Friday, June 27, 2014

A00030 - Casey Kasem, Wholesome Voice of Pop Radio

Casey Kasem (b. April 27, 1932, Detroit, Mich.— d. June 15, 2014, Gig Harbor, Wash.), was born Kemal Amin Kasem. Kasem was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 27, 1932, to Lebanese Druze immigrant parents. They settled in Michigan, where they worked as grocers.

Kasem became an American disc jockey who filled the airways for 34 years (1970–2004) with his weekly nationally syndicated Top 40 radio shows, including American Top 40, which he created and hosted with a hallmark easygoing style. During the program’s four-hour format, Kasem provided listeners not only with an upbeat analysis of the songs that had made the list (gleaned from Billboard magazine’s most popular singles of the previous week) but also with personal tidbits about the artists behind the music. Kasem’s courtly voice and popular catchphrases, including his signature sign-off, “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars,” made him one of the country’s most recognizable radio personalities. Kasem also fronted American Top 20 and American Top 10.  He retired as host from those radio shows in 2009. In addition to his radio work, Kasem appeared in a few films, including The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant(1971) and Ghostbusters (1984, as himself), and provided the voice of Shaggy on the cartoon series Scooby-Doo and for Robin “the Boy Wonder” on the animated The Batman/Superman Hour (1968–69). He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1992.

Monday, June 23, 2014

A00029 - Fouad Ajami, Commentator and Expert in Arab History

Fouad A. Ajami (Arabic: فؤاد عجمي‎; September 18, 1945 – June 22, 2014), was a MacArthur Fellowship winning, Lebanese-born American university professor and writer on Middle Eastern issues. He was a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Ajami was an outspoken supporter of the Iraq War, the nobility of which he believed there "can be no doubt".

Thursday, June 19, 2014

A00028 - Ahmed Abu Khattala, Islamist Militia Commander in Libya

Ahmed Abu Khattala (born c. 1971) was a Islamist militia commander in Libya, a commander of Ansar al-Sharia militia. He is suspected of participating in the 2012 Benghazi attack on the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in which the American Ambassador and three other Americans were killed. In a December 2013 investigation of the attack, the New York Times described Abu Khattala as a central figure.  However, Abu Khattala denied killing the Americans or being part of the attack.

Abu Khattala spent most of his adult life in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, jailed by the Qaddafi government for his Islamist views. During the 2011 uprising against Qaddafi in Libya, he formed his own militia of perhaps two dozen fighters, naming it Obeida Ibn Al Jarra for an early Islamic general. He later became involved in Ansar al-Shariah, a group of as many as 200 militants who, had broken away from the other militias in 2012 in protest of those militia's support for parliamentary elections in Libya.  Abu Khattala opposed American involvement in Libya and in interviews with the New York Times stated that “the enmity between the American government and the peoples of the world is an old case.” In regards to the role of the air campaign of NATO that overthrew Colonel Qaddafi, he believed that if NATO had not intervened, “God would have helped us.” He also claimed that, “We know the United States was working with both sides” and considering “splitting up" Libya.

Witnesses of the September 11, 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi say they saw Abu Khattala leading the attack. On August 6, 2013, United States officials confirmed that Abu Khattala had been charged with playing a significant role in the attack. 

On the weekend of June 14 to June 15, 2014, U.S. Special Forces captured Abu Khattala in a covert mission in Libya. Khattala is one of the suspected leaders of the 2012 Benghazi attack. 

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

A00027 - Al Shabab, Jihadists in Somalia

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (HSM) (Arabic: حركة الشباب المجاهدين‎; Ḥarakat ash-Shabāb al-Mujāhidīn, Somali: Xarakada Mujaahidiinta Alshabaab, "Mujahideen Youth Movement" or "Movement of Striving Youth"), more commonly known as al-Shabaab or al-Shabab (Arabic: الشباب‎), meaning "The Youth", or "The Youngsters", is a jihadist group based in Somalia. In 2012, it joined the militant Islamist organization al-Qaeda as a cell.  As of 2013, the group retreated from the major cities, but imposed strict forms of sharia law in some rural regions. Al-Shabab's troop strength as of 2013 was estimated at 4,000 to 6,000 militants.  In February 2012, the group's leaders quarreled with Al-Qaeda over the union, and quickly lost ground.

The group is an off-shoot of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which splintered into several smaller factions after its defeat in 2006 by the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the TFG's Ethiopian military allies. Al-Shabab describes itself as waging jihad against "enemies of Islam", and is engaged in combat against the TFG and the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). Alleging ulterior motives on the part of foreign organizations, group members also reportedly intimidated, kidnapped and killed aid workers, leading to a suspension of humanitarian operations and an exodus of relief agents. Al-Shabab was designated a terrorist organization by several Western governments and security services. As of June 2012, the United States State Department had opened bounties on several of the group's senior commanders.

In early August 2011, the TFG's troops and their AMISOM allies reportedly managed to capture all of Mogadishu from the Al-Shabab militants. An ideological rift within the group's leadership also emerged in response to pressure from the recent drought and the assassination of top officials in the organization. Al Shabab is hostile to Sufi traditions and has often clashed with the militant group Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a.  The group has also been suspected of having links with Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram. The group has attracted some members from western countries, notably Samantha Lewthwaite and Abu Mansoor al-Amriki. 

Al-Shabab was also accused of being responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of elephants every year for their ivory, and for killing rangers hired to protect them. The proceeds from the ivory trade allegedly supply Al-Shabab with income with which to carry out their operations. At the same time, the group also has some social support during its time in administration within Somalia as it partook in some reforms.

A00026 - ISIS, The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (alternatively translated as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham) (Arabic: الدولة الاسلامية في العراق والشام‎ ʾad-dawla ʾal-islāmiyya fīl-'irāq waš-šām or Arabic: داعش‎ dāʿiš), abbreviated ISIS or ISIL, is an unrecognized state and active jihadist militant group in Iraq and Syria. In its unrecognized self-proclaimed status as an independent state, it claims the territory of Iraq and Syria, with implied future claims intended over more of the Levant—including Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus and Southern Turkey.  It was established in the early years of the Iraq War and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2004. The group was composed of and supported by a variety of insurgent groups, including its predecessor organization, the Mujahideen Shura Council, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Jaysh al-Fatiheen, Jund al-Sahaba, Katbiyan Ansar Al-Tawhid wal Sunnah, Jeish al-Talifa al-Mansoura, and other clans whose constituency profess Sunni Islam. The aim of ISIS was to establish a caliphate in the Sunni majority regions of Iraq, later expanding this to include Syria. In February 2014, after an eight-month power struggle, al-Qaeda cut all ties with ISIS.

At the height of the Iraq War, ISIS claimed a significant presence in the Iraqi provinces of Al Anbar, Ninawa, Kirkuk, most of Salah ad Din, parts of Babil, Diyala and Baghdad. It claimed Baqubah as its capital. In the ongoing Syrian Civil War, the group has a large presence in the Syrian governorates of Ar-Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo.

In addition to attacks on government and military targets, the group has claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. Despite significant setbacks for the group during the latter stages of the Coalition's presence in Iraq, by late 2012 the group was thought to have renewed its strength and more than doubled the number of its members to about 2,500.

A letter and later an audio recording by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, was leaked to Al Jazeera in 2013, disbanding the Syrian faction of ISIS. However, the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,  made it clear that he contested this ruling on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence, and the group has since continued to operate in Syria. Starting in April 2013, the group made rapid military gains in controlling large parts of Northern Syria, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described them as "the strongest group".

In early June 2014, following its large-scale offensives in Iraq, ISIS is reported to have seized control of most of Mosul, the second most populous city in Iraq, its surrounding Nineveh province, and the city of Fallujah.  ISIS also took control of Tikrit, the administrative center of the Salah ad Din Governorate, with the ultimate goal of capturing Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.  ISIS was believed to have only 2,000–3,000 fighters up until the Mosul campaign, but during that campaign it became evident that this number was a gross underestimate.