Mali's doggone tale of a pup named Kerouac

                                                                                                                      BBC Photo

 

Click. This is one of those stories you don't mean to read because you're searching for something else, but you see the headline, and then suddenly you're at the end and smiling.

Journalist Alex Duval Smith is in Bamako, the capital of Mali, and has been writing on the conflict both in Mali and neighbouring countries, including the wartorn and often overlooked Central African Republic, where as he wrote in a Guardian piece last week about the "seeds of genocide" that may be sown.

And, he has also found time to write a piece for the BBC about the lost-and-found dog, Kerouac. "The runaway mutt, Kerouac, is not even mine. He came into my life - and ran out of it - two months ago. He and his French owner, Stephane, had parked their camper in my street for a week," he writes. "Despite the risk of kidnapping by al-Qaeda, there is still a breed of traveller that defies warnings by various governments to churn through this region in old lorries."

The dog ran off with a pack of hounds. Stephane left Mali in tears. But the cat dog came back. (Nine lives? Aren't there any good dog sayings?) Alex, became the new owner of the "bumptious slobber pot."

Ah, won't give away anymore. Just take a break. Give it a read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25777312

 

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

NSA: Spying on the spy

 

#Protip for former National Security Agency boss Michael Hayden: Lower your voice on the train.

Tom Matzzie, a political strategist and former Washington director of MoveOn.org, was catapulted to Twitter stardom Thursday night for his 140-character reports on Hayden. Matzzie was sitting three seats away on an Acela express train when he started overhearing phrases such as "black sites" and CIA. He wrote that Hayden was talking to journalists "on background" and asking them to quote him not by name, but as a "former senior administration official." 

 

Matzzie later wrote that someone called Hayden on the phone (wonder how that conversation went, "Uh, Mike, your old pals at NSA here. Yeah, could you, like, stop talking to reporters on the train.") Hayden then approached Matzzie, posed for a photo and engaged him a conversation about the 4th Amendment about unreasonable search and seizure.

 

Doesn't sound like Matzzie got much sleep Thursday night, fielding interview requests. Love the ending of this New York Magazine Q&A:

Are you paranoid right now? Did you go home and clear your search history?
No. Email login didn't work for a minute.  But that was just ALL CAPS.

Are you a hero or a traitor?
Is that really a question?

(No.)

The New York Times picked up the story too.  "I cannot recall a single disparaging comment I made about the administration," Hayden told the Times, disputing Mr. Matzzie’s post. "I wasn’t saying anything sensitive or classified. These were just routine conversations. I can’t believe you guys are making such a big deal out of this."

Guess having personal phone calls monitored feels a bit intrusive...

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

Average Canadian ambassador has 306 Twitter followers, lagging rivals: Study

When it comes to the battle for hearts and minds in cyberspace, Canada is idle on the sidelines.

That's the conclusion of a new report by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute which criticizes the Conservative government for handcuffing its diplomats abroad.

Stephen Harper's government's "centralized control of public communications makes it virtually impossible for Canadian diplomats to engage in real-time substantive exchanges, which is the currency of the medium," the CDFAI report says. "Unless (Canada's foreign affairs ministry) joins its American and British counterparts in embracing new channels and methods of diplomacy, Canada's voice will progressively fade in international affairs."

It's a warning that sounds so familiar.

Last year, former Canadian ambassador to Germany Paul Dubois shared with me how he was en route to an interview in 2008 with a large public broadcaster, excited over the chance to tout Canada’s vibrant economy and societal values to a huge radio audience.

As he navigated the streets of Berlin, Dubois received an urgent email from Ottawa. The Prime Minister’s Office had ordered him to cancel. No explanation was offered.

“Hell, we’re doing this interview,” said Dubois, who led the Canadian mission in Germany from 2004 until 2008. He instructed his driver to proceed to the radio station.

"It’s ridiculous,” Dubois told me over the phone from France. “Most ambassadors cave in and just says no to speaking invitations now. It’s insulting to have to check your speeches with some 23-year-old kid in the PMO. As a result, fewer people around the world know about Canada and Canadian values. Public engagement is so important.”

Dubois said he was free to book his own speaking engagements before Harper's election.

And as ambassadors are being handcuffed from public speaking, so, too, are they shying away from a public presence on the Internet.

As many as 39 U.S. ambassadors and 73 British ones are operating accounts in their own name on Twitter, Facebook or a blog, according to the CDFAI. Yet only four Canadian ambassadors do. (John Barrett in Austria; Michael Grant in Libya; Arif Lalani in the U.A.E.; and James Lambert in Holland.)

Consider the number of followers of the average Canadian ambassador: 304. (The average Twitter user has 208 followers, according to Beevolve.com)

That pales next to the average U.S. ambassador, who has 16,332 followers. The average U.K. ambassador has 1,802.

It's the same sad story when it comes to the number of followers of the official Canadian embassy, compared to the U.S. and U.K.

There are potential risks, certainly, to giving diplomats more freedom to speak at their discretion.

The report notes that in September 2012, amid a wave of controversy caused by the spread of an anti-Muslim video that was made by a U.S.-based group, the U.S. embassy in Cairo tweeted a message condemning efforts of some to "hurt the religious feelings of Muslims." The message was criticized by many in the U.S. who believe the message failed to stand up for free speech. The White House announced the tweet "was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States government," the report says.

Seven months later, in April 2013, the U.S. embassy in Cairo again sent out a controversial tweet, this time linking to a video that featured comedian Jon Stewart mocking the Egyptian government's arrest of a local satirist. The American ambassador later issued a formal apology.

Still, CDFAI notes that Canada should be an Internet leader, thanks to its educated, multiethnic, polygot population, talented diplomatic corps, and cutting edge computer technology.

Canada has had a few laudable achievements. It has made inroads in China, thanks to its active engagement on Weibo, a social media forum. (Although CDFAI notes the Beijing embassy did not seek or obtain authorization from Ottawa before setting up the account.)

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

 

Terrorism, expense forms and other bothers

(Courtesy Reuters)

Who doesn't hate expense forms? All that accountability and trying to read ripped and faded receipts from places you can't remember and oh, the currency exchange? Nightmare, right?

Apparently, international terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, the one-eyed Algerian leader nicknamed "Mr. Marlboro" for his cigarette smuggling business, felt the same way. 

Rukmini Callimachi, the West Africa Bureau Chief for The Associated Press, found a 10-page letter in a Timbuktu building once occupied by members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and wrote this amazing tale about Belomoktar.

It begins:

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — After years of trying to discipline him, the leaders of Al Qaeda's North African branch sent one final letter to their most difficult employee. In page after scathing page, they described how he didn't answer his phone when they called, failed to turn in his expense reports, ignored meetings and refused time and again to carry out orders.

Most of all, they claimed he had failed to carry out a single spectacular operation, despite the resources at his disposal.

The employee, international terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, responded the way talented employees with bruised egos have in corporations the world over: He quit and formed his own competing group. And within months, he carried out two lethal operations that killed 101 people in all: one of the largest hostage-takings in history at a BP-operated gas plant in Algeria in January, and simultaneous bombings at a military base and a French uranium mine in Niger just last week.

Beyond the fact that apparently AQIM has expense forms, there is some good intelligence in the document, such as the discussion about ransom for kidnapped Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay.

When the pair was released by AQIM in 2009, after four months of captivity, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper denied any ransom was paid. Fowler has always said he doesn't know. But the document obtained by The AP claims nearly $1 million was handed over -- a "meagre" sum that Belmoktar negotiated himself. 

In general, the document confirms the importance of the group's kidnapping operations -- approximately $89 million it states. It also explains why Belmoktar broke off relations with AQIM to form his own group, which reportedly led the January attack against an Algerian gas oil facility, with the help of two Canadians.

But let's face it.. it's the expense forms that are most talked about. It's like a perverse US Weekly magazine feature of "Stars Are Just Like Us." (Just in: Pregnant Reese Witherspoon had a tough time balancing her cell phone and grocery store purchases - Ciao Bella gelato squares and Palapa Azul fruit bars. She shops! She has babies! She eats fruit bars!). 

But maybe understanding this strange normalcy of the "corporate" side of the terrorist group is important too. We've had other glimpses into Al Qaeda's operations (and in-fighting) in the documents uncovered in Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, or discovered when the former leader of Al Qaeda in East Africa was killed in Somalia.

We know the group and its franchises have grappled with branding issues and there are even reports that they've had to adhere to the sex sells adage by trying to recruit on porn sites.

Getting inside the group -- even the business side -- may help counter its operations.

So beyond the ridicule, knowing that AQIM has some form of accounting department could help, in, uh, downsizing.

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 Omar Hammami: Life, death, Jodi Arias and Biebs

Tracking the life and death of American rapper-wannabe-turned-jihadist Omar Hammami, aka: Abu Amriki, is to national security types, what the Jodi Arias trial is to a reality-television-obsessed public (thanks to friend and Star colleague Jennifer Quinn you can figure out who Arias is here and here.

Last year Hammami released his memoir where he waxed nostalgic about his love of Tim Hortons and his year living in Toronto. In March, the U.S. issued a $5 million bounty for his capture which made you wonder how Western forces couldn't find a guy who tweets about as much as Justin Bieber (just FYI, on May 9th at 7:30 a.m., Biebs wrote: "Gonna go on a walk." It was retweeted 29,805 times and counting. Hammami, who goes by @abumamerican on Twitter has only 2,900 "followers").

Spencer Ackermann wrote a great profile where Hammami talks about his very public split with some of Somalia's Al Shabab leaders. Hammami has been chatting on Twitter with various national security analysts, both publicly and privately, describing the inner workings of the group and at one point offering details about the death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Osama bin Laden's top leader in East Africa. (His account seemed to confirm what security sources told the Star in 2012.)

He had been privately writing the Star too, describing how he knew Canadian university student Mahad Dhore, who reportedly led a team of suicide bombers in Mogadishu last month. 

On April 25, he live tweeted what he claimed was an assassination attempt and then posted the photo (above) of a bullet wound in his neck.

Now his Twitter feed has gone silent and there are unconfirmed reports that he was killed by other Shabab members. Fuad Shangole reportedly announced his death, although the claim has since been disputed (Star readers will recall Shangole as one of Ismail Khalif Abdulle's captors. Ismail was the teenager whose hand and foot were amputated because he wouldn't join the Shabab. He is now living in Norway thanks to the efforts of concerned readers).

Some analysts with time to kill apparently (sorry Clint) have gone to extraordinary lengths to try to get at the truth by analyzing the veracity of the tweets about his death.

It has seemed for awhile now that Hammami is living on borrowed time - hunted not just by Somali and Western forces but also by those he once considered allies. One thing is certain. If Hammami is indeed still alive, he's sure to tell us soon enough.

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

 

Guantanamo's flights cancelled as hunger strike grows

Sunset at Guantanamo's Camp Delta Oct. 24, 2010. (MICHELLE SHEPHARD / TORONTO STAR)
 

The journey to Gitmo, as the notorious U.S. detention centre on Cuba's southeast shore is known, is not easy. There are two ways to go once attaining Pentagon clearance. Either you fly from Maryland's Andrews Air Force Base, on a weekly chartered military flight, which costs the U.S. government about $90,000 per wheels up. Or, take a small charter flight out of Fort Lauderdale. Having done both, the flexibility and frequency of flights for the Florida option is much preferable.

For the lawyers of the 166 remaining detainees who take repeated trips, those charter flights are crucial - as the Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg explains in a recent article:

"The small shuttles that carry about 20 passengers had been a vital air bridge to Guantánamo, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court gave attorneys access to the prisoners in August 2004. The flight also served as a gateway for journalists, entertainers, business executives and contractors who streamed to the base in the years following the establishment of the prison camps in January 2002."

Well, apparently those flights are now cancelled due to a rather odd edict from Guantanamo's Navy Commander. Odd, because as Rosenberg reports, he is "invoking a federal regulation that the Pentagon has apprently waived for years."

Apparently, Federal Regulation 32CFR766 prohibits regular passenger service by a commercial operator. Apparently, no one has noticed in the more than two decades that those flights have been flying to the U.S. Navy base.

With more than two dozen prisoners now on a hunger strike, the timing of this decision is of particular concern to detainee lawyers - who have longed complained that logistical woes and Pentagon classification restrictions have already made their jobs virtually impossible.

According to CNN, a statement from lawyers representing an Afghan detainee named Obaydullah (who they say has already lost 30 pounds in the hunger strike) says the two issues are connected and accuses the military of trying to cover up the protest. "Though the military has started acknowledging that more prisoners are striking, we are being denied the ability to meet with them and see the true extent of what's happening there," the statement reads.

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 recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/17/3291679/navy-ruling-ends-commercial-flights.html#storylink=cpy

$5 million bounty for American-Tim Hortons-loving-jihadi

 

The U.S. State Department's "Rewards for Justice" program has added two Americans and $10 million in bounties to the list of wanted Al Shabab suspects (first reported by CNN's Elise Labott Wednesday).

Somalia's Al Qaeda group has diminished in membership and power in the last two years, but a suicide bombing in Mogadishu this week that killed at least 10 civilians, was a devastating reminder that the Shabab still has active members who can reach the capital.   

Omar Shafik Hammami and Jehad Serwan Mostafa both reportedly left the U.S. for Somalia in 2006, when a group called the Islamic Courts Union had briefly taken control of Mogadishu. According to the State Department: "Both are wanted for conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which includes their significant contributions to al Shabaab’s media and military activities."

The timing of the bounties is curious. Labott quotes an unnamed FBI source stating that the two "had a persistent interest in targeting U.S. interests." But it appears it is not an imminent threat but that the reward is based "on actions (Hammami) has already taken." Hammami is generally not regarded as leader in the group - especially since his very public fallout with the Shabab last year.

Millions in bounties for the Shabab leadership was first offered in June - the greatest reward of $7 million (U.S). for Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamed Godane, the group's leader, who also goes by the name Mukhtar Abu Zubair. The elusive and influential Ibrahim Haji Jama, also known as Ibrahim al-Afghani (a nickname because of his training in Afghanistan), was also listed.

But it was the Shabab leaders who were not listed that was most intriguing - and the widely-held theory among analysts was that the bounties were less about the bounties themselves and more about the U.S. trying to further divide the leadership. At the time, there was a split between members who believed in Al Qaeda's global aspirations and those who were more Somalia-focused. There were also an effort by the government to get certain leaders to defect. As always in Somalia, clan played a role too.

So why now for the two Americans?

Hamammi is the better known of the two. He is a difficult character to take seriously - an Alabama-born "rapper," with a taste for Tim Hortons, who waxes poetically in the tortured language of jihadists.

Most analysts, counterterrorism experts and journalists are fans of dark comedy (mea culpa), thus his story has been widely covered. He seems to consume it all.

Last Friday, he apparently read a blog I wrote about the latest act in Terrorism's Theatre of the Absurd,  mentioning his Twitter feed (although there has been some doubt as to whether it is really him). The blog stated: "Lately, his tweets have been about as exciting - and frequent - as the teenager who wants to tell you about the bagel she had at lunch, or when she's off for a mani-pedi."

He responded the next day on Twitter: "bagel? Canadian feminist humor?"

Then again Wednesday "he" - if @abumamerican is indeed Hammami - was busy again, responding to various national security and foreign policy Twitter types. He seemed eager to compete in Twitter Fight Club (#TFC13.. think, like, nerd online Olympics).

This was his last tweet before the bounty was announced:

 

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

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

 

A sad update from Palau

                                                                                                                                                   Facebook Photo

 

Akram was one of those little boys who never seemed to cry. He fell down. He got up. He giggled. He watched you with wide eyes. He giggled. If you actually tried to make him laugh, the giggles ran together and ended in hiccups. His laugh was contagious.

Akram Abdulrahman, 22-months-old, died late Friday on the Pacific island of Palau in the hospital where he had been surviving only with the help of life support. He had never regained consciousness since falling off a balcony a few days earlier. He had pulled a chair quickly and quietly to the edge to peer over to see what one of his uncles was doing down below. The trauma to his head was too great. Nothing could be done. Many tried.

News of his death will spread quickly in Palau - not just because news always travels quickly on the island of 20,000 - but also because Akram is the son of one of the island's most famous residents, Abdulghappar Abdulrahman, one of six former Guantanamo detainees given refuge there four years ago.

Abdulrahman is Uighur, a Muslim ethnic minority persecuted in China. Twenty-two Uighur men were caught in the post-9/11 dragnet and endured years of detention even though the courts declared their incarceration illegal. Palau was one of the few nations willing to help the U.S. find homes for the men and in doing so, accept China's wrath.

Palau was supposed to be temporary - it's not an easy life there for them. Yet, it is there five of them remain, each other's family, as they build their own. (One of the men managed to flee to Turkey to join his wife and child.)

Abdulrahman's wife came to join him a few years ago. They were doting parents to Akram - theirs was a house of happiness despite Abdulrahman's sadness.

Three weeks before Akram died, the couple welcomed their second son, a birth overwhelmed now by such tragedy. Akram died on his father's 40th birthday.

Ahmad Abdulahad, one of Akram's "uncles" wrote an email on behalf of Akram's parents, thanking everyone for the concern.

Our hearts are breaking, he wrote.

"We are very sad."

 

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 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