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Taliban shows off ‘special forces’ in propaganda blitz

25, August 2021

Taliban shows off ‘special forces’ in propaganda blitz 0

The Taliban has been showing off its own “special forces” on social media, soldiers in new uniforms equipped with looted American equipment who contrast sharply with the image of the usual Afghan insurgent.

Pictures and videos of fighters in the so-called “Badri 313” unit have been posted online for propaganda purposes to underline how the Taliban have better equipped and trained men at their disposal than in the past, experts say.

The soldiers are shown in uniforms, boots, balaclavas and body armour similar to those worn by special forces around the world — and unlike the shalwar kameez, turban and sandals of the traditional Taliban fighter.

Rather than a battered Russian-designed Kalashnikov rifle slung over their shoulder, the men of Badri 313 hold new US-made rifles such as the M4, sometimes with night-vision goggles and advanced gunsights.

Badri 313 “likely represents some of the best trained and equipped fighters within the Taliban more broadly, although as you would expect there is a degree of sensationalising in propaganda coverage of the unit by the group,” Matt Henman from the Janes defence consultancy told AFP.

A Western weapons expert who writes anonymously on Twitter under the pseudonym of Calibre Obscura said the unit would be no match for Western special forces, or those of India or Pakistan.

But “they are more effective than normal Taliban and certainly more than standard Afghan national army troops from a couple of weeks ago,” he told AFP.

– US weapons –

Named after the battle of Badr 1,400 years ago, when the Prophet Mohammed supposedly vanquished his enemies with only 313 soldiers, the Taliban unit could number up to several thousand men, experts say.

The amount of equipment at their disposal is unclear, but multiple pictures online show jubilant Taliban fighters posing with captured armoured Humvees, aircraft and weapons abandoned by the defeated US-equipped Afghan national army.

Experts say the most sophisticated equipment, especially the helicopters, will be difficult to operate and near-impossible to maintain.

“There is certainly a degree of propaganda, but we saw during the final offensive since May that the Taliban special forces have been critical in the taking over of Afghanistan,” said Bill Roggio, managing editor of the US-based Long War Journal.

“When they began to overrun the Afghan forces, they progressively integrated Western supplies. The US in effect armed the Taliban army,” he added.

In previous days, the unit has been in charge of security outside Kabul international airport, bringing them nearly face-to-face with American troops inside who are overseeing the airlift of thousands of civilians.

In a social media post, Badri 313 troops even mocked their US counterparts by recreating the famed picture of American soldiers raising the Stars and Stripes on the island of Iwo Jima in 1945.

The Taliban figures in uniforms are seen raising their black-and-white flag.

– Haqqani role? –

Badri 313 is also seen as having benefited from training from the Haqqani network, Afghanistan’s most ruthless and feared militant group which has been responsible for multiple suicide attacks on civilian targets.

Mainly based in eastern Afghanistan — with alleged bases across the border in Pakistan’s northwest — the group has become more visible in the Taliban leadership in recent years.

They have also long been suspected of links with the Pakistani military establishment — US Admiral Mike Mullen described them as a “veritable arm” of Islamabad’s intelligence in 2011.

Pakistan denies the allegations.

“There is a strong likelihood of Pakistan having provided at least a vestige of training to the unit,” said Henman from Janes, who specialises in terrorism and insurgencies.

Gilles Dorronsoro, an expert on Afghanistan at the Sorbonne University in Paris, said the emergence of the new Taliban commandoes was part of a larger trend.

“We’ve seen a remarkable professionalisation of the Taliban since the middle of the 2000s,” he told AFP.

“The war they are fighting is not the same as the one their parents fought against the Soviets. They’ve learned from the ground and they are very good technically,” he added.

Source: AFP

Atanga Nji in Abuja: Cameroon, Nigeria to protect countries against terrorists, secessionists

24, August 2021

Atanga Nji in Abuja: Cameroon, Nigeria to protect countries against terrorists, secessionists 0

The Federal Government and the Republic of Cameroon have pledged to complement each other’s effort in securing the borders of both countries, particularly against terrorists and secessionists.

The Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Zubairu Dada, while declaring open the 8th Session of the Cameroon-Nigeria Trans-Border Security Committee Meeting in Abuja, said the committee has achieved a lot of appreciable strides since its establishment in 2012.

Dada disclosed that Nigeria will always welcome and support any initiative from the Republic of Cameroon that will strengthen the border relations and curtail security threats, especially from terrorists and secessionists.

Dada added that since the signing of the Cameroon-Nigeria Trans-border Security Agreement in February 2012 and the first session of the committee’s meeting in Yaounde in 2013, the committee has made efforts to collectively address the enduring challenges of terrorism and other forms of criminality along borders in order to promote peaceful coexistence.

Dada further said it was crucial to sustaining the level of cooperation between the two countries.

‘It is crucial that we sustain this level of cooperation in order to overcome our lingering border security concerns. It is for this reason that we are gathered here in Abuja, in line with the aforementioned agreement to ensure that our people in the border areas live in a peaceful and secured environment,’ Dada said.

Dada also stated that the Common Border Governance Strategy as agreed during the 4th Conference of African Ministers responsible for border management held in Addis Ababa in 2016, was critical in addressing challenges and opening doors of opportunities for trans-border economic cooperation.

‘It was unanimously agreed that Africa’s peace and security is directly intertwined with good border governance at the attainment of sustainable development in the border areas,’ Dada stated.

In his remarks, the Head of the Cameroonian delegation, Mr Atanga Nji Poul, described the committee as an important forum for both countries.

The Minister of Territorial Integrity of Cameroon disclosed that since the commencement of the Committee activities, Nigeria and Cameroon borders have recorded a lot of improvement in terms of security.

Atanga Nji maintained that due to the improvement in security, the activities of Boko Haram and other criminals have reduced drastically which led to the returning of many Nigerian refugees residing in Cameroon back home.

The Head of the Nigerian Delegation and National Security Adviser, General Babagana Monguno, said the 8th session’s main focus is the consolidation on gains of the previous ones.

Monguno added that multilateral platforms in the fight against terrorists must be sustained by both countries.

He reaffirmed the commitment of the two countries to resist any attempt to form alliances by secessionist groups to destabilise the region.

Source: Sunnewsonline

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Red Cross official dies following injuries he sustained in Bamenda attack

24, August 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Red Cross official dies following injuries he sustained in Bamenda attack 0

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Tuesday that one of its staff members has been killed in Southern Cameroons.

ICRC said in a statement that Nzobambona Diomede, a 62-year-old Canadian who was a delegate working in the fields of water and sanitation died on Monday, following injuries he sustained the day before during an attack in Bamenda, the chief town of the region.

Diomede was in Bamenda to provide humanitarian assistance to communities affected by a four-year-long separatist armed conflict, according to ICRC.

“Words are not enough to express our immense sadness nor to soothe the grief of his family and loved ones. We send them our sincere condolences and the expression of our deepest sympathy,” the statement quoted Markus Brudermann, head of the ICRC delegation in Cameroon as saying.

Circumstances of his death have not been clarified and no further information can be given at this stage, the statement said.

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with separatist militant groups who want to create an independent nation they called “Ambazonia” in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Aid workers have been working to provide assistance to over 700,000 people who have been displaced internally by the conflict in the Central African nation.

Source: Xinhuanet

Two killed in Boko Haram attack in French Cameroun

24, August 2021

Two killed in Boko Haram attack in French Cameroun 0

At least two people were killed in an attack by suspected members of terror group Boko Haram overnight into Tuesday in Cameroon’s Far North region, local sources said.

Armed militants invaded Malika, a locality in the region, firing indiscriminately when the villagers were asleep, killing two civilians, wounding several others and stealing cattle in the process, local sources said.

The villagers have fled and were taking refuge in the bushes, according to local authorities.

Nighttime incursions by Boko Haram have become recurrent in the region, according to security reports.

Source: Xinhaunet

Bali Nyonga: Biya Francophone regime forces kill Pastor, 1 civilian during Holy Mass

23, August 2021

Bali Nyonga: Biya Francophone regime forces kill Pastor, 1 civilian during Holy Mass 0

A man of God and a parishioner were killed in an attack by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime forces in Bali on Sunday.

The regime forces carried out an artillery strike on Bali Nyongha, killing the Pastor and a Christian during church service and wounding several other worshippers.

Human Rights groups have called for a de-escalation of violence but Yaoundé has continued with military operations under the command of a defense minister Beti Assomo who erroneously think that only a military victory will put an end to the conflict.

With no cease-fire in sight, the Francophone army soldiers have regularly raided Southern Cameroons towns and villages and thousands of civilians have been forced to migrate to Nigeria due to attacks by the Cameroon regime forces.

The War in Southern Cameroons has already claimed at least 40 000 lives, almost all of them civilian children, men and women, murdered by Cameroun troops in a series of targeted killings, organized massacres, and killings by fire in over 400 villages burnt down to ashes across Ambazonia. Over half a million people have been forcibly displaced as refugees living in various countries and especially in refugee camps in Nigeria. Over another half a million people have become IDPs hiding in forests, caves and hills due to forced displacement. Additionally, over 1.5 million people are facing a humanitarian disaster.

The Biya Francophone regime uses not only arson and the destruction of food, livestock, and crops in the fields as weapons of war. It also uses rape. Rape of Ambazonian women and girls by French speaking army soldiers is systematic and widespread. These agonizing situations are compounded by the fact that a high percentage of Cameroon government troops are HIV positive and also have other STDs. When they rape they infect the women and girls. This appears to be part of the genocide agenda of French Cameroun. Reports are now emerging of scores of school girls raped, impregnated and infected by Republique du Cameroun’s troops. This poses a nightmare not only of the HIV and STD infections but also of rampant teenage pregnancies. French speaking Cameroon government troops have burnt down health facilities and killed health workers in rural and semi-urban areas. Accessing health facilities or health practitioners is a huge challenge for rural and semi-urban folks.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

Under rising pressure from Ambazonia Restoration Forces, Yaoundé goes after traditional rulers

23, August 2021

Under rising pressure from Ambazonia Restoration Forces, Yaoundé goes after traditional rulers 0

In the latest episode in the never-ending war in Southern Cameroons, Minister Beti Assomo recently instructed soldiers loyal to the regime in Yaoundé to search the palaces of several high notables of the Bui Kingdom including the much respected and pro French Cameroun Fon Mbinglo.

 Defence ministry issued the search warrant for several high Nso officials amid speculation that Minister Beti Assomo is longer Biya’s preferred choice.

The country’s Defense minister who arrogantly declared that he would implement president Biya’s decision of going to war against the English speaking people of Southern Cameroons without batting an eyelid has reportedly met his waterloo.

For more than four years, Southern Cameroonian fighters have proven that they are a force to reckon with and this has called into question the quality of soldiers being trained in Cameroon’s military academy.

Despite the military’s brutality and primitive approach, Southern Cameroonian fighters have succeeded to kill some 3,000 army soldiers and maimed almost the same number and this is already creating an uprising within the military.

Many soldiers have fled to neighboring countries and scandals about the payment of per diem to soldiers fighting in Southern Cameroons and the disappearance of huge amounts of money intended for the soldiers have given Joseph Beti Assomo a very bad name.

Beti Assomo is one of those who erroneously think that only a military victory will put an end to the conflict that has been considered by the international community as a conflict that could have been avoided if it had been properly managed.

He is also being accused of running a war economy that makes it hard for the conflict to be addressed. Regime insiders hold that he will be cut off following the cabinet reshuffle that is on the horizon because of his hawkish approach to the conflict in Southern Cameroons.

By  Rita Akana with additional reporting from Soter Agbaw-Ebai and Africa Intelligence

Southern Cameroons Crisis: IG rejects report of Amba generals killed in Bafut

21, August 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: IG rejects report of Amba generals killed in Bafut 0

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has rejected the baseless claims that five generals of the Ambazonia Restoration Force were killed in a recent Cameroon government military expedition in Bafut.

Vice President Dabney Yerima added today that remarks by the French Cameroun army general Valère Nka that five Southern Cameroons Self Defense leaders were killed in Nfoyah are totally wrong.

“I want the people of Southern Cameroons to know that such baseless comments will not change the realities in Ground Zero about the cowardly attacks coming from a France-Afrique crime syndicate against the oppressed people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and their determination to fight till the last man standing,” Yerima pointed out.

Yerima expressed regret that certain individuals including Peter Mafany Musonge, Paul Atanga Nji, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Victor Mengot and Paul Tasong who consider themselves Southern Cameroonians have all along been encouraging and backing the French Cameroun aggressors in their oppression against the people of Ambazonia.

Dabney Yerima’s remarks came after Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) reported that five Ambazonian commanders were killed in Bafut.

Southern Cameroons has been beset by violence and chaos since the 88-year-old President Paul Biya launched a devastating military campaign to crush the Ambazonia uprising.

The four-year-old war has killed thousands of Southern Cameroonians and created the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the Gulf of Guinea.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

China allows couples to have third child to avert a demographic crisis

21, August 2021

China allows couples to have third child to avert a demographic crisis 0

China will now allow couples to legally have a third child as it seeks to hold off a demographic crisis that could threaten its hopes of increased prosperity and global influence.

The ceremonial legislature on Friday amended the Population and Family Planning Law as part of a decades-long effort by the ruling Communist Party to dictate the size of families in keeping with political directives. It comes just six years after the last change.

From the 1980s, China strictly limited most couples to one child, a policy enforced with threats of fines or loss of jobs, leading to abuses including forced abortions. A preference for sons led parents to kill baby girls, leading to a massive imbalance in the sex ratio.

The rules were eased for the first time in 2015 to allow two children as officials acknowledged the looming consequences of the plummeting birthrate. The overwhelming fear is that China will grow old before it becomes wealthy.

China long touted its one-child policy as a success in preventing 400 million additional births in the world’s most populous country, thus saving resources and helping drive economic growth.

However, China’s birth rate, paralleling trends in South Korea, Thailand and other Asian economies, already was falling before the one-child rule. The average number of children per mother tumbled from above six in the 1960s to below three by 1980, according to the World Bank.

Meanwhile, the number of working-age people in China has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding to strains in an aging society. A once-a-decade government census found the population rose to 1.411 billion people last year, up 72 million from 2010.

Statistics show 12 million babies were born last year, which would be down 18% from 2019’s 14.6 million.

Chinese over 60, who number 264 million, accounted for 18.7% of the country’s total population in 2020, 5.44 percentage points higher than in 2010. At the same time, the working-age population fell to 63.3% of the total from 70.1% a decade ago.

The shift to the two-child rule led to a temporary bump in the numbers of births but its effects soon wore off and total births continued to fall because many women continued to decide against starting families.

Japan, Germany and some other wealthy countries face the same challenge of having fewer workers to support aging populations. However, they can draw on investments in factories, technology and foreign assets, while China is a middle-income country with labor-intensive farming and manufacturing.

At its session Friday, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress canceled the leveling of fines for breaking the earlier restrictions and called for additional parental leave and childcare resources. New measures in finance, taxation, schooling, housing and employment should be introduced “to ease the burden on families,” the amendment said.

It also seeks to address longstanding discrimination against pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace that is considered one of the chief disincentives to having additional children, along with high costs and cramped housing.

hile female representation in the labor force is high, women, especially those with children, are severely underrepresented at the higher levels, holding just 8.4% of leadership positions at the central and provincial levels. Among the young party leaders who will take the reins in the coming decades, only 11% are women.

(AP)

Farewell Russia Visit: Dr Merkel urges Putin to free Kremlin critic Navalny

20, August 2021

Farewell Russia Visit: Dr Merkel urges Putin to free Kremlin critic Navalny 0

In her final visit to Moscow before stepping down as leader, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday asked her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to free Alexei Navalny from prison on the anniversary of the opposition leader’s poisoning.

Merkel’s trip to Moscow comes exactly a year after a nerve-agent attack on the now-jailed Navalny, whose life was saved by Berlin doctors.

Her aides have made clear that the timing of the meeting is not accidental.

“I demanded from the Russian President that he free Navalny,” Merkel told a Kremlin press conference, standing alongside Putin.

The Russian leader referred to his challenger as “the defendant”. He denied Navalny was jailed for his political activity, saying he was behind bars for “criminal offences”.

“I would ask that the judicial decisions of the Russian Federation be treated with respect,” Putin said, claiming that Russia had an inclusive political system.

Earlier, the German chancellor said it was important for Berlin to continue engaging with Moscow, despite “deep differences” on a range of issues.  

“We have a lot to talk about,” Merkel said, naming several issues on their agenda, including the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, and Putin, a former KGB agent stationed there, speak each other’s languages.

During the chancellor’s 16 years in power, the pair always kept a dialogue despite strained relations, dampened by issues ranging from alleged cyberattacks to the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. 

Navalny ‘wrongly’ imprisoned

Merkel has previously blamed Navalny’s near-fatal poisoning on the Kremlin after tests in European laboratories showed Navalny was poisoned using the Novichok chemical weapon.  

Her spokesman Steffen Seibert said the attack had put a “heavy burden” on relations between the two countries. 

Navalny is now held in a maximum security prison colony in Pokrov, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Moscow.

This month he was charged with new crimes that could prolong his jail time by three years. If found guilty, he could only be released after 2024, the year Russia is scheduled to hold a presidential election.

Seibert said Navalny had been “wrongly” imprisoned.

In a message from prison posted on his Instagram by his team Friday, Navalny said the 20th of August – when he thought “he died” after losing consciousness on a flight over Siberia – was his “second birthday”.

He thanked his supporters for calling for him to be taken out of Russia for treatment.

“Thanks to you I survived and landed in prison,” he joked, adding “sorry, I could not help myself”. 

Ukraine visit

Both Merkel and Putin said the crisis in Afghanistan had figured prominently during their talks.

In his first comments on the subject since the Taliban takeover, Putin said the world community should prevent the “collapse” of the country and ensure “terrorists” do not enter neighbouring countries from Afghanistan.

He said the world must accept the fact that the Taliban now control Afghanistan, criticising the “irresponsible policy” of imposing “outside values” on the war-torn country.  

Merkel and Putin also discussed the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine and the authoritarian crackdown in Russia-allied Belarus.

Germany has been a major player in efforts to broker peace in eastern Ukraine and Merkel expressed hope that peace talks on the conflict between Kiev and pro-Russia separatists would continue after she leaves power.

She told Putin that “even if the progress isn’t as fast as we hoped”, the peace talks should be kept “alive”.

Merkel is set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on Sunday.

Source: AFP

Senior Yerima aide urges US diaspora to stop sending wrong signals to Ambazonia Restoration Forces

20, August 2021

Senior Yerima aide urges US diaspora to stop sending wrong signals to Ambazonia Restoration Forces 0

A senior aide to the Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has urged Ambazonian front line leaders in the USA to stop sending wrong signals to Ambazonia Restoration forces in Ground Zero.

Dr Patrick Ayuk made the remarks at a regular Cameroon Concord News conference in London on Tuesday.

“We deplore the Amba-US diaspora playing the divide and rule card” Dr Patrick Ayuk said, adding that all front line leaders should abide by the “the Federal Republic of Ambazonia” principle as laid down by the Interim Government.

Dr Patrick Ayuk said the Southern Cameroons US diaspora should work in pursuit of Southern Cameroons independence.

The War in Ambazonia has already claimed at least 40 000 lives, almost all of them civilian children, men and women, murdered by Cameroun government troops in a series of targeted killings, organized massacres, and killings by fire in over 400 villages burnt down to ashes across Ambazonia. Over half a million people have been forcibly displaced as refugees living in various countries and especially in refugee camps in Nigeria. Over another half a million people have become IDPs hiding in forests, caves and hills due to forced displacement. Additionally, over 1.5 million people are facing a humanitarian disaster.

La Republique du Cameroun uses not only arson and the destruction of food, livestock, and crops in the fields as weapons of war. It also uses rape. Rape of Ambazonian women and girls by Cameroun government troops is systematic and widespread. This agonizing situation is compounded by the fact that a high percentage of Cameroun troops are HIV positive and also has other STDs. When they rape they infect the women and girls. This appears to be part of the genocide agenda of Cameroun. Reports are now emerging of scores of school girls raped, impregnated and infected by La Republique du Cameroun’s troops. This poses a nightmare not only of the HIV and STD infections but also of rampant teenage pregnancies. Cameroun troops have burnt down health facilities and killed health workers in rural and semi-urban areas. Accessing health facilities or health practitioners is a huge challenge for rural and semi-urban folks.

By Isong Asu

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