'I'm not afraid to go to jail': crusading Greek journalist

A hunted man: Costas Vaxevanis at the office of his magazine, Hot Doc, in Athens . (John Kolesidis/Reuters)

Greek investigative journalist Costas Vaxevanis has been awarded the 2012 Index on Censorship Journalism Award for publishing the account details of 2,000 suspected tax evaders, the so-called Lagarde List. 

Greece’s society and economy is in tatters despite the billion-dollar bailouts from Europe. Austerity has brought misery to its citizens.

In the midst of all that, Greece’s public prosecutor is going after Vaxevanis for violating privacy data laws. He was acquitted last year on those charges but faces a second trial in June. 

When I interviewed Vaxevanis in Athens last November he expressed no regrets about publishing the list.

Actually, he did have one regret – how little coverage the Lagarde List has received at home. He believes journalists are muzzled because all the major media outlets are owned by a narrow band of business interests. His own case was symptomatic of the state of Greek democracy and journalism, he told me.  

“Instead of chasing (the list) they (journalists) said it was fake,” he said. “How did I get it the list? They questioned the way it was released to the public when it was private. They didn’t question the substance of the allegations.”

When I asked him if he would win his war against the bankers this was his thoughtful response:

"Either the economy will prevail over our politicians or politics will prevail over our economy. The tragedy is those who support the banks say this is how markets operate and when those banks go bankrupt they are bailed out by the state. People say we have to save Europe but that is not just the City of London. It is French culture, German philosophy. It’s the people." 

As for his award, he said in his acceptance speech in London last week that he had been attacked in his home, which was made to look like an attempted burglary. But he was not afraid of going to jail for his beliefs.

“I want to state that if I am going to be convicted I will not appeal but I will ask to be put in jail. I want to be a journalist in a country that is not afraid of the truth,” he said in the speech. 

READ MORE: How Europe’s rich avoid paying their tax bill 

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at The Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

 

Does U.K. press regulation exist?

Lord Leveson and (part of) his report. (Reuters) 

The British media has found itself in a most unusual spot: at the very centre of the story, as the subject, rather than the medium. 

Last year saw the finish of the inquiry headed by Lord Justice Leveson, who examined, in detail, the practices of British newspapers. His work was prompted by the phone hacking scandal, which ultimately saw the tabloid News of the World shuttered, and resulted in the arrests of journalists, with charges laid against some big names in the U.K. press.

Lord Leveson published his report in November, and since then, the British government has been noodling over what to do. This week: a solution, approved by all three major parties in Westminster. It's not simple -- but how could anything which resulted from months of hearings, nearly 200 witnesses, and reams of written statements be simple?

The main proposal is that an independent press regulator, which could impose fines of up to a million pounds and force papers to print prominent apologies, be established. No one would be forced to opt in, but harsher penalties might befall those who didn't. The U.K. newspapers were busy examining the fallout this morning, and the BBC News website has a comprehensive roundup here.

Announcing the plan in the House of Commons on Monday, Prime Minister David Cameron very rightly paid tribute to the extremely courageous people who came forward to tell their stories to Lord Leveson - the families of victims of crime, like Bob and Sally Dowler, who lost their 13-year-old daughter Milly, and then had their lives horribly invaded at a terrible time. Here's the Hansard transcript of Cameron's remarks.

Examining the wrongdoings of some in our profession is absolutely correct. But Cameron also acknowledged "the vast majority of decent, law-abiding journalists, who want to get back to doing their job." 

And to illustrate the good that journalism can do, Cameron quoted another prime minister, Winston Churchill: "A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny."

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a correspondent for the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics. Follow her on Twitter: @JQStar

The quiet prosecution of Bradley Manning

 

                                                                                       
                                                                                            PATRICK SEMANSKY / ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

Private Bradley Manning is not a household name in Canada. Actually, he is not that well-known in the U.S. either - despite the dogged coverage of various activists and journalists. (New York lawyer Chase Madar has also written a book and a grassroots support group, "Save Bradley Manning," has 66,136 Facebook "likes.") 

Manning is the 25-year-old soldier who pleaded guilty Feb. 28 to providing classified government documents to WikiLeaks - a crime that could put him behind bars for 20 years. The most well-known leak was of U.S. soldiers celebrating airborne killings in Baghdad, which claimed the lives of civilians, including Reuters' photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and 40-year-old driver Saeed Chmagh.

He has been heralded by some as our generation's Daniel Ellsberg, who famously leaked the Pentagon Papers concerning the Vietnam War. Ellsberg said as much in a Huffington Post column last week praising Manning. "I believe Bradley Manning is the personification of the word whistleblower," he wrote.

To others, Manning is a troubled soldier and a traitor.

Indeed, a Rorschach test - for those who have heard of him anyway.

The case continues as Manning still faces a June trial for the crime of "aiding the enemy," and, he faces a life sentence if convicted.

Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald wrote recently about the lack of media coverage, noting that the secrecy surrounding the case prohibits even transcripts being released.

NPR's "On The Media" also explored why there has been so little coverage in an interesting discussion with Arun Rath, who reports for PBS Frontline. Rath says if it weren't for the tenacity of three independent journalists -  Alexa O'Brien, Kevin Gosztola and Adam Klasfeld - who have covered the pre-trial hearings at Ft. Meade, Md. there would be even less known about the case. The three are admittedly sympathetic to Manning and therefore the coverage reads more as columns, but as O'Brien notes, she also wears the hat of court reporter, writing transcripts since the U.S. government refuses. Rath addresses this with On The Media host Brooke Gladstone: 

ARUN RATH:  Well, like you said, they don’t pretend to be objective at all. These are people that do believe Bradley Manning is a hero and come from that perspective. But here’s – here’s Alexa’s response to that.

ALEXA O’BRIEN:  I’ve thought about it quite a bit because this question oftentimes comes up, you know, with the sort of pejorative-ness of being an independent journalist. And my response is there's nothing more objective than a transcript.

Now an audio recording of Manning's statement has been leaked and posted by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) (which Greenwald helped found) generating much attention.

Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (also on the FPF board) and Jenny Perlin have turned the recording into a 5-minute film (below), which has so far garnered more than 200,000 YouTube hits.

"For me, it's all a big mess," Manning is heard telling the military court in explaining his reaction when he first saw the Baghdad video, "and I'm left wondering what these things mean, and how it all fits together."

 

 

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

10 years after Iraq invasion Baghdad doctor worries about what lies ahead

Julian Sher first met Dr. Haider Ali in 2007. (Courtesy of Dr. Haider Ali)

 

Today marks the 10th anniversary of  the Iraqi war. The Star's Julian Sher was sent to Baghdad in 2007 on assignment for the New York Times and the CBC, just as the Al Qaeda-inspired insurgency against the Americans and the civil war between Sunnis and Shias was at its worst.

He brings us this report on the anniversary's significance and what in means for Iraq's people:

When I first met Dr. Haider Ali in war-torn Baghdad in the spring of 2007, he told me he wept for his country.

“I always cry,” he said as we sat on a downtown rooftop -- the intermittent sounds of bombs and gunfire below us, the American helicopters constantly swarming above us.

“I see that all these sufferings, all this blood that has been shed, all the victims," he said.

Five years later, I caught up with Dr. Ali via Skype. And while nowadays he has a good job, a beautiful house and young family, he worries that once again his country might plummet into a spiral of religious fanaticism and violence. 

Tuesday , March 19 marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the ill-fated American invasion of Iraq to topple the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

I was sent to Baghdad in 2007 on assignment for the New York Times and the CBC, just as the Al Qaeda-inspired insurgency against the Americans and the civil war between Sunnis and Shias was at its worst.

Ali at the time told me about the “state of hopelessness” in which he lived: the targeted assassinations of doctors, the booby-trapped heads of almost-dead civilians wired to explode and the killing of anyone who came to save them. The ethnic cleansing of neighbourhoods.

A secular Shia who hated religious extremism on both sides, Ali said he wanted to flee his disintegrating homeland, perhaps to Canada. 

But then things began to change dramatically. 

Not so much because of the much-vaunted “surge” of American troops in 2007 but because of the creation of  “Awakening Councils” – in essence, the successful attempt by the U.S. military to pay young Sunni men to fight Al Qaeda instead of Americans. 

“They paid them to change sides and there was more than a 90 per cent improvement,” Ali says. “Everything ended – we didn’t hear bombings or bullets for a long time. I changed my mind about leaving the country.”

He finished his studies and got a well-paying job as a neurologist at the Neurosurgical Teaching Hospital of Baghdad. He married a fellow doctor and they started a family.

Today they live with their two young children in an upscale neighbourhood in the city.  They make enough money to buy a new car every year and Ali tours the world attending international medical conferences. 

“It was a real exciting journey for me during all this time,” he says. “I lived all the last five years in Baghdad and witnessed all the ups and downs of everyday life here.”

I ask him if he feels the American invasion and the bloody years that followed were worth it. 

“Each Iraqi has a different view of this question,” he begins slowly, acknowledging that many who lost loved ones and family might disagree with him.

“After all that happened, we have a real democracy. For myself, yes it was worth it,” he says. “I don’t want to look naïve: They came here to serve their best interests. My best interests weren’t their priority. But we both benefited from the fall of the regime.” 

Carefully, he sums up his feelings this way: “I feel grateful for the Americans that they toppled Saddam Hussein. But I also feel angry because of the bad blunders that they committed -- mistakes in ruling the country and treating the people. They could have made a much better Iraq.”

And now that much better Iraq is once again teetering on the edge.

In recent months, new signs of fighting – and fear – have returned to haunt Ali and his country. 

Sectarian struggles have escalated between Sunni and Shia political leaders. Tariq al-Hashemi, a dapper, well-spoken man who I met when he was the highest-ranking Sunni at Iraq’s vice president, has fled the country to avoid arrest and the death penalty for what he says are murder charges trumped up by the Shia-dominated government.

Amnesty International last week reported that while many Iraqis enjoy greater freedom after Saddam’s fall, the country is still trapped in a “grim cycle of human rights abuses, including attacks on civilians, torture of detainees and unfair trials.” 

 Most worryingly, in recent weeks there has been a renewed wave of bombings and attacks that have killed more than 100 people.

 Ali says there are signs Al Qaeda is returning. “They were brazen enough to make some ugly appearances,” he says.

He watched YouTube videos and Iraqi TV reports that showed demonstrations of several thousand people marching in the city of Fallujah and other towns in Anbar province, the nexus of some of the worst fighting during the Iraq war.

“They were chanting their fearful chants,” says the doctor, “threatening to cut off heads and slit throats just like they used to.”

So now, five years after we sat on that rooftop amidst the bombs and bloodshed, he once again ponders fleeing his country if this wave of violence continues to escalate.

“I am scared for my kids,” Ali explains. “I’m afraid if everything went wrong, I don’t want them to go through the same miserable conditions we went through.”

So far his neighbourhood and indeed most of Baghdad remain quiet. But the doctor recalls how one of his friends who lives in a Shia neighbourhood was told by one militant that “the Baghdad battle is coming closer.”

‘I got the goosebumps when I heard that,” says Ali. “Are we heading back to the nightmare?” 

That nightmare got closer today.

According the Associated Press, a wave of bombings struck Baghdad Tuesday morning, leaving at least 56 dead and more than 200 wounded. 

 

Julian Sher is a journalist with the Star’s Enterprise Reporting Team and has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He can reached at jsher@thestar.ca and on Twitter @juliansher.

Kenya's foreign press pariahs and zombie scribes

 

The of Kenya's largest newspaper March 4, 2013. (Michelle Shephard/Toronto Star)

 "Any journalist worth their salt should start feeling itchy when praised by those in authority," writes author and journalist Michela Wrong in an excellent blog about reporting Kenya's election last week. 

Wrong, who has covered Africa for nearly two decades, laments both the backlash against foreign scribes, as well as the malaise of the local press - whom she greatly admires - but says it was transformed for the elections into a "zombie army."

To step back, some history:

In the last election five years ago, various media outlets were blamed for stoking the violence that followed the contested vote and resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200. Joshua arap Sang, the owner of radio station Kass FM, has been indicted by The Hague's International Criminal Court for allegedly airing hate speech to incite ethinc tensions.

Kenya's government spokesperson was none too subtle in his warnings to the media in the lead up to the March 4th vote. "We will set you on fire before you set us on fire," Muthui Kariuki told a gathering of international press in January.

Foreign journalists carried on, but what turned Kenya's normally fiesty local media into what Wrong calls the "zombie army," was a code of unprecedented restraint. Kenya's Media Owners Association told The Associated Press' Jason Straziuso that there was "gentleman's agreement" among media bosses to not air any political statements live, or publish "inflammatory statements."

It is understandable, or even as Straziuso calls it, "a noble goal," given how desperate everyone was to avoid the horrors of five years ago.

But did the self-censorship go too far and what does that mean for the future of Kenya's journalism?

There were some insightful columns, but the live television coverage, was bizarre to watch: a 24-hour live scroll of vote tallies set to an excrutiating superhero soundtrack that looped over and over and over again, broken only by equally numbing roundtable discussions where analysts spoke in hypotheticals.

Was this what election and government officials praised (which as Wrong says, should make them get a little itchy, especially since the election did not go as smoothly as many Kenyans may have believed)?

Political analyst, Ken Opalo told The Independent's Daniel Howden that he believed the self censorship went "too far," while the Committee to Protect Journalists' Tom Rhodes reported that not all local journalists were happy with the gentleman's agreement, but frustrated by "editors who cull(ed) their stories in the name of maintaining peace."

It's no wonder in contrast the foreign press appeared as dangerous naysayers, accused of hyping the threat with a-need-to-feed-journalism-speed. There were some examples of questionable reports, but it was "foreign press" in general that was targetted. On Thursday, the information ministry warned that foreign journalists would be prosecuted or deported if they did not have proper work permits.

Intimidation of the foreign press hurts all media in Kenya - and is especially tragic when the local press has fought so hard for the independence they normally enjoy.

Wrong and others are also asking if the self-censorship impacted the election itself? Without fullsome coverage - including allegations of vote rigging that prompted the running mate of presidential candidate Raila Odinga to call for a recount - were Kenyans may have been lulled into a sense of security through distorted facts ... and a superhero soundtrack?

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

 

 

Somalia's International Women's Day of celebration and dismay

 

Dadaab Refugee Camp, 2008. LUCAS OLENIUK / TORONTO STAR

 

First, the good news on International Women's Day in Somalia.

There is much to celebrate right now and much of that is thanks to the sheer determination of Somali women. One of the country's most famous over the years has been "Mama Hawa," a 65-year-old obstetrician, gynecologist and lawyer, who along with her daughters have created a safe oasis inside Somalia for women and thousands of others displaced after two decades of fighting.

Many Canadian women are the forefront as well, including Toronto's Fartuun Adan, the executive director of the Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre, whose husband was assassinated in 1996 by warlords for his peace activism. Adan received the well-deserved U.S. State Department's International Women of Courage Award this week. Today, she will meet Michelle Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington.  

A whole new generation of women leaders are emerging.

Sadly though another story continues, and is dominating headlines. Twenty-seven-year old Lul Ali Osman Barake has gone public with her story of rape and the travesty that followed. She says she was not only gang raped by uniformed men but when she reported the crime to police and a local journalist, she was put in jail and sentenced to a year. As the Guardian's David Smith writes in his exclusive interview with Barake, "she has been raped twice: first by a gang of men in military fatigues, then by the judicial system in what is meant to be a liberated Somalia."

Through a Somali interpreter, this is what she told Smith:

"It was on 14 August, she said, that she woke up feeling unwell at her home constructed from sticks, plastic and metal sheets in one of the camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) that still scar the Somali capital. She went to a food distribution point and was approached by five men in uniform.

"They stopped me, slapped me and blindfolded me," Barake said.

"One took my hand and I had to follow them inside an empty school. I said I'm an IDP, I'm getting food to eat, what do you want with me?

"They said nothing. They were angry and they took me.

"They raped me, one after another, with four standing guard. When all five had finished, I said please allow me to leave, I'm breastfeeding a baby and need to get home. They allowed me to go. After I left the area I fell three or four times. Whenever I walked for 10 metres, I had to sit and rest."

She asked that her real name be used in the interview.

The case brings back memories from 2008 when along with photographer Lucas Oleniuk we tracked down the story of a 13-year-old Somali girl who was stoned to death for "adultry" after allegedly reporting a rape. That was a time when Somalia was at it's worst in recent history. Now it's is supposed to be at it's best.

The verdict against Barake of "defaming a government body and making false accusations" was thankfully overturned earlier this week. "The court has recognized the lady was the real victim," the judge said according to Smith, who added that Barake was present at the hearing with her seven-month-old baby.

And yet a sentence was upheld against the freelance journalist, Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, who interviewed her. As Human Rights Watch notes, the conviction itself is unclear. Al Jazeera reported one of his charges was "making a false interview, and entering the house of a woman whose husband was not present." Ibrahim was reportedly researching a story on sexual violence and his reports had not yet been published or aired. His sentence of six months was upheld.

There have been so many brave Somali journalists who have lost their lives in the two-decades of fighting, including the Canadian co-founder of HornAfrik (and friend) Ali Sharmarke. There have been so many women who have kept their families alive through years of war and under the hardships of the misogynist rule of Al Qaeda's East African proxy, Al Shabab. 

To have women's rights, along with press freedom, challenged now in a time of newfound peace is not the International Women's Day many Somalis had hoped to celebrate.

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

 

Kenya's election watch and wait ... but don't say worry

A deputy presiding officer takes a much-needed break March 4, 2013 after election polls closed in Kibera, Kenya's largest slum. MICHELLE SHEPHARD / TORONTO STAR

 

Matatus, the overcrowded minibuses that normally clog Nairobi's streets, are parked along the side of the roads. Drivers who venture out in their own cars are giddy with the freedom of actually driving, rather than sitting stuck in the capital's ubiquitous traffic. Schools are closed. The few grocery stores that are open are low on stock.

Along Ngong Road that leads out of the city, car lots remain empty. Owners removed the pricey Land Rovers the weekend before Monday's election, just in case looters rampaged again as they did five years ago in disatrous post-election violence that killed more than 1,200.

This is the unusual calm here in the capital as Kenyans wait for results of the crucial presidential election and the world waits to see what happens once a decision is announced. But don't wonder if it's the "calm before the storm" because stories hyping the threat (or clichés for that matter) are really getting on people's nerves. 

Monday was a remarkable exercise in patience. It is difficult to imagine many other countries where voters would wait in single-file lines for as long as 12 hours, wordlessly enduring the sweltering heat, to cast their ballots. It is estimated that turnout was at least 70% of the country's more than 14 million registered voters.

But if Monday was about patience, and Tuesday, a day of recovery and reflection, then Wednesday represented frustration, if only because people are eager to get on with life and back to business. 

The delay is largely because the electronic system used to count the votes broke down Tuesday. That means returning officers now have to physically deliver paper copies here to Nairobi. It's a big country, and many polling stations are very remote.

By midday Wednesday, only 53 of the 290 constituencies had arrived.

Time fuels suspicion, which officials are going to great lengths to dispute, as it was cries of corruption and a rigged vote five years ago that sparked the violence.

 Under the new constitution Kenya passed in 2010, electoral officials have seven days to tally the results. There is hope it will not take that long.

 

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Bad news for journalists worldwide

In this photo taken and released by a protester, a local university student, a supporter of the Southern Weekly, raises an edition of the newspaper during a protest outside the Southern Weekly headquarters in Guangzhou, China, Jan. 10. (AP Photo)

“Journalists aren’t the story” is one of the unwritten rules of journalism. So it’s not entirely surprising that one of the bigger journalism stories of this year was widely ignored by the media.

It’s a report from New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, released earlier this month. And it concluded that not only is there a “deteriorating environment” for press freedom – but the number of journos behind bars reached a record high in the past year, mainly because of “terrorism and other anti-state charges” thrown at them by governments using anti-terrorism laws.

The committee said that 232 journalists were jailed for their work in 2012, an increase of 53 since 2011. Seventy journalists also lost their lives in the line of duty in 2012, a 43 per cent increase from 2011.

Large numbers of journalists were detained in Ethiopia, Turkey, Vietnam, Syria and Iran – the latter launching an apparent sweep of media in advance of a contentious election. Restrictive laws silenced dissent in Ecuador, Turkey and Russia. And there were high murder rates and “entrenched impunity” in Pakistan, Somalia and Brazil, not to mention Syria, where journalists are targeted as well as caught in the crossfire of a spiraling civil war.

But in fact, journalists are increasingly fair game since the rise of social media, as militants and repressive governments dispense with the niceties of answering embarrassing questions, and take their rants directly to their audiences through the Internet. They can also hack into journalists electronic equipment, virtually reading – and intercepting -- their thoughts. And they have ways and means of censoring information at the source, as well as tracking those who are criticizing them.

Not that the West should be smug.

In Canada, a damning report from the Centre for Law and Democracy showed that Ottawa’s record for complying with freedom of information laws had skidded to 55th of 93 countries rated. (Former Soviet ally Mongolia did better).

And our neighbours to the south?

The liberal-labelled Obama administration’s National Defense Authorization Act was draconian in its scope – allowing for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens by the military, and the possibility that “journalists, activists and citizens could lose their liberty, potentially forever” if they interview anyone classed as a terrorist by the government. A challenge mounted by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges and others got the law struck down. At least, pending a rapidly-launched government appeal.

Meanwhile, according to media campaigner Josh Stearns of the American advocacy group Free Press, more than 90 journalists were arrested throughout the U.S. while covering Occupy protests and civil unrest from Sept. 2011 to Sept. 2012.

The 21st century journalist’s CV is expanding: degree, work experience, police record.

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights as a correspondent and bureau chief from the former Soviet Union to the Balkans, Northern Ireland, the Middle East and South Asia. She has won both national and international awards, collaborated on two Emmy-winning films and is one of the few journalists to have a war requiem written to her work.
 


  

How to avoid becoming a drone target: Al Qaeda’s 22 tips

Tip 18 is most entertaining to imagine: "Formation of fake gatherings such as using dolls and statutes to be placed outside false ditches to mislead the enemy."

Al Qaeda . . . setting up a tea party for their dolls in the desert . . .  as drones buzz overhead. Thanks to documents found by fleeing militants in Timbuktu, we now know that Al Qaeda had 22 helpful hints like this on how to avoid becoming a drone target. 

Not all involved teddy bears and Raggedy Ann, as Associated Press journalist Rukmini Callimachi explains from Timbuktu. Islamic militants reportedly bought bundles of $1.40 grass-woven mats to cover their cars as they fled the ancient city, she writes. Guess glass was harder to come by as Tip 3 recommends: "Spreading the reflective pieces of glass on a car or on the roof of the building."

Of course nothing about Mali's conflict or the controversial drone issue is funny. But the tip sheet, apparently left behind in the hasty retreat last month from the French military intervention, does provide some fodder for Terrorism's Theatre of the Absurd.

Recall the salacious details that trickled out selectively after Osama bin Laden was killed - the most feared man in the world was in fact a vainglorious sissy who dyed his beard, downloaded porno and watched reruns of himself while wrapped in a ratty blanket, like a former football star reliving a playoff touchdown.

Or the Somali-based jihadi, Alabama-born Omar Hammami, who sometimes tweets like a 13-year-old girl and confesses to missing Tim Hortons. On Friday, Danger Room's Spencer Ackerman wrote about rumours that Hammami, known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki (the American), plagerized his jihadi raps. Yes, he's a "rapper."

Counterterrorism analysts and journalists (mea culpa) had a field day with Inspire Magazine, the English magazine of Yemen's Al Qaeda branch until a drone attack killed its American Editorial Board. The terrorist's Cosmopolitan provided environmental tips from bin Laden and "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom," by Al Qaeda's "chef."

Too glib? Perhaps. But there's a growing school of thought in the counterterrorism field that one of the ways to fight Al Qaeda's narrative and appeal is to ridicule the movement. No one has done this better than Chris Morris in his dark, dark comedy, Four Lions (trailer below). Sadly, there may be a real life "Four Lions gang" according to reports of this Birmingham case: http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/21/birmingham-terror-plot-the-shambolic-planning-of-the-four-lions-gang-3509308/

 

 

Drones, Al Qaeda's counterintelligence methods and the ongoing conflict in Mali are not amusing. Jihadi Raggedy Andy is. 

 

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

 

Nigeria's Ansaru

"Al Qaeda" is often used as terrorism shorthand to describe a variety of groups operating throughout Africa - some with direct ties to the organization and its leaders, others that support the group's ideology but operate independently.

Each organization is unique, and sometimes understanding the differences between the groups are as important as understanding the links.

The newest player thrust into the international press this week is Ansaru, a splinter group of the Nigeria-based organization, Boko Haram.

The little-known group claimed responsibility for the abduction of seven foreigners in Nigeria Sunday. They may also have been involved in a separate kidnapping Tuesday, in Cameroon near Nigeria's border, although there are more rumours than facts at this point. Reuters reported Thursday that French, Nigerian and Cameroonian officials denied French media reports that the seven seized family members had already been freed.

For an in-depth look at the distinctions between Boko Haram, Ansaru and Mali's Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), follow analyst Andrew Lebovich's blog, al Wasat. Jacob Zenn also writes of the groups in the January edition of West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's publication, Sentinel.

Stratfor Global Intelligence notes in their assessment about Ansaru's rise that the groups "appears to have surpassed Boko Haram in its range of tactics and targets."

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm