REST IN POWER
Federal, B.C. New Democrat politician Ian Waddell remembered for his passion, desire

3/17/2021

VANCOUVER — Federal and provincial leaders are among those offering condolences at the passing of long-serving British Columbia politician Ian Waddell.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The former lawyer, New Democrat member of Parliament and member of the B.C. legislature died Monday at his Vancouver home at the age of 78.

B.C. Premier John Horgan says in a social media post that Waddell approached everything with a "passion and desire to make progress for people," while federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says Waddell was a champion of social justice who always lifted up those around him.

Waddell earned law degrees from the University of Toronto and London School of Economics and worked as a prosecutor, defence lawyer and council to the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry before making a successful jump to federal politics.

Waddell served 14 years as an New Democrat MP, representing the ridings of Vancouver-Kingsway and Port Moody-Coquitlam, before turning to provincial politics from 1996 to 2001.

After losing provincially in 2001 and suffering defeat in an attempted federal comeback in 2004, Waddell worked as a documentary film producer.

Social media posts show him working out, skiing and golfing with friends in the weeks before his death.

He maintained an interest in politics with recent Twitter posts remarking on passage of the United States' COVID relief plan and the 2020 presidential election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also on the receiving end of Waddell's online advice in a message dated Jan. 25.

"My choice for new Governor General is Judge Murray Sinclair. Are you listening Justin," he tweeted.

In his last message, one day before he died, Waddell posted a photo from the balcony of his Vancouver home, with Stanley Park and the Coast Mountains in the distance.

His final sentence: "Paradise."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Scientists: Climate-whipped winds pose

 Great Lakes hazards

This undated photo provided by Josef Daniel Ackerman of the University of Guelph, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, shows researchers aboard the research vessel Keenosay deploying scientific instruments in Lake Erie. Powerful gusts linked to global warming are damaging water quality and creating a hazard for fish in Lake Erie and perhaps elsewhere in the Great Lakes, according to researchers. (Aidin Jabbari/University of Guelph via AP)More

JOHN FLESHER
Mon, March 15, 2021

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Powerful gusts linked to global warming are damaging water quality and creating a hazard for fish in Lake Erie and perhaps elsewhere in the Great Lakes, according to researchers.

Extremely high winds occasionally churn up deep water with low oxygen and high levels of phosphorus in Erie's central basin and shove it into the shallower western section, creating a hazard for fish and insects on which they feed.

Such events have happened more frequently since 1980 and particularly in recent years, scientists with the University of Guelph said in a paper published last week in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

“As temperatures increase overall, we will get higher winds and larger waves," said Josef Ackerman, a professor of physical ecology and aquatic sciences with the Canadian university who led the study.

The findings underscore the need to limit phosphorus overloading that fuels algae-like bacterial blooms in Lake Erie's western basin, he said — an elusive goal despite pledges by Michigan, Ohio and the Canadian province of Ontario to achieve a 40% reduction from 2008 levels by 2025.

“We can't control the winds but maybe we could double down on our efforts to reduce inputs into the lakes to keep the ecosystems healthy," Ackerman said. “If so, the winds won't have as bad an impact.”

Marc Gaden, spokesman for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission who didn't take part in the study, said it illustrates the complexity of Great Lakes ecosystems and the need for better models that can forecast how weather can disrupt them.

“Any change that’s happening like this needs to be understood by fishery managers who are making decisions on a daily basis about stocking and harvests,” Gaden said Monday.

The report adds to a growing body of scientific evidence that human activity is affecting the Great Lakes in unforeseen ways.

Some nearshore areas have too much phosphorus because of runoff from overfertilized croplands and releases from sewage plants. In others, invasive quagga mussels that were brought to the lakes in ship ballast water are trapping the nutrient in shallow waters.

Yet deeper areas of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and eastern Lake Erie are running short of phosphorus needed to feed algae that form a key link in food chains. Again, the mussels are suspected of playing a role.

A February study by University of Minnesota Duluth scientists found that quagga mussels, which filter phosphorus from the water and then excrete it, have become the biggest factor in determining concentrations of the nutrient in all the Great Lakes except Lake Superior.

Meanwhile, climate change resulting from emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane is believed to be warming the lakes and causing heavier storms, which also affect water quality.

Lake Erie, shallowest of the Great Lakes, is deep enough in its central basin to have two distinct temperature levels. The lower, colder level has little oxygen and lots of phosphorus. Low or depleted oxygen, a condition known as hypoxia, can cause fish die-offs.

Unusually strong winds, which usually happen in August, can be powerful enough to propel that unhealthy water into the western basin even though Erie's prevailing current moves eastward, Ackerman said.

Those extreme events, which formerly happened a couple of times a year, more recently have happened three or four times annually, he said. In the past decade, they've increased more than 40 percent. They can alter lake chemistry within hours.

While adult fish can swim away from those low-oxygen, high-phosphorus zones, younger ones might be trapped and die, Ackerman said. Another victim is the mayfly, an important food for prized fish such as perch and walleye.

He said extreme gusts also might have similar effects in other waters that have experienced hypoxia, such as Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay, Lake Michigan's Green Bay and Muskegon Lake, which opens into Lake Michigan.

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Climate Change Is Behind Ghost Forests Along the Coast


Matthew Hart
Wed, March 17, 2021,

Over the past few months, scientists have continued to publish research outlining the destruction climate change may wreak soon. What could happen to Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser, for example, is kind of heartbreaking. Now, in an even darker report, scientists say climate change is causing a rise in “ghost forests” along the northeast coast of the US. And yes, they look super creepy.

Earther picked up on the new report, which researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey recently released. The US Department of Agriculture hired on the researchers to surmise “the current state of knowledge” concerning how Northeastern US coastal forests are responding to impacts from climate change.

Scientists say so-called "ghost forests" are on the rise on

the East Coast of the U.S. thanks to climate change.

NC Wetlands

Upon inspection—which consisted of analyzing scientific literature, interviewing forestry and biology experts, and convening relevant scientists—the researchers found that climate change is causing the ocean to eat into the East Coast; flooding coastal forest land from Virginia up to Massachusetts, and threatening other areas.

As the ocean water floods into these forests, it displaces native fresh water, which deciduous trees rely upon for sustenance. The salt water subsequently poisons the living trees, leaving a “ghost forest” of dead and dying timber in its wake. To make the scene even more eery, the barren trees stick around; becoming purgatory versions of their former selves.

Scientists say so-called "ghost forests" are on the rise on the East Coast of the U.S. thanks to climate change.

Wing-Chi Poon

The affected forests “have a ghostly, spectral character,” Richard Lathrop Jr., who directs Rutgers University’s Center for Remote Sensing & Spatial Analysis and was a co-author of the new research, wrote in an email to Earther. “This is happening up and down the East and Gulf Coasts, especially in coastal areas where there is low lying, gently sloping land adjacent [to] coastal bays,” Lathrop added.

Along with the encroaching salt water, the forests also face storm surges, which too leave behind an inundation of salt. Which, like the ocean water, not only kills current trees, but leaves the forests inhospitable for future ones.

Scientists say so-called "ghost forests" are on the rise on the East Coast of the U.S. thanks to climate change.

Bill Rand

The researchers say there are possible ways to mitigate the rise of these ghost forests, however. If the US more cautiously plans how coastal land is used, for example, that could cut down on ghost forests. Expanding the forests inland, likewise, could help them to survive the onslaught of saltwater. Which all sounds great, because the fewer parts of the US that look like the backdrop for an episode of True Detective, the better.

The post Climate Change Is Behind Ghost Forests Along the Coast appeared first on Nerdist.

Climate change: Jet fuel from waste 'dramatically lowers' emissions

Matt McGrath - Environment correspondent
BBC
Tue, March 16, 2021

contrail

A new approach to making jet fuel from food waste has the potential to massively reduce carbon emissions from flying, scientists say.

Currently, most of the food scraps that are used for energy around the world are converted into methane gas.

But researchers in the US have found a way of turning this waste into a type of paraffin that works in jet engines.

The authors of the new study say the fuel cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 165% compared to fossil energy.

This figure comes from the reduction in carbon emitted from airplanes plus the emissions that are avoided when food waste is diverted from landfill.

The aviation industry worldwide is facing some difficult decisions about how to combine increased demand for flying with the need to rapidly cut emissions from the sector.

In the US, airlines currently use around 21 billion gallons of jet fuel every year, with demand expected to double by the middle of the century. At the same time, they have committed to cutting CO2 by 50%.

With the development of battery-powered airplanes for long haul flights a distant prospect at this point, much attention has focussed on replacing existing jet fuel with a sustainable alternative.

In fact the UK government has just announced a £15m competition to encourage companies to develop jet fuel from household waste products.
Making paraffin from wet-waste

Current methods of making green jet fuel are based on a similar approach to making biodiesel for cars and heavy goods vehicles.

It normally requires the use of virgin vegetable oils as well as waste fats, oil and grease to make the synthetic fuel.

At present, it is more economical to convert these oils and wastes into diesel as opposed to jet fuel - which requires an extra step in the process, driving up costs.

Now, researchers say that they have developed an alternative method able to turn food waste, animal manure and waste water into a competitive jet hydrocarbon.

Much of this material, termed wet-waste, is at present is turned into methane gas. However, the authors found a way of interrupting this process so it produced volatile fatty acids (VFA) instead of CH4.

The researchers were then able to use a form of catalytic conversion to upgrade the VFA to two different forms of sustainable paraffin.

Food waste is a global problem and a major cause of global warming emissions

When the two forms were combined they were able to blend 70% of the mixture with regular jet fuel, while still meeting the extremely strict quality criteria that Federal authorities impose on aircraft fuels.

"There's exciting jet fuels that rely on burning trash and dry waste but this actually works for those wastes that have high water content, which we normally dispose of in landfill," said Derek Vardon, a senior research engineer at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the lead author on the study.

"Being able to show that you can take these volatile fatty acids, and that there's a really elegant, simple way to turn it into jet fuel - that's where I see the broader applicability of this one, and folks can continue to develop and refine it."

The new fuel has a potentially significant impact on emissions as it not only limits the CO2 that comes from fossil sources used by the airlines, but it also gets rid of the methane that would bubble up from landfill if the waste food was just dumped.

Another major advantage is that this new fuel produces around 34% less soot than current standards. This is important because soot plays a key role in the formation of contrails from airplanes which adds a powerful warming effect to CO2 coming from the engines.

"That's where we see the most potential for this technology is that you're preventing methane emissions, and dramatically lowering the carbon footprint of jet fuel. And you just can't do that with fossil fuels without getting into things like offsets," said Derek Vardon.

The research team say they are planning to scale up the production of the new fuel and aim to have test flights with Southwest Airlines in 2023.

Many environmental groups are sceptical about attempts to develop sustainable aviation fuels, believing that it amounts to green-washing. They argue that people should just fly less.

"Sustainable aviation fuel is not a silver bullet," Derek Vardon says.

"So we do want to definitely emphasise that reduction is the most important and most significant change you can make. But there's also pragmatism and need for aviation solutions now, so that's where we want to strike a balance as we need a basket of measures, to really start getting our carbon footprint down in a variety of sectors, including aviation."

The study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Follow Matt on Twitter.

Scientists unearth meteorite from the birth of the solar system

   

The meteor, known as Erg Chech 002, was discovered in May 2020by researchers working in the Algerian Sahara desert. Guillaume Souvant AFP/File.

Issued on: 16/03/21
Paris (AFP)

Scientists believe they have identified a meteorite formed in the first million years of our solar system, making it the oldest known meteor of volcanic origin.

The space rock, which began its journey some 4.5 billion years ago, has already proved an "exceptional" witness to the building blocks of the planets.

Known as Erg Chech 002, the meteorite was discovered in May 2020 by meteor hunters in the Algerian Sahara desert. It had rested undisturbed for "at least 100 years", according to Jean-Alix Barrat, a geochemist at France's Brest University.

In a recent study published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences journal, Barrat and his colleagues describe its discovery and several rare features.

There are 43 officially documented fragments, but "probably about a hundred" either still in the ground or unaccounted for, said the study. The largest ones are "as big as a fist," Barrat told AFP.

With its greenish exterior and brownish interior, Erg Chech 002 might not appear extraordinary at first glance. But it is, in fact, extremely rare.

Of the roughly 65,000 meteorites so far documented on Earth, only around 4,000 contain what is known as "differentiated matter". This means they came from celestial bodies large enough to have experienced tectonic activity.

Of those 4,000, 95 percent come from just two asteroids. But Erg Chech 002 is among the remaining five percent.

"It's the only one out of 65,000 meteorites that is like it is," said Barrat.

"Such rocks were quite common at the very beginning of the history of the solar system."

There are two possible explanations for Erg Chech 002's rarity.

The type of protoplanet from which it originated provided raw material "for the growth of terrestrial planets" such as Earth, said Barrat.

Others were pulverised in the great cosmic billiard game of the formation of the solar system.

The surface of the Moon, pockmarked with innumerable asteroid impacts, is a relatively recent witness to this second type of protoplanet.

"No asteroid shares the spectral features of EC 002, indicating that almost all of these bodies have disappeared, either because they went on to form the building blocks of larger bodies or planets or were simply destroyed," the study said.

- 'Thrown into space' -

The so-called "parent body" of Erg Chech 002 could have measured around 100 kilometres across.

It was formed in the first million years of the solar system, according to the study's co-authors, March Chaussidon, from the Paris Globe Institute of Physics and Johan Villeneuve, a researcher from France's National Centre for Scientific Research at the University of Lorraine.

Metallic meteorites "correspond to the nuclei of protoplanets," said Barrat.

But Erg Chech 002 is volcanic in origin, meaning that it was part of the crust of a protoplanet, rather than its core.

The experts believe that its unique composition was the result of a string of fortunate events.

On the protoplanet in question, lava must have accumulated on the surface, fuelled by the heat of its aluminium core.

The crust containing the meteorite solidified briefly but -- because it showed evidence of a sudden cooling -- instead of remaining on the parent body, some violent force cast it asunder.

"The rock was thrown into space," said Barrat.

Further investigation into its composition found that Erg Chech 002 was formed around 4.65 billion years ago.

It travelled through the aeons, "in a gravel shell, protected from solar radiation," said Barrat.

Then, around 26 million years ago, the rock was dislodged, continuing its journey until colliding with Earth.

 

France protests: Students take to the streets over health crisis

French university #students protested Tuesday in #Paris to demand to be allowed back to class, and to call attention to mental health issue and financial troubles among students cut off from friends, professors and job opportunities amid the #pandemic. FRANCE 24's Wassim Cornet tells us more.

Rumours of wrestler involvement in Senegal protests stoke anger


Supporters of main opposition candidate, Ousmane Sonko protested after his arrest 

Issued on: 17/03/2021 - 

Dakar (AFP)

Senegal's traditional wrestlers, who are revered by millions of adoring fans, have reacted in anger to rumours that they were behind the violence that recently shook the West African nation.

Usually seen as a haven of stability in a volatile region, Senegal was rocked by a week of deadly clashes between opposition supporters and police in early March.

At least five people were killed in the unrest, sparked by the arrest of the country's opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, a government critic popular with Senegalese youth.



Thousands of young protesters also looted shops, hurled stones at police and torched cars during demonstrations across the country.

In the confusion, rumours swirled that practitioners of Senegal's centuries-old wrestling tradition -- mostly heavy-set, muscled men -- were behind some of the mayhem.

Some on social media suggested that the government had hired wrestlers to quell demonstrations. And the government itself suggested that wrestlers were among the protesters.

Senegal's Justice Minister Malick Sall, for example, said in an interview this month that coronavirus restrictions explained the unrest and pointed to wrestlers as an example.

"The young people, many of them were in the wrestling stables," he said, explaining that young wrestlers had spent their days training and fighting.

"This allowed them not only to let off steam but to earn a living. And that is something they have been deprived of for almost a year," he added.

But the minister touched a nerve, appearing to cast doubt on fighters who are lionised throughout the country, where wrestling is a major spectator sport.

Senegal's wrestling world has rejected suggestions that fighters were drawn into the violent politics of recent weeks.

"Not a single licensed wrestler took part in the rallies," said Khadim Gadiaga, the head of a respected wrestling stable in the capital Dakar.

He also denied that any fighters had worked as state-sponsored thugs, saying that wrestlers had never marched "in the history of this country".

- 'Not a penny' -

Like many other sports, wrestling has suffered since the onset of the pandemic, according to some fighters.

Group training has been banned to curb infections, alongside traditional bouts -- where hulking fighters dressed in loincloths face off in packed stadiums, performing mystic rituals in the sand before going toe-to-toe.

The restrictions have put some 8,000 professional wrestlers out of a job.

Ibrahima Dione, the president of Senegal's national wrestling association, told AFP that "for a year now, the fighters have had nothing, not even a penny".

"Many of them have lost hope and are taking canoes to Spain," he said, referring to the Atlantic Ocean migration route from Senegal to Europe.

But to Dione, the ministers' words stung, since so many young wrestlers have seen their livelihoods disappear.

"It's dangerous for the youth who have lost hope," he said. "The state has an obligation to help us. All wrestlers are really angry".

- 'People need it' -

For his part, Aliou Sane, a spokesman for Senegal's protest group 'Y'en a marre' -- meaning 'we've had enough' -- said at a recent news conference that wrestlers had taken to the streets.

Demonstrators were "citizens who are thirsty for democracy, for the rule of law, for freedom," he said. "And among these citizens, yes, there are wrestlers".

But Gaston Mbengue, a celebrated fight promoter, thinks the debate about wrestlers' involvement in the unrest is misplaced.

"It's all politics," he said.

The solution, according to Mbengue, is to bring back wrestling. "The people have been locked up for a year. The people need it," he said.

'IS brides' open up in Syria camp documentary at SXSW
\

Enlarge Image

Shamima Begum photographed wearing Western attire in Al Roj Camp, in northeastern Syria

, on March 14, 2021.Sam Tarling for The Telegraph

Issued on: 17/03/2021 - 

Los Angeles (AFP)

"Okay, um... My name's Shamima. I'm from the UK. I'm 19."

Spoken with a nervous laugh, the introduction to a room full of women and restless babies could be the start of any young mothers' support group.

But the speaker is Shamima Begum, the teenage "ISIS bride" who left Britain for Syria in 2015 to join the Islamic State group, and whose desire to return sparked a right-wing press frenzy that saw her stripped of her citizenship.


The footage is captured in "The Return: Life After ISIS," a documentary premiering Wednesday at the online Texas-based South By Southwest festival.

Spanish director Alba Sotorra got rare, extensive access to Begum and other Western women over several months in Syria's Kurdish-run Roj camp, where they remain following the so-called caliphate's collapse in 2019.

"I would say to the people in the UK, give me a second chance because I was still young when I left," Begum tells the filmmakers.

"I just want them to put aside everything they've heard about me in the media," she adds.

Begum left her London home aged just 15 to travel to Syria with two school friends, and married an IS fighter.

She was "found" by British journalists, heavily pregnant at another Syrian camp, in February 2019 -- and her apparent lack of remorse in initial interviews drew outrage.

But Begum and fellow Westerners including US-born Hoda Muthana strike a very different and apologetic tone in Sotorra's film.

The documentary follows "workshop" sessions in which the women write letters to their younger selves expressing regret about their departures for Syria, and plant a tree to remember their loved ones.

"It was known that Syria was a warzone and I still travelled into it with my own children -- now how I did this I really don't know looking back," says one Western woman.

Begum recalls feeling like an "outsider" in London who wanted to "help the Syrians," but claims on arrival she quickly realized IS were "trapping people" to boost the so-called caliphate's numbers and "look good for the (propaganda) videos."

Shamima Begum pictured in 2019 in her Islamic clothing.

Anthony Loyd – The Times

- 'A mistake' -

Sotorra, the director, gained camp access thanks to Kurdish fighters she had followed in Syria for her previous film.

She set out to document the Kurdish women's sacrifices in running a camp filled with their former enemies' wives and children, but soon pivoted to the Western women.

"I will never be able to understand how a woman from the West can take this decision of leaving everything behind to join a group that is committing the atrocities that ISIS is committing," Sotorra told AFP.

"I do understand now how you can make a mistake."

On Sotorra's arrival in March 2019, the women -- fresh from a warzone -- were "somehow blocked... not thinking and not feeling."

"Shamima was a piece of ice when I met her," Sotorra told AFP.

"She lost the kid when I was there... it took a while to be able to cry," she recalled.

"I think it's just surviving, you need to protect yourself to survive."

Another factor is the enduring presence of "small but very powerful" groups of even "more radicalized women" who remain loyal to IS and exert pressure on their campmates.

"We had (other) women who joined in the beginning, and then they received pressure from other women so they stopped coming," said Sotorra.

In the film, Begum claims she "had no choice but to say certain things" to journalists "because I lived in fear of these women coming to my tent one day and killing me and killing my baby."

- 'Took them a while' -

The question of what can and should be done with these women -- and their children -- plagues Western governments, sowing divisions among allies.

Last month, Britain's Supreme Court rejected Begum's bid to return to challenge a decision stripping her citizenship on national security grounds.

How much the women knew about -- and abetted -- IS's rapes, tortures and beheadings may never be known.

In the documentary, Begum denies she "knew about" or "supported these crimes," dismissing claims she could have been in IS's feared morality police as a naive "15-year-old with no Islamic knowledge" who did not even "speak the language."

"I never even had a parking ticket back in my own country before... I never harmed anybody, I never killed anybody, I never did anything," says Canadian Kimberly Polman.

An incredulous Kurdish woman points out that "maybe your husband killed my cousin."

Sotorra believes the women could be useful back home in preventing the same mistake in future generations, and points to the cruelty of raising young children in this environment.

"It took them a while to realise that they have responsibility for (their) choice... they cannot just think 'Okay, I regret, I go back, as if nothing has happened,'" she said.

"No, it's not about this... you have to accept the consequences."

Yemen's SAUDI BACKED Al-Qaeda regenerates amid battle for the north

Years of setbacks have weakened the once mighty Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda, but the militants are seizing the opportunity to regenerate while the government and Huthi rebels are locked in a fight to the death in the north. Government security officials and tribal leaders told AFP that the fierce battle for Marib, which has raged for the past month, is creating a security vacuum

 

Smoke billows during clashes between forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed government and Huthi rebel fighters in Yemen's northeastern Marib Photo by -/AFP.
Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2021/03/yemen-conflict-qaeda.html#ixzz6pQbA4eOE

Abu Dhabi (AFP)

Years of setbacks have weakened the once mighty Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda, but the militants are seizing the opportunity to regenerate while the government and Huthi rebels are locked in a fight to the death in the north.

Government security officials and tribal leaders told AFP that the fierce battle for Marib, which has raged for the past month, is creating a security vacuum that is being exploited by the jihadists.

Once seen as the most potent Al Qaeda franchise, they have suffered multiple defeats in the past three years, leaving them deprived of territory and fighters, and with mystery surrounding the fate of the leadership.

"The governorate of Marib has been AQAP's main stronghold for years," said one intelligence official.

While the main combatants in Yemen's six-year war sustain heavy losses in an effort to control Marib city, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains "at ease" elsewhere in the region where it retains strong influence in villages and small towns.

"As others get busy fighting, they are training fighters again, planning, rebuilding relations" with local tribes and chasing "financial support" from local communities, the official added.

Marib city, the capital of the oil-rich governorate, is the last northern stronghold for the internationally recognised government which is backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.

The Huthis control the rest of the north after years of conflict which has plunged Yemen into the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

"The war in Marib could be ending the maximum pressure campaign that almost wiped (AQAP) out" in Yemen in the last few years, another Yemeni intelligence official said.

- Rapid rise... -

Born at a meeting of jihadists on a January evening in 2009, in southern Abyan's rugged mountains, AQAP was a marriage of convenience between the network's offshoots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, as they faced the onslaught of US and regional military campaigns.

The group led by Nasser al-Wuhayshi and his deputy Said al-Shihri, former prisoners in Sanaa and Guantanamo respectively, found immediate success as Yemen grappled with growing instability -- a secessionist movement in the south, a rebellion in the north, and a crippling economic crisis.

In one year, the group recruited hundreds of fighters with the help of local tribes, attracted jihadists from Asia and Africa, claimed deadly attacks, and attempted to kill a senior Saudi official and bomb a US civilian plane.

It even issued one of the first English online jihadist magazines, called Inspire.

Even before that, the shadow of al-Qaeda hung over Yemen -- the group claimed responsibility for the 2000 attack against the destroyer USS Cole in the southern city of Aden that killed 17 US military personnel.

By the end of that decade "they had a strong basis for their movement and many safe havens," said Hossam Radman from the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies.

AQAP peaked in 2014, invading towns and taking control of the southern city of Mukalla in 2015, while its main competitor the Islamic State group was gaining ground in Iraq and Syria.

Outside Yemen, the group attacked the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo in 2015, killing 12, showing its ability to strike far from home.

"It is logical that the continuation of the battle in Marib and the inability of any of the two sides to win will be a major gain for the organisation as it rearranges its ranks," said Saeed Bakran, an expert on Yemeni extremists.

- ...and decline -

When Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention in Yemen in March 2015, aimed at halting the Huthis' astonishing gains, its eye was also fixed on AQAP.

The UAE, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition, took the lead in driving AQAP out of villages one after the other with the help of US forces, weapons, and intelligence.

US drones and special forces managed to locate and kill leaders including the long-feared Al-Wuhayshi in 2015.

Another challenge was the ambition of the Islamic State, as the rivals tussled for territory and support over the years.

"All these elements weakened AQAP. Today, it is facing financial problems, many members are accused of treason, and others joined IS," a tribal leader in Marib told AFP.

Despite that, it "continued to exploit the security vacuum created by the ongoing conflict" and to "conduct attacks and operate in areas of southern and central Yemen with relative impunity," according to a 2019 US report on terrorism.

AQAP fighters are estimated to number in the low thousands, according to the report.

Then came the battle for Marib, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of the rebel-controlled capital Sanaa.

"The fighting is helping the group reorganise. They even pushed some of their fighters to join the ranks of the resistance battling the Huthis, to benefit from the financial support they receive," the tribal leader said, referring to salaries believed to be paid by the coalition.

Last month, the group called on Yemenis to raise arms against the Huthis in Marib, portraying itself once again as the "defender of Muslims" in the region

 'The fighting continues': A Tigray town reels from drawn-out war

Many buildings in Wukro were blasted apart by shelling as government forces arrived 

 

Many buildings in Wukro were blasted apart by shelling as government forces arrived Photo by EDUARDO SOTERAS/A

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2021/03/ethiopia-eritrea-tigray-conflict-unrest.html#ixzz6pQZgijmn

Issued on: 16/03/2021 

Wukro (Ethiopia) (AFP)

Kibrom Hailu wasn't too worried when his 15-year-old son stepped out to play volleyball one morning last month near their home in Wukro, in Ethiopia's conflict-hit Tigray region.

There had been protests in town that week -- young men burning tyres and denouncing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed -- but his son, Henok, wasn't involved and promised not to go far.

Only when he heard gunfire did Kibrom realise the danger, and by then it was too late: Henok's body lay dead in the dirt road right outside the gate of their compound.

Henok was one of 18 civilians shot and killed that day by Ethiopian soldiers, according to a tally provided by St Mary's College in Wukro, which has documented abuses by security forces against civilians in the town since fighting erupted last November.

For Kibrom, though, the timing was just as revealing as the toll: the killings came around two and a half months after Abiy announced military operations in Tigray had "ceased" and life would return to normal.

In fact the opposite is true, Kibrom and other Wukro residents told AFP journalists who reached the town earlier this month.

"The war is escalating. Now it is focused on the civilians," Kibrom said.

"How can we live like this?"

Every phase of the four-month-old conflict in Tigray has brought suffering to Wukro, a fast-growing transport hub once best-known for its religious and archaeological sites.

Ahead of federal forces' arrival in late November, heavy shelling levelled homes and businesses and sent plumes of dust and smoke rising above near-deserted streets.

Since then the town has been heavily patrolled by soldiers -- Eritreans at first, now mostly Ethiopians -- whose abuses fuel a steady flow of civilian casualties and stoke anger with Nobel Peace Prize-winner Abiy.

"We are constantly receiving patients who are injured by the war," said Dr Adonai Hans, medical director of Wukro General Hospital.

"If somebody says there is no war in Tigray, that would be a joke for me."

- 'Sons of the junta' -

Abiy sent troops into Tigray on November 4 after blaming the region's once-dominant ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), for attacks on army camps.

Several weeks later, as federal forces advanced on the regional capital Mekele, Wukro residents realised their town, 50 kilometres (31 miles) north, would be overrun.

Many fled to the surrounding mountains, looking on in horror as shells rained down on the town, some recording the carnage with their cellphones.

What they returned to was even worse: Angry Eritreans who spent days looting homes, banks and factories and shooting dead scores of young men suspected of sympathising with the TPLF "junta", according to religious and medical officials.

"Killing is their kind of daily work. They don't even sense they are killing people," a Catholic official in Wukro said of the Eritreans, requesting anonymity to avoid reprisals.

Nebiyu Kiflom, a building materials vendor, was home with his housemates -- including three of his brothers -- when Eritreans barged through the door one night in late November.

"They said, 'You are the sons of the junta,'" he recalled. "We were just sitting at home. We weren't doing anything."

The soldiers killed six people that night, and Nebiyu was stuck indoors for three days with the bodies before he summoned the courage to go for help.

By early December, scores of young men were dead in Wukro, including 81 now buried at the back of an Orthodox church.

"We have seen the bodies with our own eyes. We have buried them," said priest Gebrehana Hailemariam.

"They were killed in the town and brought to us."

None of the death tolls provided could be independently verified.

- Hospital shelled -

During the first wave of killings, Wukro residents had almost no access to medical care.

Damage from shelling and looting destroyed 75 percent of the hospital's facilities and equipment, forcing it to close for a month, said Dr Adonai, the medical director.

The timing could not have been worse for Elisabeth Gebrekidan, who delivered twins in early December and suffered what her family believes was postpartum haemorrhage.

Her brother, Elias, pleaded with a soldier for permission to hire an ambulance to take her to Mekele for treatment but was rebuffed.

"He said to me, 'Get out of my face, you are a son of the junta'," Elias recalled, tears streaming down his face at the memory.

Elisabeth died after four days at home, leaving Elias to raise the twins -- girls named Tsion and Roda -- with the help of his mother.

These days, the hospital is open and running, albeit at limited capacity.

Patients include rape survivors -- some of whom wait weeks or months before seeking medical care -- and freshly-wounded civilians who give an idea of just how close fighting continues to be.

One recent afternoon, a 45-year-old construction worker named Meles was being treated for a gunshot blast to his right thigh.

He said Eritrean soldiers had opened fire on civilians in his hometown of Agula, 12 kilometres south of Wukro, one morning in late February after pro-TPLF forces ambushed one of their positions in the town.

"Still the fighting continues," Meles said.

"The international community needs to act now before it's too late, before we vanish."

- 'This is our home' -

Ethiopia's military did not respond to requests for comment, though Abiy's government has previously rejected allegations that soldiers have killed civilians in Tigray.

Both Addis Ababa and Asmara deny Eritrean soldiers are in the region at all, despite contrary accounts from residents, aid workers, diplomats and members of Tigray's Abiy-appointed interim government.

These claims draw mocking laughter on Wukro's main commercial drag, where glass from shot-out windows litters sidewalks, and shopkeepers stand before empty shelves clutching photographs of what their businesses looked like before the war.

The pro-TPLF network Dimtsi Weyane recently aired a 13-minute video highlighting the scars of conflict in Wukro, with a narrator lamenting that the town, once an "earthly paradise", now "looks like Syria and Yemen."

Residents, for their part, said what they want most is for soldiers to leave so they can rebuild.

"They shouldn't stay here even for a single night," said Nebiyu, the building materials vendor.

"This is our home. It's where we live. Otherwise, we would leave."