UNITA Gallery/Brief Information

The National Union for the Total Independence for the Liberation of Angola (UNITA) was a Maoist offshoot of the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) during the Angolan War of Independence against the Portuguese. Other rebel groups in the struggle was the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC). After the Portuguese left Angola, the MPLA took power. The other groups grew increasingly jealous of  the MPLA's power. Soon the new MPLA regime was challenged by its former allies in UNITA. The other factions in the FNLA and the FLEC are pulled to a very minor part of the "story of the play". In order to win the hearts of its US backers, UNITA changes its ideology from Maoist to Capitalism. With control of Angola's diamond industry and American backing, UNITA grew to be powerful enough to even deploy fighter planes with mercenary pilots. UNITA was able to wield a conventional army against the MPLA and Cuban allies. In 1991, the MPLA government and UNITA had UN backed "peace" elections. The results of the elections infuriated UNITA, thus ironically the elections that were intended to make peace in Angola escalating the war even further. In 1999, UNITA's conventional military was destroyed, so UNITA resorts to the usual Guerrilla warfare tactics. UNITA's leader Jonas Savambi was killed by MPLA government troops, finally ending the 40 year civil war in Angola. UNITA still exists as a political party.

This photo of this UNITA fighters was taken during 1974, just before the Angolan War against the Portuguese ended. During that time they appear to be another guerrilla organization, not the well equipped army during the later 70s to the 90s.

Same time-peroid as the photo above.

This one is time period as the ones above it.

This photo appears after the defeat of UNITA's conventional army, since the fighters are not well uniformed as some of the other ones.

The presence of uniforms among these fighters hint of a good organization or funding among UNITA.

Robert Fisk Video

This is an interesting video that wipes out the myth of the Free Syrian Army. It also discusses what would potentially happen after the "defeat" of ISIS. Other topics of noteworthy discussion is Assad's reliance on his army, the Kurds, and Syrian government-ISIS clashes. 

The White Baron

Roman von Ugern-Sternburg was one of the most colorful figures in the Russian Civil War. He was an ultra conservative warlord mostly active in Mongolia. He adopted a modified version of Buddhism, believing himself as the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. He believed that it was his destiny to create a new horde. Sternburg's army was ethnically diverse with troops being Russian, Mongols, Tibetans, Poles, Japanese, Cossacks, and several other ethnic groups. He drove out Chinese influence in Mongolia. Sternburg was infamous for his cruelty, he mercilessly persecuted Bolshevik supporters and Jews alike. Some of the Mongol tribes believed him to be the god of war. During the early years of the Russian Civil War, he fought alongside the White Army scoring several minor successes against the Bolsheviks. He then became independent from the mainstream White Army in Siberia, and went on his own campaigns in Mongolia. As mentioned above, he drove the Chinese occupiers out of Mongolia. He rescued the Bogd Khan, a lead Buddhist priest from Chinese house arrest. Sternburg was in control of Mongolia as a reward for driving the Chinese out of Mongolia. His hated enemies, the Bolsheviks soon invaded Mongolia. He was soon defeated and executed by the Bolsheviks.

Gallery of Chechen Rebels

The Chechen Wars of the 90s are a recent incident of centuries of Russian-Chechen wars (I covered the campaigns in the 80s in a previous post). The Chechen republics declared their independence from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Russians declared war on the separatists, but they were driven out. The Russian declare a 2nd war, and they were victorious. Their is still a small scale insurgency, with one clash that killed 26 people that occurred as late as December 2014. Here are several photos of Chechen rebels below.

Clothing of Chechen fighters in all photos seem to show that they are just loosely organized rag-tag clan groups. Inserting enough, media sources in the 90s rarely refer to specific rebel groups, just "Chechen rebels". Despite poor organization and equipment, they were able to pull off well coordinated attacks that destroyed 80% of Russian units.

Clothing and weaponry suggests equipment is ever homegrown or captured from Russian troops.

Battle of the 3 Kings (1578)

The Battle of the 3 Kings occurred when a succession issue occurred in the Morocco thrown. The battle is named because of all the kings involved in the battle on both sides were killed. Portuguese King Sebastian intervened in the Moroccan crisis on the side of his ally Abu Abdallah Mohammed II. Abdallah had been toppled by his uncle Abd al-Malik. The Abdallah/Portuguese alliance with a force of a majority European force of 24,000 men (although Berber's were 1/4 of the force), with the al-Malik loyalists were possibly as high as 100,000 men. The battle began with an exchange of musket and cannon fire on both sides. Soon the battle evolved into a vicious melee. Sebastian led a charge and his body was never found. Abdallah drowned while feeling, while Al-Malik died of natural causes. 23,000/24,000 men were killed or captured on the Abdallah/Portuguese alliance. One ironic legacy is that this battle cause a succession crisis in Portugal, because of the death of King Sebastian. In Morocco, the battle helped build up the Saadi dynasty.

Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War occurred when Saddam era Iraq invaded the seemingly weak Iran. Iran was believed to be weakened by the Iranian Revolution by the Iraqi government, but Iran was not as weak as the Iraqi government believed. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. The invasion resulted in a stalemate between Iran and Iraq. To break the stalemate, the Iranians use human wave attacks (with the infamous use of children as combatants) while the Iraqis restored to chemical weapons, turning the war into a WW1 style battlefield. The war was a 1st for helicopter on helicopter dogfights with Iraqi Mi-25s vs Iranian AH-1J SuperCobras. Also a 1st time, was the mass use of ballistic missiles to terror bomb the opponent's territory. Both sides also supported each-over's rebel groups as the Iraq supported the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), with Iran supporting the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish Democratic Party (KPD). Iranian support for the Kurdish rebel groups led to massacres of Kurdish civilians by the Iraqi government. The war ended in a stalemate with 1 million lives lost and 1 trillion dollars spent. Both the Iraqi government and the Iranian government failed in its goals and both sides claim victory.

Al-Nursa

The Islamic State (ISIS) has been getting a huge amount of media attention in the Syrian Civil War, however their are other powerful jihidist groups present in the Syrian Civil War. al-Nursa, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda is one of them. They have been described as one of the most effective opposition groups in the Syrian Civil War. al-Nursa was one of the main anti-ISIS factions in the Syrian Rebel infighting. al-Nursa was responsible for the destruction of archives of the Armenian Genocide in the early 1900s, because the Armenian church refused to recognize al-Nursa as the official government. al-Nursa's relationship with ISIS is complex because they are in/out alliances with each-over, but they are generally enemies. However since the US collation is bombing both factions, their relationships mended. In November last year, the al-Nursa turned on their former allies in the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) and defeated them. Their are currently rumors of splits with Al-Qaeda.

Spillovers

One concerning complexity of post Cold War era wars is the tendency of a war in one country has a tendency to spill over to neighboring countries, thus creating wars in neighboring countries. Oftentimes combatants form those countries tend to support each-over, and in several cases some rebel groups might be fighting at two countries at once. Spillovers often times make the situation more serious and complex. Some cases of wars spilling over to other countries that will be discussed in this post are Syria, Rwanda, and Liberia.

Syria; The infamous Islamic State (better known to Americans as ISIS) rebel group after waging a successful campaign against the Iraqi government for Anabar, invaded Syria. Once in Syria, the Islamic State attacked the government and insurgents groups alike. This further made the already complex nature of the Syrian opposition even more complex, and worsened infighting among the Syrian rebel groups. The Syrian government often launches airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, and Iraq does the same thing in Syria. Because of ISIS, the Iraq and Syrian Civil Wars are interconnected. If ISIS is successful, the boundaries determined by the Sykes-Picot Agreement will be discarded and Syria and Iraq will be one country under ISIS banner. Other more minor spillovers of Syria/Iraq War are some incidents in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and even Libya.

Liberia; National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) leader Charles Taylor needed the diamond fields of Sierra Leone to fund his insurgency in Liberia. In order to access the diamond fields, he funded Sierra Leone dissidents that organized themselves into the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Several NPFL fighters came to Sierra Leone to aid the RUF. The Sierra Leone government retaliated by supporting an anti NPFL called the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO). ULIMO helped the Sierra Leone government fight the RUF, but ULIMO was more interested in fighting the NPFL in Liberia. Meanwhile, RUF leaders thought the NPFL was taking too much control of the RUF. This lead to clashes between the RUF and the NPFL leading the NPFL driven out of Sierra Leone. Despite the infighting, the NPFL still continued to support the RUF. The RUF even fought anti Taylor rebel groups in the 2nd Liberian Civil War.

Rwanda; The civil wars of the African Great Lakes are much interconnected with each-over with combatants from Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, and Uganda supporting and fighting each-overs wars. In Rwanda, the Tutsi rebel group Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched its insurgency against the Hutu government. In Burundi, the roles were reversed with Hutu rebel groups like the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD) started fighting against the Tutsi military government. With the 1st Hutu president assassinated by the Tutsi military, violence broke out between the Tutsi government and the Hutu rebels. When the presidents of both countries were assassinated when their plan was shot down by unknown attackers, this sparked the Rwandan genocide and escalated the Burundian Civil War. After the Hutu government was toppled in Rwanda, several remnants of the Hutu regime fled to the neighboring Zarie. The RPF government demanded that the Mobutu regime in Zarie to stop sheltering members of the Hutu government-in-exile. Mobutu and his government refused to stop sheltering, so as a result the RPF (along with Uganda and Burundi) supported Lurent Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (AFDL). The AFDL conquers Zarie within a year and topples the Mobutu government. However critics of Kabila's new government accused it of being Rwandan puppets. So to prevent the criticisms from heating to a coup, Kabila dumps his former backers. His angry ex-backers create uprisings in retaliation for Kabila's betrayal. The resulting war ended in a confusing affair with up to 25 militant groups and 8 national armies, with "friends" fighting "friends" as much as their enemies, violent inter-factional fighting leading to even more rebel groups, and alliances breaking and forming as much as teenage girls change their clothes. The CNDD, LRA, remnant groups of Rwandan Genocide perpetrators like the FDLR, tribal self defense groups, foreign backed rebel groups like various RCD factions, along with others were all involved in the war. The war theoretically ended with the Sun City agreement, but violence still continuities on.

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.

NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

ULIMO-J

ULIMO-J

ULIMO-J

NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

 NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

NPFL

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.