The untold story of Majority leader Aden Duale

Majority leader of National Assembly Republic of Kenya  Hon Aden Duale

To many Kenyans, Leader of Majority in Parliament Aden Duale is the Jubilee government’s foremost defender.

The Garissa Township MP takes on opponents of Jubilee – from the civil society to CORD leaders and governors pushing for more funding for the counties through a referendum – head-on.
His recent spat with Mr Isaac Ruto, the chairman of the Council of Governors, is the latest demonstration of his determination to defend the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.

For Kenyans who remember the Kanu regime, Duale is a stark reminder of the sycophants of those days. The likes of politician Peter Oloo Aringo, who at some point referred to then President Daniel arap Moi as the “Prince of Peace”, a title Christians reserve for Jesus Christ.
Duale recently said he was ready to take the bullet for President Kenyatta and Deputy President Ruto.
But, beneath the sycophancy is a man whose reputation, together with that of some members of his family, is blotted with scandal and accusations. Duale stands accused of land-grabbing and nepotism, while at least one member of his family has been linked to terrorism.
In a story complete with the intrigues of attempted murder, Duale is accused of grabbing a piece of land belonging to Garissa Primary School where he has now built a four-storey building called Lillac Centre.
Those familiar with the story say that sometime in the 1990s, a group of Islamic scholars requested the board of Garissa Primary School for a piece of land to put up a mosque. However, in 2009, Duale asked the mosque’s management to sell him a part of the land.
The mosque’s management committee was split on the issue but a majority of the members opposed the idea, noting that the land still belonged to the school.
One of those who opposed the request was the committee’s chairman, Mr Yussuf Jama, the brother of Garissa County Governor Nathif Jama.
While negotiations were ongoing, Jama was shot outside the mosque by a lone gunman early last year on his way home from evening prayers. He resigned his position soon after.
Who replaced Jama? Mr Dubow Bare Duale, a brother of the Majority Leader. Soon after, the land matter was resolved and Duale allowed to lease the land.
The school has appealed to the National Land Commission to revoke the lease and asked the Ethics the Anti-Corruption Commission to institute proceedings against Duale. But the complaints have not been acted on for Duale has threatened the officers with censure motions if they dare open files against him.
The second questionable deal involves Duale’s acquisition of a piece of land in Nairobi’s Eastleigh, where he has set up the Nomad Hotel.
The land belonged to the Ministry of Livestock where Duale served as an assistant minister and it remains unclear how it changed hands.
Another dark secret Duale has successfully hidden from his Jubilee benefactors and Kenyans is the suspicion that his family could be involved in supporting terrorist activities in North Eastern region and beyond. In fact some in Jubilee tellingly refer to him as the terror donor within the government, a moniker which is pregnant with innuendo.
In April 2013, armed gunmen attacked Kwa Chege Kiosk and killed 10 people. Kwa Chege was an informal eatery, popular with the up-country people and employees of development organisations.
Soon after this incident security officers in the town questioned Duale’s older brother Hassan Bare Duale.
An officer involved in the investigations, but who requested not to be named for fear of his personal security, said:
“There were too many coincidences, which we simply could not ignore. Our intelligence showed that whenever he traveled to a place, say Mombasa, an attack would occur soon after he left. People came to us and told us to connect the dots. We did but we did not come up with any solid proof to charge him. But it is quite telling that after we questioned him, the attacks abated, at least for a while.”
According to security officers, Hassan, a former Administration Police officer, is shielded by his brother Aden’s political clout.
As was reported recently by a section of the local press, a low-level but sustained campaign of intimidation and ethnic cleansing against non-Somalis is under way in Garissa town and neighbouring villages.

Duale is the MP of Garissa Township where most of these attacks have occurred. However, he has never condemned this systematic targeting of a section of Kenyans in his constituency.
In the past, Duale has accused CORD leader Raila Odinga of nepotism for appointing close family members to public positions of influence while he was Prime Minister.
But those who know him well say he is guilty of the same: He is said to have influenced the nomination of his niece, Mariam Hassan, as a Member of County Assembly on his United Republican Party (URP) ticket.
He is also said to have arm-twisted the National Land Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Housing to hire another of his nieces, Fatuma Borrow, as the Lamu County Lands Secretary.
She did not apply for the job in the first place, but her name was on the short list.  She is said to have failed the interview, answering only three out of 10 questions asked by the panelists.
However, Uncle Aden Duale came to her rescue and she got the job that pays her more than Sh400,000 per month.
The Leader of Majority is said to be currently lobbying for another of his brothers, Noor Bare Duale, to be appointed the chairman of the Kenya Revenue Authority. Noor is a businessman with a lucrative tender to supply drugs to government hospitals in the North-Eastern region.
Other accusations revolve around his alleged role in influencing tenders. Mr Duale is accused of ensuring major contracts in his county by the national government are issued to him and his family members.
These include the construction of five polytechnics in Garissa at a cost of Sh150 million each, construction of Garissa Livestock market, which was funded by the World Bank under the Kenya Municipal Program at a cost of Sh125 million. However, the project stalled due to variation of costs by the contractor.
Last year, another company associated with his family, Hagar Construction Company, was given a contract to fence the Garissa Provincial Hospital at a cost of Sh40 million. However, the project which was awarded under the former Ministry of Northern Kenya Development is yet to be completed after the company varied the cost of the contract.
The Duale family has spread its interests beyond the Kenyan borders. Duale’s sister Arfon is a member of Jubaland Parliament in Somalia.
Jubaland is the region in southern Somalia which was created by the Kenyan government as a buffer zone against Al Shabab militants.
Arfon is a close associate of Professor Mohammed Abdi Mohammed, popularly known as Professor Gandhi, the first president of Jubaland and now Somalia’s ambassador to Canada.
She went to the United States around 2008 on a Somali passport as a refugee but came back when the Jubaland government was being put in place.
The family is said to have lobbied Prof Gandhi and the current President of Jubaland Sheikh Ahmed Madobe to have Arfon appointed to the region’s Parliament for its own interests.
The Leader of Majority hails from a wealthy merchant family that owns a plethora of businesses and properties in Garissa, Nairobi and beyond.

But having achieved financial muscle, the family is now keen on consolidating its political clout, not only in Garissa County but also in the former North Eastern province.
Duale’s position as Leader of Majority in Parliament has given him and the family an important platform to establish grassroot links throughout the North Eastern region for future political endeavors.
“The ultimate aim of Aden Duale is not to stick with Jubilee but someday break out from it and form a strong political party for the Somali community and bargain for a higher post in subsequent governments. That is what his family members tell people in public,” said our source.
The question nagging many people is why the President and his deputy are still indulging Duale at the heart of government despite being linked to terrorism, corruption and ethnic profiling of Kenyans. Could he be hiding behind the bravado of being Jubilee’s foremost defender to pool wool over the eyes of his benefactors? And if so, why aren’t the intelligence forces outing him? So many question, so few answers. But hey, this is digital Kenya. Karibu.

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IS IT DEMOCRACY OR 'DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP'?

When you are sick, doctors look out four vital signs - heartbeat, breathing rate, temperature, and blood pressure – to assess your physical functioning. Analogically we can also try and gauge the health of a nation on the basis of some vital signs.

Yes, of late I have been getting enquiries on whether we are headed to a more open democracy or ‘digital’ dictatorship’ that is so smart and suave in courting you to surrender your rights, because as the old saying goes, “a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.”

My answer, like those of many Kenyans, often depends on who is asking and his or her possible political leanings given your basic understanding of their genealogy. Yes, in a tribal set-up you must understand the basic rules of getting along well with one another.

But on a serious note, maybe we need to consider the following ten ‘vital signs’ and decide for ourselves where we may probably be headed.

Executions and unexplained killings: This is the age-old symptom that should get us all off our shoes. It starts probably as a temporary experiment but when it seems you can get away with it and the public is pacified or cowed, the appetite for more eliminations rises.

It starts with such a simple matter as Jihadist clerics then slowly moves on. No one knows how to do this more than the police.

Corruption and more corruption: Politics runs on the fuel of money and the engine of power idles on the strength of more and more money. When you think it will end, graft starts sprouting in every corner, even nearly forgotten grounds like land grabbing.

If you want to know the scale in our case consider the fact that the President met his top enforcers last week and demanded action on the corrupt. I guess they include those he confessed to us are at Harambee House!

Tribal cartels and kitchen cabinets: The more and more you see junior guys, including Senator Mike Sinko who has the audacity to call the President in public on his mobile phone, display unexplained source of power and move around as if they are a law unto themselves, you get to know there is more than you are seeing.

The more power slips away from legitimate holders or the more those who rightly wield it ‘share’ it with ‘outsiders’, the more you need to be very afraid.

Overt war on media and civil society: Every government demands responsibility from the media and professes respect for the right of free speech and press.

But scratch beneath the surface and the murk left on your fingernails tells you the dirt runs deep. Yes, there is total war going here by way of a myriad of legislation and decrees, all anchored to the war on terror.

In fact the President last declared he was ready to barter the gains of democracy in exchange for extermination of terrorism. Yes, there we go, it is up to us to try and decipher where the excuse lies!

General feeling of siege mentality: A people begin to feel helpless, that nothing can be done and that the leader(s) will anyway, have their way, because their path is paved with gold and diamonds.

Call it tyranny of numbers or whatever you want, but all of a sudden, the opposition starts withering, the few green leaves are plucked away, and the tree of liberty stands forlorn and in a laughable state.

Few speak but even those who do are shouted down by the majority and so the slide to personalised rule continues.

Rise of sycophancy and death of logic: There emerges a group of tight-knit ‘political elite’ and technocrats whose sole duty is to twist every developing ‘news’ against the subject and in favour of the state, more or less like the YK ‘92 team did.

Their role is to stifle any debate by subduing it with tribal and so-called non-patriotic overtones.

In short, an industry of sycophancy grows and you know it is not philanthropic activity here and again, it cannot thrive without the blessings of the big guys because the professional sycophants, some hiding behind the digital walls, have mouths and families to feed.

Militarisation and aggressive streak: We may have learnt this from Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, wherever there was national tension like when JM Kariuki was killed, the military would be brought to the streets to display their might and menacing hardware.

Then Mzee would say he would crush you like boulders into pebbles. That is what probably military uniform and appointments mean. Yes, it helps to kill two birds with one stone; scare the terrorists and at the same time instil fear in your critics.

Industrial unrest and so many hungers around: Apart from the prevailing harsh economic conditions, one could argue that through history, especially the French Revolution, one vital sign of a society stifled and starved through concentration of the national harvest in the kraal of the royalty, are demonstrations and industrial strife.

Well this may not be Jubilee’s making, but again if you do not stop wastage, bake a bigger cake for all, and show compassion for the poor and the poorly paid, what follows?

In a sense, these actions are a product of age-old disproportionate distribution of bread among Kenyans and is an indictment of current and past regimes.

Facing East while charming the West: Everyone knows that after the end of Cold War era so many African leaders were left stranded on the junction leading to either of the blocks with a begging bowl in their hands.

The European/American rivalry against China was good ground to get aid and freebies for our leaders. Today the re-emergence of the same rivalry albeit on economic grounds, is good fodder to play the two blocs against each other so that you reap double.

In so doing you hope to succeed in making them pay less attention to prevailing domestic rights issues. But wait for a moment, China actually doesn’t care!

Flourishing of cartels and rogues: When a junior politician can be driven through town flashing big guns while pushing the rest of us off the roads you know something nasty is coming.

When rich individuals try and overshadow government and even provide its services, friends please remember someone called Pavlo Escobar and his Columbian ‘friends’. As they say there is nothing like free lunch.

Finally, friends, I hope I am wrong for the sake of Kenya.

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#ManderaExposed

                       

Welcome to Mandera County, with a population of 1,025,756 constituting only 2.5% percent of the national population. This gives the residents a guarantee slot to be categorized as a marginalized area in Kenya. The political class in Mandera went ahead and further divided the unity of people through “clanism” and tribal clashes. Article 204 establishes Equalization Fund which is intended to provide basic services including water, roads, health facilities and electricity to marginalized areas to the extent of the extent necessary to the quality of those  services in those areas to the level generally enjoyed by the rest of the nation, so far as possible. Mandera was the third to receive the largest share of the fund from the government. The county stands at a poverty rate of 87.8% (KIHBS) with pastoralism and livestock keeping as the main economic background.

Devolution was a baby that every resident of Mandera was waiting to be born. The last resort to end tribalism, corruption, misuse of public funds and pave way to development, improved standard of living, education, better health care, access to water and a better life for that common citizen who rides his donkey in search of livelihood. To others, our so called “leaders” it was a scapegoat to luxury lifestyle, beach plots, foreign trips, numerous bank accounts and looting of public funds. Allow me to account how the people of Mandera were robbed their money & violated their constitutional rights upon when they entered power until August 2013. Let me call it return on investment after 9 months in power.

The County Government procured ten (10) vehicles at a cost of Kshs.80,098,309 on 22 May 2013 and 20 June 2013. A further amount of Kshs.4,102,920 was paid in diverse dates in June 2013 to a garage for modification of the vehicles. The vehicles are bought cheaply in Dubai after which they are modified hence the public officers pocketed a whopping Ksh 27Million into their accounts. The vehicles were procured through direct method instead of open tendering. A violation of Article 227(1) of the constitution which states that when a State organ or any other public entity contracts for goods or services, it shall do so in accordance with a system that is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective. The tender committee did not prepare the required specifications of the motor vehicles prior to the purchase, resulting to immediate modification after the purchase and incurring of avoidable expenditure. Further, The Public Procurement and Oversight Authority (PPOA) was not notified of the direct purchase of the motor vehicles. The county undermined a body that is fully constituted to carry out its mandate by the law through an Act of Parliament.

Goods and services totaling Kshs.49,102,630 were procured during the period through direct method and included five (5) generator sets worth Kshs.7,050,000, computers and other accessories worth Kshs.8,292,000 and installation of telephone system, CCTV and networking of the County Government offices at a total of Kshs.5,500,000. Three months after delivery, all the generators were lying idle in the county offices compound an indication of inefficiency and misuse of public funds.

The Mandera County Government spent Kshs.10,534,000 to pay rent for offices and residential houses occupied by the Governor and his Deputy therefore paying a monthly rent of Ksh. 2,300,000 per month as 90% of the residents live in thorn-hatched hats and pay rent as low as Ksh 2,000 per month. The expenditure was incurred after reallocation of funds from refurbishment of nonresidential buildings to rent without prior authority, contrary to Section 154(2) (B) of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012. The Deputy Governor drew house allowance despite the residential house being rented for him. Also, the County Government rented five (5) rooms at National Drought Management Authority but no lease agreement was signed between the two parties and no valuation was done to establish that the rent paid was commensurate with the rooms occupied. A total of Kshs.584,000 was spent on the rented rooms in May and June, 2013.

Fuel costing Kshs.8,158,772 was procured during the month of June, 2013 but was not taken on charge. Payments of Kshs.2,291,200 and Kshs.1,821,560 were made to the clerk of the County Assembly and the Principal Finance Officer, respectively in May and June 2013, in respect of sitting allowances to the members of the County Assembly. A team from KEMRI requested to sit with the house committee of health to educate them on various health issues and the members demanded a sitting allowance of Ksh. 6,500 for a meeting of 30 minutes only. Mandera being a county with high infant mortality rate and lack of well-equipped hospitals was put at stake by greedy policy makers who are after their stomach and not for better health services. I call it selling the people to the dogs.

The County Government paid a total of Kshs.3,000,000 to two Travel Agencies in respect of hire of chartered flights for a period of only 3 months within 2013. From 2013 to 2014 they spent Ksh 358 Million on domestic & foreign travels. Money enough to build a number of schools and educate our people. Now what doesn’t stop you as a citizen to think that your taxes are used by your leaders to reach into luxurious destinations and honeymoons?

An amount of Kshs.1,839,700 was used to pay security personnel guarding the County Government offices, the Governor and his Deputy’s residences for a period of 3 months. Bank statements showed that Kshs.4,582,338 was withdrawn from the bank accounts on diverse dates in February, March and April 2013. The amounts were used for payment of subsistence allowances to various staff, supply of goods and services and salary arrears to ONE MEMBER of staff.

Bloated bureaucratic policies by the house is a stumbling block against development of our county. Our leaders are ever busy out of the county roaming around Nairobi & Mombasa hotels, renting liaison offices at the expense of taxpayers. They have turned a whole county to be like a “briefcase” where they take the affairs of the county wherever they go instead of creating an open door policy & nearness to the people. Crucial policies have to be approved by incompetent “clan elders” who are the final decision makers instead of engaging professionals from impartial Civil Societies. Public participation programmes are done in a rush without engaging everyone in the community and the MCAs rubber stamps such policies. Most the executives and nominated MCAs are not from Mandera & cannot understand the problems of residents. This creates incompetency & lack of professionalism towards delivery of services to the people.

Lack of priority in development projects is an issue. The county has budgeted over Ksh 1.2 Billion for construction of tarmac roads within the town when people are not yet empowered with few opportunities, lack of education, lack of access water and other basic social rights. How do you tarmac a town with 1.2B to a county that can only raise revenue Ksh. 90Million? That’s not even what Safaricom spends on advertisement monthly. Come on! First raise more revenue from the people through various development projects that will generate income to them.

It’s a wakeup call for residents of Mandera who have never received Billions from the government to understand that they should held their leaders accountable, advocate for development & shun tribalism by protecting corrupt, incompetent & unjust leaders. It’s your constitutional right to ensure you question & participate in policy formulation.

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Islamist Terror Group Al Shabaab Recruits Members With $50 And A Cell Phone, Study Finds

The typical terrorist in Somalia was recruited when he was young, poor and afraid. In some cases, he just wanted $50 and a cell phone.
These are the findings of a new study published this week by the Institute for Security Studies, examining how the Somali extremist group al-Shabab recruits new members. Through a series of interviews with 88 former recruits, researchers Anneli Botha and Mahdi Abdile have created a multifaceted profile of the type of person who is prone to join Somalia's largest terror organization.
Notably, the vast majority of recruits were young. Ninety-one percent of those interviewed became radicalized before the age of 30, which is apt considering al-Shabab means "the youth" in Arabic. The interviewees also tended to come from impoverished backgrounds, and to join al-Shabab as a career rather than simply out of support for the group's cause. In almost all cases, recruits grew up in something of an ideological vacuum, with little to no education and no exposure to belief systems other than Islam.
One member who joined the organization as a teenager told the researchers: "When you join, they give you a mobile phone and every month you get $50."
"This is what pushes a lot of my friends to join," he added.
Another interesting section of the study concerns the role of religion, with al-Shabab using Islam to promote a collective sense of identity, and making membership synonymous with being Muslim. As the "identity of the organization becomes the identity of the individual," the study says, members become more likely to support the group's cause.
Botha and Abile have done important work, and their study is worth a read if you want a better understanding of what drives some extremists. The research appears to indicate that in many cases, there is no specific propaganda or belief that draws people to al-Shabab. Rather, it is the systemic dissolution of social services, security and national identity in Somalia that is driving youths to radicalize.

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Camac Energy to explore 900 million barrels of oil deposits in Garissa County

Camac Energy, a US oil and gas exploration, development and production firm will commence an extensive process to acquire seismic survey data on Block L1B in the next few days.
Studies finished by the firm show that the onshore block which is part of the larger Lamu basin and spans Garissa and Tana River Counties may hold as much as 900 million barrels of oil.
Camac plans to shoot 2D seismic survey in the region for the next five months and has already begun shoring in crew and equipment with the final consignment due in a fortnight.
The company has completed gravity and aero-magnetic surveys as well as the environmental and social impact assessment on the block.
According to Camac, the firm’s activities on the block are targeting net unrisked prospective resources of 900 MBO (million barrels of oil). An earlier well sunk in the block in 1975 showed presence of natural gas and oil.
Speaking in Garissa during a sensitization workshop ahead of the survey, Garissa Governor Nathif Jama called on Camac to uphold its environmental obligations and protect the flora and fauna which abound in the area where the survey is set to take place.
The governor called on the company to ensure the rare Hirola antelope which is only found in the county is not endangered by its activities.
He called on the company to involve the local community in its operations so as to create goodwill amongst the people and ensure the survey is carried out without a hitch.
Camac Energy’s four oil blocks cover a total surface area of about 37,000 square kilometers. Two of the four blocks – L27 and L28 — are located in more than 3,000 meters of ultra-deep waters of the Indian Ocean in Lamu Basin. Its other onshore block is located in the Mandera Basin.
Kenya has become a frontier for oil and gas exploration after British firm Tullow and its strategic partner Africa Oil made successive commercially viable oil finds along the Turkana area.
With more drilling being undertaken, Kenya is poised to be a major oil exporting country. Estimates indicate that Kenya may have over 3.5 billion barrels of yet-to-find (YTF) volumes.
Kenya has 46 oil exploration blocks divided into four exploration basins. These are Lamu Basin, Anza Basin, Tertiary Rift Basin and Mandera Basin.

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Terror Leader Ahmed Abdi Godane Killed in U.S. Strike: Somali PM

Ahmed Abdi Godane, the leader of the Islamic militant organization behind the siege on a mall in Kenya last year, was killed in a U.S. military strike earlier this week, the prime minister of Somalia said Friday on Facebook. A source also confirmed the death to NBC News.

The U.S. strike on Monday targeted Godane, the leader of al Shabab, but U.S. officials said later they did not know whether he had been killed. The siege last September at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi left 67 people dead and about 200 injured.

“We tell the Somalis that Godane is dead,” Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheik Ahmed said on Facebook, Reuters reported.

A U.S. source earlier this week described Godane as “operationally savvy and ideologically driven, with aspirations off the charts.” The United States in 2012 offered a $7 million reward for his arrest. Godane took leadership of al Shabab after his predecessor was killed in an American airstrike in 2008.

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Alleged mastermind of 3 teens’ killing indicted

The Shin Bet released on Thursday further information about the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in June, including the transfer of money from Gaza to Hebron to fund the triple killing and the failed escape to Jordan of Hussam Kawasme, who allegedly helped bury the three teens on his land and was indicted Thursday in a military court.

Kawasme, 40, was arrested on July 11. He later admitted to his role in the attack and fingered other family members and acquaintances, detailing their role in the June 12 killing of Gil-ad Shaar, Naftali Fraenkel, and Eyal Yifrach, after the three Israeli teens were abducted from a hitchhiking post in Gush Etzion in the central West Bank.

The disappearance of the three triggered a massive search operation and crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, with hundreds of members being arrested. Tensions were further ratcheted up after the teens’ bodies were found outside Hebron in late June, and an East Jerusalem teen was allegedly killed by a Jewish Israeli, sparking a 50-day battle between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The two men suspected of carrying out the murders, Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu-Ayshe, are still at large.

“They’ll make their mistake and we’ll get to them, too,” a senior Shin Bet officer said in a briefing.

Marwan Kawasme (left) and Amer Abu Aysha (right), suspected by Israel of kidnapping and killing three Israeli teens

The officer revealed that the terror attack is believed to have been a local initiative rather than a directive from above, and that, according to Hussam Kawasme’s confession, Marwan Kawasme arrived at his house at one in the morning on the night of the attack and said: “We wanted to kidnap one, we kidnapped three. We got tangled up. We killed them.”

The two men at the heart of the attack were the brothers Hussam and Mahmoud Kawasme. The latter, who lives in Gaza, was released from a 20-year sentence in an Israeli prison for his role in a 2004 suicide attack in Beersheba and exiled, as part of the Gilad Shalit deal, to the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave.

Hussam, whom the Shin Bet said played a “staff officer role” in the attack, asked his brother for, and received, NIS 220,000 ($61,000) in cash in order to fund an attack, the Shin Bet said.

With the money, which was allegedly hand-delivered to Hussam’s mother in envelopes, he bought two rifles and two handguns from Adnan Zaro, 34, of Hebron, and two cars – one for the abduction and one for the escape.

After disposing of the bodies and torching the newly stolen Hyundai i-35 used for the kidnapping, the Shin Bet said, Marwan Kawasme arrived at Hussam’s house and explained the complications in the plan. The two then allegedly decided to retrieve the bodies and to bury them on a plot of land that Hussam had recently purchased.

The Shin Bet said that the land had not been bought for this purpose, 

Hussam helped Marwan and Amar Abu-Aysha, who was not involved in the burial of the bodies, escape and hide on land belonging to Arafat Kawasme, 50, of Hebron, who was initially told that the men were wanted by the Palestinian Authority.

The two reportedly hid in a sewage pit in a field in Hebron for several days and then, after spending a night in the open air under an oak tree, disappeared.

On June 30, once the bodies were found by an Israeli search team, Hussam, the owner of the land, was forced to go on the lam. “He planned to flee to Jordan on a forged document, along with two other family members,” the Shin Bet said. But in an intelligence operation “he was found and arrested in his [East Jerusalem] hiding spot in the refugee camp of Shuafat.”

All told, eight operatives and accomplices allegedly directly related to the crime were arrested. The information they revealed was passed on to the military court system.

Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gil-ad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, the three Israeli teenagers who were seized on June 12 and whose bodies were found on June 30

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Arsene Wenger's deadline day text messages

With important transfer business still needing to be done, Arsene Wenger spent deadline day in Rome for the Pope's Match for Peace. The following is a transcript of the text messages exchanged by Wenger and Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis throughout the day. 

Wenger: Please keep me informed today, Ivan. Maybe a good deed on this day will bring us good karma. Does the Pope believe in karma? :-/

Gazidis: I don't think so. Not sure.

Wenger: Grrrrr.

Gazidis: Don't worry Arsene, I'm confident things will go our way today. I'll keep you posted.

Wenger: Thx.

****

Gazidis:  Danny Welbeck’s here with the England squad. His agent offered him to us. Interested?

Wenger: Lololololololololol.

Gazidis: Ok.

Wenger: What's the dealio with Falcao?

Gazidis: Monaco want a £10m loan fee, player wants £346,000 a week. Man Utd, maybe City also interested.

Wenger: For a 28-year-old with one knee? Let United have him. They can tie him and Van Persie together and create one player with two good knees on four times the wages.

Gazidis: Haha ok.

Wenger: :-))

****

Wenger: Any other forwards? I'm starting to get the Sanogo sweats...

Gazidis: Welbeck could be best option. Wants a permanent deal, no loan. United closing in on Falcao.

Wenger: Uggggghhhhhh. Roberto Baggio is here. Maybe I should ask him to come out of retirement.

Gazidis: Haha.

Wenger: Baggio said no. Damn.

Wenger: Shevchenko overheard my offer, but I avoided his attempts to make eye contact.

****

Gazidis: So...Welbeck?

Wenger: Uggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. There's a little kid sitting behind me. I'll ask him if he wants to play for us.

Gazidis: I'll have Welbeck do a medical just in case.

Wenger: Kid doesn't speak English. Had no idea what I was saying.

Wenger: Ok on Welbeck medical. Just deny it if anyone asks. ;-)

Gazidis: Will do.

Wenger: ;-)

****

Gazidis: Running out of time...

Wenger: Ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Gazidis: Go on Welbeck? Also, I just remembered that you said you wanted a center back a couple weeks ago.

Wenger: Fine. Yes. Welbeck could work maybe. He's young. He's been playing out of position. Maybe United didn't F him up too much. Ok, let's do this. This could work. Whatever.

Wenger: Just don't pay more than what Liverpool paid for Balotelli. That comparison could make this deal look better for us when Mario decides he wants to be a chef in Tibet next year.

Wenger: As for CB...William Gallas still unattached?

Gazidis: Are you being serious? Sarcasm sometimes gets lost in text messages. 

Wenger: Yes. Serious. :-/

****

Gazidis: Welbeck done. Have a statement for the press release?

Wenger: No thanks.

Gazidis: Ok. Here's the release. 

Wenger: Lost the charity match...thanks for asking.

Gazidis: Sorry.

Wenger: Never relying on Pope karma again.

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Shock as beautiful Indian girl is forced to marry a stray dog to ward off an evil spell

India: A teenager married a dog during a lavish Indian wedding in front of at least 70 guests.

Mangli Munda, 18, from a remote part of eastern India, was told by village elders that marrying the confused canine would ward off an evil spell.

A local guru told her parents the teenager possessed ill-luck and that marrying a man would bring destruction to the family and her community. 

The baffled dog, Sheru, was brought to the wedding in a chauffeur driven car and welcomed by revellers.

Mangli, who has not been to school, said she was not happy to wed a dog, but insisted that she it will help change her fortunes.

The hesitant bride said: "I am marrying a dog because the village elders believe that my evil spell will be passed on to the dog.

"After that is done, the man I will marry will have a long life."

Mangli's father Sri Amnmunda agreed and even found a stray dog named Sheru as a match for his daughter.

He said: "The village elders told us that we should organise the wedding as soon as we can. We had to make sure that the evil spell is destroyed.

"And marrying a dog is the only way to get rid of the bad luck."

And amazingly, this not the first time that a local girl has wed a dog in the village.

Sri added: "Many weddings like this have taken place in our village and also the other neighbouring villages. This is a custom that we thoroughly believe in."

According to the village's customs, the marriage will not affect Mangli’s life, and she will be free to marry again later without divorcing the dog.

"My villagers say that many girls like me have followed this ritual and they have gotten rid of their evil spells and are living happy lives now," said Mangli.

"I will also be free to marry a man of my dreams after after the evil spell is over."

At the wedding ceremony, people danced to traditional drumming, while around 70 relatives and local villagers attended the wedding.

"Apart from the fact that the groom is a dog, we followed all customs. We respect the dog as much as we would respect a normal groom," said Mangli's mother Seems Devi.

"We had to spend money on this wedding in the same way as we would in a normal wedding. But that is the only way we can get rid of her bad luck and ensure the benevolence of the village."

Now with the marriage ceremony over, Mangli has to take care of the dog and raise him as a pet for the next few months.

mangli added: "I will marry a man one day. It is the dream of every girl to marry a prince charming. So I am also waiting for my prince."

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More Palestinian land is "appropriated" by Israel, and the world makes the usual excuses

Israel’s ‘land for lives’ is theft. Pure and simple

World View: Israel takes land, Palestine loses land; that’s the way it works

So a bit more of Palestine has slidden down the plughole. A thousand more acres of Palestinian land stolen by the Israeli government –for “appropriation” is theft, is it not? – and the world has made the usual excuses. The Americans found it “counter-productive” to peace, which is probably a bit less forceful than its reaction would be if Mexico were to bite off a 1,000-acre chunk of Texas and decided to build homes there for its illegal immigrants in the US. But this is “Palestine” (inverted commas more necessary than ever) and Israel has been getting away with theft, albeit not on quite this scale – it is the biggest land heist in 30 years – ever since it signed up to the Oslo agreement in 1993.

The Rabin-Arafat handshake, the promises and handovers of territory and military withdrawals, and the determination to leave everything important (Jerusalem, refugees, the right of return) to the end, until everyone trusted each other so much that the whole thing would be a doddle – no wonder the world bestowed its financial generosity upon the pair. But this latest land-grab not only reduces “Palestine” but continues the circle of concrete around Jerusalem to cut Palestinians off from both the capital they are supposed to share with Israelis and from Bethlehem.

It was instructive to learn the Israeli-Jewish Etzion council regarded this larceny as punishment for the murder of three Israeli teenagers in June. “The goal of the murders of those three youths was to sow fear among us, to disrupt our daily lives and to call into doubt our right [sic] to the land,” the Etzion council announced. “Our response is to strengthen settlement.” This must be the first time that land in “Palestine” has been acquired not through excuses about security or land deeds – or on God’s personal authority – but out of revenge.

And it raises an interesting precedent. If an innocent Israeli life – cruelly taken – is worth around 330 acres of land, then an innocent Palestinian life – equally cruelly taken – must surely equal the same. And if even half the 2,200 Palestinian dead of Gaza last month – and this is a conservative figure – were innocent, then the Palestinians presumably now have the right to take over 330,000 acres of Israeli land, in reality much more. But however “counter-productive” this might be, I’m sure America would not stand for it. Israel takes land, Palestinians lose land; that’s the way it works. And thus it has been since 1948, and that is how it will continue.

There will never be a “Palestine” and the latest territorial robbery is merely another small punctuation mark in the book of sorrow which the Palestinians must read as their dreams of statehood wither. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for the Palestinian “President”, Mahmoud Abbas, said his boss and the “moderate forces” in Palestine had been “stabbed in the back” by the Israeli decision, which is putting it mildly. Abbas has a back covered in knife wounds. What else did he expect when he wrote a book about Palestinian-Israeli relations without once using the word “occupation”?

So we’re back to the same old game. Abbas cannot negotiate with anyone unless he speaks for Hamas as well as the Palestinian Authority. As Israel knows. As America knows. As the EU knows. But each time Abbas tries to put together a unity government, we all screech that Hamas is a “terrorist” organisation. And Israel says it cannot talk to a “terrorist” organisation which demands the destruction of Israel – even though Israel used to say the same of Arafat and, in those days, helped Hamas to build more mosques in Gaza and the West Bank as a counterweight to Fatah and all the other “terrorists” up in Beirut.

Of course, if Abbas speaks only for himself, Israel will tell him what it has told him before: that without his control of Gaza, Israel has no one to negotiate with. But does it matter any more? There should be a special strap headline above all reports of this kind: “Goodbye, 

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US reportedly targets leader of al-Shabaab with Somalia drone strike

Members of al Shabaab, al Qaeda-linked insurgents, ride in their pick-up trucks after distributing relief to famine-stricken people outside Mogadishu, Somalia

A U.S. drone reportedly targeted the leader of the Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab group in a strike in southern Somalia Monday.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby provided few details about the nature of the operation, the results of which he said were being assessed.

"We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate," he said in a statement.

A senior Somali official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that a U.S. drone targeted al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane as he left a meeting of the group's top leaders. The official told AP that intelligence indicated Godane "might have been killed along with other militants."

The official said that the strike took place in a forest near Sablale district, 105 miles south of Mogadishu, where the group trains its fighters. The governor of Somalia's Lower Shabelle region, Abdiqadir Mohamed Nor, told The Associated Press that as government and African Union forces were heading to a town in Sablale district, they heard something that sounded like an "earthquake" as drones struck al-Shabaab bases.

"There was an airstrike near Sablale, we saw something," Nor said.

The U.S. action comes after Somalia's government forces regained control of a high security prison in the capital that was attacked Sunday by seven heavily armed suspected Islamic militants who attempted to free other extremists held there. The Pentagon statement did not indicate whether the U.S. action was related to the prison attack.

Somali officials said all attackers, three government soldiers and two civilians were killed. Mogadishu's Godka Jilacow prison is an interrogation center for Somalia's intelligence agency, and many suspected militants are believed to be held in underground cells there.

The Somali rebel group al-Shabaab, which is linked to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack that shattered a period of calm in Mogadishu after two decades of chaotic violence. The attack started when a suicide car bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the gate of the prison, followed by gunmen who fought their way into the prison.

It was al-Shabaab gunmen who attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, with guns and grenades last September, killing at least 67 people. Al-Shabaab had threatened retaliation against Kenya for sending troops into Somalia against the extremists. Godane said the attack was carried out in retaliation for the West's support for Kenya's Somalia invasion and the "interest of their oil companies."

 

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