In 1942, Jack Sillito found himself alone in the Libyan desert, more than 100 miles from camp, with a flask of water that soon ran dry. What he did next became the standard every SAS soldier after him was measured against. by Gatimu Juma He raised the rock above his …
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Scam at 17,000 Feet: The Helicopter Rescue Racket Inside Nepal
Investigators say false emergencies in the Himalayas had little to do with survival. by Gatimu Juma The radio call came in around noon from the approach to Everest Base Camp in Nepal. The tour guide spoke in urgent, desperate tones. A trekker was down. He was a British man in …
Read More »Rhodesian Bush War: The Altena Farm Attack
In the predawn hours of 21 December 1972, a guerrilla unit cut the phone lines to the remote farmhouse. Then they attacked. by Gatimu Juma The night was quiet along the northeastern frontier of Rhodesia. Altena Farm, a tobacco property, lay near the Mozambique border, where far-flung farms were connected …
Read More »Code Name Annabelle: The Secret Runway Where Pilots Ran the Biafra Blockade
Flying old cargo planes through darkness and anti-aircraft fire, pilots had to find the hidden runway before Nigerian fighters found them. by Gatimu Juma The pilot pushed the throttles forward, and the cargo aircraft climbed into the humid African night. Behind him the island of São Tomé disappeared into darkness. …
Read More »So You Want to Be a War Correspondent
COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The work has been called the most dangerous form of journalism. Amid my daily influx of emails, text messages, and phone calls, I frequently am hit up by people who want to go downrange under my name. They approach me with variants on the following requests. …
Read More »Deadly Venom: I Was Bitten by a Black Mamba Snake in Africa
by Gatimu Juma Publisher’s note: Gatimu Juma, who reports from the Horn of Africa, told me he was working on a story about the Al-Shabaab terror group. Nearly a year went by, and I couldn’t reach him. Finally he surfaced to tell me where he was all that time: convalescing. …
Read More »Air Rhodesia Flight 825: Ambush in the Sky, Massacre On the Ground in the Rhodesian Bush War
When a guerrilla missile brought down a Rhodesian airliner in 1978, the crash was only the beginning. by Gatimu Juma It should have been a routine flight. The Bush War was well underway in Rhodesia, but on that day in 1978, civilian air travel was safe. Or so it seemed. …
Read More »Soldiers Kidnapped in Central African Republic: Among the Shadows, Where the Dead Tend to Stay
by Gatimu Juma The last anyone saw of Celestin Bakoyo and Elie Ngouengue, they were stepping into a police station in Bangui, in the Central African Republic. That was on January 24. Since then—nothing. No official charges, no explanations, just silence. And in a country where men vanish and never …
Read More »Russian Wagner Fighters Captured, Traded for Ransom by Rebels in Mali
by Gatimu Juma Video on secure messaging channels depicts men sitting on the ground while blindfolded, wounded, and writhing in pain. Following intense combat that left dozens of fighters dead or badly maimed, rebel commanders in Mali have ransomed off some of their captives from the Wagner Group and Malian …
Read More »US Sends Weapons to Somalia, Offers Anti-Terrorist Bounty in Fight Against al-Shabaab
by Gatimu Juma The U.S. has stepped up its efforts to counter the al-Shabaab militant group in Somalia, sending more than 60 tons of weapons and ammunition to the Somali National Army and offering a sizable reward to help catch a senior leader of the terrorist organization. More than 60 …
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