mai Mai factions. Military fatigues and sophisticated weaponry hints that this Mai Mai faction collaborated with the Kabila regime or some of the foreign governments. Several of the more mainstream groups like the RCD factions and the UPC factions have military uniforms, most likely because of the rebel groups collaboration with foreign governments.

Mai Mai Group B;  All photos below show the heavy tribal influences among the Mai Mai factions. These fighters must be part of some of the more isolated groups that have little western influences. Traditional clothing and weaponry with of the expectation of AKs show that they are very tribal and strongly believe in folk magic. This Mai Mai group most likely has not collaborated with any governments because they lack sophisticated equipment.

Taping Revolt Basic Info

The Taping Revolt originated when some Chinese man named Hong Xiuquan claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Hong's alleged goal was to free China from the "infidel" Qing dynasty and establish a holy kingdom under his altered version of Christianity. He then created a cult style kingdom called the Taping Heavenly Kingdom at the expense of the Qing Dynasty. The resulting war ended in the deaths at least 20 million people. The Taipings had initial success against the Imperialist government, but violent infighting among the Taipings and the European governments intervening on the side of the Imperial government saved the Qing Dynasty from falling. The Qing Dynasty only phyrrhicly defeated the Taipings. Some extreme estimates point the death toll as high as 100 million deaths. How could such a man with such a bizarre cult do so much damage? Well, China was very weak from corruption and humiliating defeats from the Europeans and the Japanese. 19th century China suffered various horrific rebellions (several of them had death tolls in the low millions) throughout its various regions. In various regions that were devastated by rebellion, tensions were so high that they only needed an almost comically trivial incident to fuse it. Some of the Dungan revolts in the Central Asian region of China were sparked by a pricing dispute over bamboo. Other notable large scale revolts in 19th century China was the Nien Revolt (got fused into the Taping Revolt), Dungan Revolts, Panthay Revolts, and the Miao Revolts. So the Qing Dynasty was quite vulnerable to any revolts, and even minor incidents could turn into violent uprisings. Soon the combinations of all those massive uprisings and other factors lead to the collapse of the last classical Chinese Dynasties in 1911.

Warfare of the Ancient Mayans

Mayan civilization was originally seen as a pacifistic society that was too focused on non-violent activities like building and Astronomy. Once more accurate translations of the Mayan language became more available, evidence showed that the Mayans were actually the exact opposite of the traditional view. The Mayans were somewhat similar to the classical Greece with city states almost in a continuous state of war against each over. Most of the wars were minor raids for slaves and sacrifices. However, their were causes of wars similar to today. Major reasons for wars between Mayan city states were for domination of rival city states and conquest of territory, civil wars within city states due to dynastic disputes, and revolts by subjected cities against the mother kingdom to secede. Mayans practiced Human Sacrifice like the Aztecs as mentioned above, but the sacrifices of the Mayans were generally targeted towards rival kings. Rival kings were the most prized of all human sacrifices. The Mayan Human Sacrifices were also more deliberate and more elaborate then that of the Aztecs. Several methods towards Mayan Sacrifices involve decapitation, heart removal, and by the Bow and Arrow ritual. The collapse of the Mayan city states is believed to have been caused by the frequent wars in Mayan society.

RUF Rebels

If you remember from my previous post about the Kamajors, here is their enemies the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). They are most famous for being depicted in the Hollywood movie Blood Diamonds, which is a very accurate depiction of their crimes and their infamous funding by Diamonds. The signature tactic of the RUF is the amputation of its victims limbs, what ever solider or civilian (but they amputated much more civilians then soldiers). The RUF used children as young as 7 in their armies, often forcing them to kill their parents or the tribal elder. The RUF didn't even have a known ideology. They never supported any forms of religions, communism, nationalism, ethnic groups, or any other ideologies popular to rebel groups. One of the major reasons why the RUF was able to continue their insurgency was their use of the lucrative diamond trade. The Diamond Trade was so lucrative that the RUF didn't even need to win the "hearts and minds" of the people or state backing (although it did get the NPFL backing it). The RUF has gained $125 million annually from the Diamond trade. The RUF used miners enslaved at gunpoint in its mines. In 1997, as mentioned in my earlier post on the Kamajors, several rouge soldiers from the government army calling themselves the AFRC formed an alliance with the RUF and toppled the Civilian government in Freetown. The Civilian government was later put back into power by ECOMOG a year later after driving the RUF/AFRC junta out of Freetown. The RUF continued its insurgency until its defeat in 2002.

The front figure is wearing Kamajor clothing. This hints that the website ever misidentified Kamajor militiamen for the RUF or that they may be RUF fighters wearing clothing stolen from corpses of Kamajor fighters.

Military uniforms among this fighters suggest that they may be AFRC fighters, or they may be RUF fighters wearing clothing stolen or traded from government troops. However fighters in this conflict were legendary for switching sides back and forth from the RUF to the government almost daily.

This photo seems to depicted a RUF fighter standing next to a solider from ECOMOG.

The date of this photo and the presence of UN peacekeepers suggest that this photo was taken during some UN sponsored disarmament of combatants.

These RUF rebels depicted in these photos are actually mainstream government troops, however it is not an inaccuracy to label them as RUF fighters since many government troops often joined the RUF in attacks on civilians. Many deserted to the rebels presumably bringing their equipment with them. One Human Rights report mentioned it was difficult for the victims to identify their assailants because government troops were often identical to the RUF rebels.

This young fighter was identified as RUF in one website, and Kamajor on another. He could be easily part of any of those factions.

Although one website identified this fighters as RUF, the clothing suggests that this boy most likely belongs to the Kamajors.

These boys might be from the AFRC, the mainstream government army, or the RUF. One loose way to tell between the AFRC or the RUF is most AFRC fighters have military fatigues, while RUF fighters usually have civilian clothing.  However, this distinction is blurred as RUF and AFRC fighters traded with each other. So it was not uncommon for rebels to wear both military and civilian clothing.

Another photo that shows how difficult the distinction of rebels and government troops was in this war. Like repeatedly mentioned above, government troops were infamous for joining the RUF in terrorizing the civilian population. That is why the government had to rely on South African Mercenaries and Tribal Militias.

This photo shows the young age of many of the fighters in the Sierra Leone Civil War.

These fighters were labeled as RUF rebels in one website, and Kamajors in another.