Written By Unknown on Selasa, 20 Januari 2015 | 10.52
The following is an excerpt from Mohamedou Ould Slahi's newly released Guantanamo Diary.
"Stop the f*** praying! You're having sex with American [redacted] and you're praying? What a hypocrite you are!" said [redacted] angrily, entering the room.
I refused to stop speaking my prayers, and after that, I was forbidden to perform my ritual prayers for about one year to come.
I also was forbidden to fast during the sacred month of Ramadan October 2003, and fed by force.
During this session I also refused to eat or to drink, although they offered me water every once in a while.
"We must give you food and water; if you don't eat it's fine."
They also offered me the nastiest MRE (meal ready to eat) they had in the camp. We detainees knew that [redacted] gathered Intels about what food a detainee likes or dislikes, when he prays, and many other things that are just ridiculous.
I was just wishing to pass out so I didn't have to suffer, and that was really the main reason for my hunger strike; I knew people like these don't get impressed by hunger strikes. Of course they didn't want me to die, but they understand there are many steps before one dies.
"You're not gonna die, we're gonna feed you up your a**," said [redacted].
A diary written by a Guantanamo Bay prisoner has been published, revealing the mistreatment inflicted on inmates at the high-security jail.
It is remarkable that Mohamedou Ould Slahi managed to write his memoirs at all – and even more remarkable that the world is getting to read of his experiences.
Everything written by "gitmo" inmates is impounded as an official secret by the US Government.
The litany of mistreatment and "torture" Mr Slahi experienced at the hands of American authorities is both shocking and appalling, as you can see from this extract.
Most remarkable of all is how Mr Slahi is still in prison in Guantanamo, illegally and without charge, after 13 years in US custody – 12 of them within the detention camp.
He was born in Mauritania, West Africa, 35 years ago. At the age of 18, he won a scholarship to study electrical engineering in Germany.
As a young man, he spent a year or so in Afghanistan with the mujahideen, who were allies of the US at the time, fighting against the Soviet invasion.
He pledged his allegiance to al Qaeda in 1991 but claims he cut all ties with the group when he left a year later. The US insisted he had acted as a recruiter and supporter for the organisation in the years since then.
In 1992, he returned to Germany – subsequently working there, in Canada, and Mauritania. Following 9/11, he turned himself in to the Mauritanian authorities at their request.
The US authorities subjected him to rendition in Jordan, then, after the Jordanians found no case to answer, to Bagram military base in Afghanistan.
In August 2002, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay and has been held there since.
While there, he underwent torture by sleep deprivation, freezing, isolation and diet manipulation, as well as physical and psychological humiliation. These experiences are described in his diary, and have been subsequently verified in declassified documents released to US investigators.
The diary was written in 2005, and it has taken a decade of legal battles to bring it to publication now.
In 2007, the FBI, CIA and military intelligence conceded they could not link Mr Slahi to acts of terrorism.
And while a US District Court judge ordered his release in 2010, he is still imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay with no obvious prospect of freedom.
Before his election in 2008, President Barack Obama pledged to shut down the prison camp but has failed to do so. Around 200 inmates are still detained there.
Even with the blacked out lines redacted by the authorities, Guantanamo Diary is a vivid and moving personal testimony.
Mr Slahi is still bearing witness to what many regard as one of the most shameful and evil chapters of US history.
This true-life account is, as the writer John le Carré puts it in his endorsement of the book: "A vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka."
Written By Unknown on Senin, 19 Januari 2015 | 10.52
The suspected mastermind of the jihadist cell dismantled in Belgium is still at large, a Belgian minister has said.
The comments from Justice Minister Koen Geens come amid reports the suspect is in Greece.
When asked if the ringleader remained on the run after four people were arrested in Athens on Saturday, Mr Geens told VRT television: "That is indeed the case."
He added: "Last night's arrests did not succeed in nabbing the right person. We are still actively looking for him and I presume we will succeed."
Belgian media have named the suspected leader of the cell uncovered by police in the eastern town of Verviers as Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin.
Video:Another Paris 'Is Possible'
Two suspects were shot dead in a fierce gun battle with police during the raid, which smashed a cell plotting to kill Belgian officers on the street, local authorities said.
According to Belgian media, Abaaoud spent time fighting alongside Islamic State militants in Syria.
He was already known to security forces after appearing in an Islamic State video, at the wheel of a car transporting mutilated bodies to a mass grave.
Belgium's Flemish-language VTM channel said Abaaoud had made calls from Greece to the brother of one of the two heavily-armed suspects killed in Verviers.
A Greek police source said anti-terrorism investigators sent DNA samples and fingerprints to Belgium to establish whether Abaaoud was among the suspects arrested in Athens.
Video:Terror Raids Across Europe
Initial reports had put the number of suspects in Greek custody at four but a police source said only two people were detained, at least one of whom was released without charge.
A spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor's office, Eric Van Der Sypt, said there was "no connection" between the suspects and their enquiry.
In Belgium, 13 people were arrested in connection with the probe. Five have been charged with "participating in the activities of a terrorist group."
Weapons, bomb-making materials, police uniforms and fake documents were found during searches of their homes.
Furthers searches were made Sunday in the Brussels district of Molenbeek where Abaaoud lived, media reports said.
Video:Police Kill 'Terrorists' In Belgium
Two fugitives who left Belgium immediately after the attack were arrested in France.
The Paris atrocities, in which 17 people were killed, have rekindled fears about young Europeans returning home after fighting alongside extremist groups in the Middle East.
Two of the three terrorists responsible for the attacks, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, were buried over the weekend in anonymous graves.
There has been no word on burial plans for the third gunman Amedy Coulibaly, who murdered five people before he was shot dead by police.
Suspected Boko Haram fighters have abducted 80 people, many of them children, in a deadly assault on villages in northern Cameroon, officials say.
"According to our initial information, around 30 adults, most of them herders, and 50 young girls and boys aged between 10 and 15 years were abducted," a senior army officer deployed to northern Cameroon told news agency Reuters.
That would make it Boko Haram's largest abduction in Cameroon to date.
The raid targeted a number of villages near the border with Nigeria
Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary confirmed that three people were killed in the attack, which targeted the village of Mabass and several others along the Nigerian border.
He said soldiers had intervened and exchanged fire with the assailants for around two hours.
Video:Terror Group's Deadliest Attack
He added that up to 80 houses were destroyed.
The assault comes just days after Amnesty International released satellite images of "catastrophic" Boko Haram attacks on two towns in Nigeria.
It believes hundreds of people were killed and that over 3,700 structures were either damaged or destroyed in the attacks in Baga and neighbouring Doron Baga earlier this month.
Video:Dec: Girl Refuses To Detonate Bomb
The campaign group said the pictures, taken on 2 and 7 January, provided "indisputable and shocking evidence" of the scale of the assaults.
The Islamist organisation was also responsible for the kidnap of more than 200 teenage girls from a school in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok in last April.
Boko Haram has been fighting a bloody six-year insurgency to create an Islamic state which has left thousands dead and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
Video:27 Oct: Abducted Girls Speak Out
Attacks are increasing in frequency as Boko Haram continues to seize territory in northern Nigeria, and expands its insurgency across the border.
Chadian troops began to arrive in Cameroon in Sunday in order to help repel the extremists' offensive.
Written By Unknown on Jumat, 16 Januari 2015 | 10.52
Paris Arms Dealing Arrest As Funerals Held
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Amedy Coulibaly, who is reportedly linked to the man arrested in Belgium
Belgian authorities have arrested a man suspected of supplying the gunmen who killed 17 people in Paris, as funerals for the victims of the attacks continued.
Police in Charleroi are holding the man on suspicion of arms dealing after he handed himself in to police in the city on Tuesday.
He told officers he had been in touch with Amedy Coulibaly, the militant who took hostages in a Jewish supermarket in the French capital and was later killed by security forces.
According to the reports, the man said he had conned Coulibaly in a car sale.
Lassana Bathily, who protected hostages, has been given French nationality
But police later found evidence the pair were negotiating the sale of bullets for a 7.62mm caliber firearm - the type needed for the Tokarev pistol Coulibaly used in his attack on the supermarket in Paris that left four hostages dead.
A spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecution said: "The man is being held by the judge in Charleroi on suspicion of arms dealing.
1/25
Gallery: Funerals For Charlie Hebdo Victims
The coffin of Franck Brinsolaro, the police bodyguard killed while protecting Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier
Mr Brinsolaro was one of the 12 victims killed during the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris
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Mr Brinsolaro's funeral was held at the Sainte-Croix Church in the northwestern French town of Bernay
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Police colleagues attended the service
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Mr Brinsolaro's relatives. Continue through for more images
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"Further investigations will have to show whether there is a link with the events in Paris."
Meanwhile, Malian man Lassana Bathily, who helped protect hostages in the kosher supermarket, has been given French nationality after his actions were widely praised.
It came as more funerals were held for employees of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, who were killed by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.
Private family funerals took place for cartoonists Georges Wolinski, 80, and Bernard "Tignous" Verlhac, 57, after they were shot dead by the pair.
The funeral for Franck Brinsolaro, one of the policemen killed, was held in Sainte-Croix de Bernay, while Elsa Cayat, the only woman killed in the attacks, was buried in Montparnasse.
1/16
Gallery: Faces Of Paris Suspects And Victims
Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is a suspect in the murder of a Paris policewoman on Thursday. She is on the run after her husband Amedy Coulibaly was killed when armed officers brought his kosher supermarket siege to a violent end
Her husband Amedy Coulibaly, 32
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Meanwhile, Barcelona-based daily newspaper La Vanguardia reported that Coulibaly spent three days in Madrid before last week's Paris attacks, with Spanish police now investigating whether he had a support cell there.
He was reportedly in Madrid between 30 December and 2 January with another person who has not yet been identified.
His partner, Hayat Boumeddiene, is known to have been in the Spanish capital before last week's attacks, but this is the first report that Coulibaly himself had been there for three days.
Turkish authorities said Boumeddiene crossed into Syria on January 8 from Turkey after arriving in Istanbul on a flight from Madrid.
:: The news emerged as security sources said the Algerian army had found the body of French tourist Herve Gourdel, who was beheaded in the country by jihadists in September.
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Paris Arms Dealing Arrest As Funerals Held
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Amedy Coulibaly, who is reportedly linked to the man arrested in Belgium
Belgian authorities have arrested a man suspected of supplying the gunmen who killed 17 people in Paris, as funerals for the victims of the attacks continued.
Police in Charleroi are holding the man on suspicion of arms dealing after he handed himself in to police in the city on Tuesday.
He told officers he had been in touch with Amedy Coulibaly, the militant who took hostages in a Jewish supermarket in the French capital and was later killed by security forces.
According to the reports, the man said he had conned Coulibaly in a car sale.
Lassana Bathily, who protected hostages, has been given French nationality
But police later found evidence the pair were negotiating the sale of bullets for a 7.62mm caliber firearm - the type needed for the Tokarev pistol Coulibaly used in his attack on the supermarket in Paris that left four hostages dead.
A spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecution said: "The man is being held by the judge in Charleroi on suspicion of arms dealing.
1/25
Gallery: Funerals For Charlie Hebdo Victims
The coffin of Franck Brinsolaro, the police bodyguard killed while protecting Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier
Mr Brinsolaro was one of the 12 victims killed during the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris
]]>
Mr Brinsolaro's funeral was held at the Sainte-Croix Church in the northwestern French town of Bernay
]]>
Police colleagues attended the service
]]>
Mr Brinsolaro's relatives. Continue through for more images
]]>
"Further investigations will have to show whether there is a link with the events in Paris."
Meanwhile, Malian man Lassana Bathily, who helped protect hostages in the kosher supermarket, has been given French nationality after his actions were widely praised.
It came as more funerals were held for employees of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, who were killed by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.
Private family funerals took place for cartoonists Georges Wolinski, 80, and Bernard "Tignous" Verlhac, 57, after they were shot dead by the pair.
The funeral for Franck Brinsolaro, one of the policemen killed, was held in Sainte-Croix de Bernay, while Elsa Cayat, the only woman killed in the attacks, was buried in Montparnasse.
1/16
Gallery: Faces Of Paris Suspects And Victims
Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is a suspect in the murder of a Paris policewoman on Thursday. She is on the run after her husband Amedy Coulibaly was killed when armed officers brought his kosher supermarket siege to a violent end
Her husband Amedy Coulibaly, 32
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Meanwhile, Barcelona-based daily newspaper La Vanguardia reported that Coulibaly spent three days in Madrid before last week's Paris attacks, with Spanish police now investigating whether he had a support cell there.
He was reportedly in Madrid between 30 December and 2 January with another person who has not yet been identified.
His partner, Hayat Boumeddiene, is known to have been in the Spanish capital before last week's attacks, but this is the first report that Coulibaly himself had been there for three days.
Turkish authorities said Boumeddiene crossed into Syria on January 8 from Turkey after arriving in Istanbul on a flight from Madrid.
:: The news emerged as security sources said the Algerian army had found the body of French tourist Herve Gourdel, who was beheaded in the country by jihadists in September.
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The Malian who helped hostages at a Jewish supermarket to hide during last week's terror attacks in Paris is to be made a citizen of France.
It comes after 220,000 people signed an online petition calling for Lassana Bathily to be given a French passport and the Legion d'honneur, the country's highest honour.
The decision to award him citizenship was announced by France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who said he would preside over the ceremony next Tuesday.
Mr Bathily, a practising Muslim who has lived in France since 2006, had applied for French nationality last July.
Floral tributes outside the supermarket where the siege took place
The 24-year-old has been widely praised for his actions in saving people who would otherwise have been taken captive by terrorist Amedy Coulibaly, who was later shot dead by police.
As the siege at the Hypercacher store in eastern Paris began, Mr Bathily, an employee, ushered a group of trapped customers into a cold storage room, shutting off the refrigeration system.
Video:New Video: Paris Supermarket Siege
"I heard shots and I saw my colleagues and clients running down," he recalled later. "I told them 'Come, come,' (and) got them into the freezer."
Mr Bathily proposed helping them escape through the delivery lift, but when no-one wanted to take the risk he fled alone.
Once outside he flagged down police and gave them information on the layout of the store that was used in the assault which ended the siege.
Written By Unknown on Rabu, 14 Januari 2015 | 10.52
Journalists from satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have held a news conference ahead of the publication of a special 'survivor's edition'.
The magazine is to publish its new edition with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on its front cover.
Mohammed is depicted crying and holding a placard with the words "I am Charlie".
Above him is the slogan "All is Forgiven".
The Charlie Hebdo staff who put the issue together said they wanted Mohammed on the cover to show they would not "cede" to extremists wanting to silence them.
Video:Should Mohammed Image Be Reprinted?
Staff said they planned to print as many as three million copies of the magazine, the usual print run is 60,000.
Gerard Biard, editor-in-chief at Charlie Hebdo, said the new edition was produced "with pain and with joy".
Staff said there was "no doubt" of the future of the magazine despite saying they would take a temporary break from publishing after the new issue.
The new edition will be published in multiple languages including French, Spanish, Italian, English and Arabic and will be available on the shelves for two weeks.
Video:'We Continue: What Else Can We Do?'
France has been shaken to its core by the bloodshed that began with a jihadist assault on the offices of the magazine on January 7 and ended in a deadly hostage drama at a Jewish supermarket two days later.
Charlie Hebdo, which lampoons religion indiscriminately, had received threats after depicting Mohammed before, and its offices were firebombed in 2011.
Seventeen people lost their lives in the wave of terrorist attacks across Paris last week.
Written By Unknown on Selasa, 13 Januari 2015 | 10.52
Up to six terror cell members may still be at large after the Paris attacks in which 17 people were murdered, French police have warned.
One of them has been spotted driving a car registered to the partner of one of the dead attackers, according to the authorities.
Police officials said a search was being carried out of the Paris area for the Mini Cooper car registered to Hayat Boumeddiene, the girlfriend of Amedy Coulibaly, who gunned down a police officer before killing four people in a Jewish supermarket last Friday.
The attack came after co-conspirators Said and Cherif Kouachi massacred 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday.
All three killers were finally cornered and died in police assaults on Friday.
Video:Special Report: Paris Attacks
France's Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, said Coulibaly "undoubtedly" had an accomplice and that "the hunt will go on" for anyone who helped him.
Boumeddiene remains on the run amid reports she has fled to Syria.
Footage has emerged of her arriving at Istanbul Airport before the attacks in Paris took place.
Video:'Paris Gunman's Partner On CCTV'
In a video, Coulibaly defended the atrocities and pledged allegiance to the terror group Islamic State.
Meanwhile, France has deployed nearly 5,000 police to protect Jewish schools and mobilised thousands more security forces following the terror attacks.
Three million copies are to be published of this week's Charlie Hebdo special "survivors' issue", with many of them to be made available outside of France and offered "in 16 languages".
The health facilities in remote parts of Sierra Leone are barely functioning with no concrete sign that the Ebola virus has been beaten.
In parts of the country like Kono district on the eastern border with Guinea, the people are feeling desperate and, in many cases, forgotten.
Until this week, Kono has no ebola treatment centre or testing facilities of its own. That meant that those suspected of contracting the virus had to travel several hours to neighbouring Kenema district for medical help - or even confirmation of the deadly disease. It is impossible to know how many people could have been infected or died en route.
Now though, there is a 48-bed facility near Koidu, the Kono district capital, and a testing laboratory will mean those with worrying symptoms can be diagnosed within five to six hours.
A man lies dead on the floor of the district hospital in Kono
It should make an enormous difference but the delay is probably responsible for the latest outbreak of fresh cases (although sadly for Sierra Leoneans this is not confined to Kono).
The latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that there were nearly 600 confirmed Ebola cases in the country in the two weeks up until the end of the first week of January, more than double the numbers in Guinea and Liberia combined.
Video:New Testing Lab For Ebola Crisis
The Sky News team travelled the nine-hour journey to Kono district and discovered frantic work being done by WHO and UN aid agencies to shore up the health facilities but for many in the area, it is help which has come too late.
At Kono district hospital in Koidu, we found few nursing staff and few patients: everyone is too scared to go to the hospital or fear of catching the disease.
Two nursing staff in the maternity ward alone have died in the past week and we found few medical supplies and little protective clothing available to those staff who are still going to work.
In the 185-bed hospital, only fifteen patients are being treated and those we spoke to complained the nurses would not tend to them.
Almost as soon as we entered the hospital we found the corpse of a man laying on the floor of an empty ward.
We were told by other patients he had arrived at the hospital five days earlier but the staff suspected he had Ebola and he was directed to an empty ward and left there.
He lay there on the floor untended, ignored and unfed. We were told about him late on Saturday night but by the time we arrived early on Sunday morning, he was dead.
Nineteen-year-old Amanita Jeremiah arrived - in labour - and moaning in agony. But when she arrived at the labour unit, the overnight nurse warned everyone to be careful about contact with her because "her eyes are red and she could have Ebola".
She then went home and left the teenager in the charge of a traditional birth attendant, who had brought her to the hospital, and the hospital cleaner. Neither of them had any formal medical training. The cleaner also operated as a Traditional Birth Attendant, a role which is usually one of support for women giving birth at home and relies on cultural and traditional methods re childbirth, in her community.
Neither woman had sufficient protective clothing. One of the ways Ebola is transmitted is through bodily fluids like blood and birthing mothers who have the virus are therefore especially dangerous. The Sky News team offered them our spare safety clothing.
Amanita spent the next three hours writhing around in agony. At one stage, the cleaner used the remaining two phials of medicine in the maternity ward stocks to try to kickstart the labour. Amanita went into convulsions and had to be held down by both women who looked terrified.
Finally a nursing assistant arrived. Again we had to provide some of our spare protective clothing.
Just as the baby was being born, the cleaner fainted. She had been in her protective suit for nearly three hours. The recommended time for wearing the PPE is about 90 minutes - although many aid agencies enforce a 45-minute rule because of the suffocating heat in Sierra Leone.
Baby Emmanuel's arrival was greeted initially with elation - but he is now the latest Ebola suspect and until the disease is ruled out, he is potentially a lethal health risk.
