Kakchiquel Mayan women listen to instructions from members of the FAFG regarding boxes containing the remains of 10 wartime victims on July 18, 2014. Located in Cobán, 219 kilometers north of Guatemala City, CREOMPAZ, a former military base, was closed in 2004. Known as Military Zone 21, in 2012 it was the site of a shocking discovery—one of the largest mass graves ever unearthed in Latin America. The discovery, and the criminal charges that followed, became widely known as the CREOMPAZ case, and may prove to be a watershed moment in accountability for grave crimes. It led to a two-year forensic investigation by the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG), which investigates and uncovers evidence of human rights violations committed during the country’s civil war. FAFG also assists the justice system with forensic evidence for prosecutions, identifies the victims of these crimes, and assists the victims’ families in recovering their remains. The CREOMPAZ case (CREOMPAZ stands for Comando Regional de Entrenamiento de Operaciones de Mantenimiento de Paz) brought to light some of the worst state-perpetrated atrocities of the Guatemalan conflict. At the request of the public prosecutor’s office, FAFG forensic experts dug for, recorded, and exhumed the remains of 558 people, including 90 children, in 84 mass and individual graves. To date, DNA testing has identified 97 victims from all over Guatemala using the National Genetic Database for Families and Victims of Enforced Disappearances. Many of the bodies were blindfolded and their hands and feet bound, suggesting that the base was used as a clandestine interrogation and detention center—and that its victims were summarily executed. On January 6, the public prosecutor’s office ordered the arrest of 18 retired military officers for war crimes allegedly committed during the country’s 36-year internal armed conflict, which took place from 1960 to 1996 and claimed 200,000 lives. Fourteen of those arrested are charged with enforced disappearance, murder, and torture as crimes against humanity. The forensic evidence gathered by FAFG has allowed the public prosecutor’s office to corroborate eyewitness testimony of the abductions and killings that happened at Military Zone 21. The remains that were found were of ordinary people who one day kissed their loved ones goodbye and left for school, college, or work and never came home. Most people who disappeared were poor, came from indigenous communities, and were branded as “subversives” by the state. According to FAFG, military and state documents show that the state considered the unarmed civilian population an internal enemy, which led to systematic and generalized attacks by state security forces and paramilitary groups against political opposition parties, unions, priests, lawyers, journalists, professors and teachers, peasants, and indigenous people. Should the recent arrests result in criminal prosecutions, the CREOMPAZ case has the potential to prove the critical role of forensic physical evidence in seeking justice and accountability for grave crimes. Yet Guatemala has before been at the cusp of setting meaningful precedent on holding those responsible for grave crimes accountable, and ultimately failed to do so. In 2013, former president Efraín Ríos Montt was tried and convicted in a separate case of genocide and crimes against humanity, but the verdict was overturned just 10 days later and a retrial is still pending. A number of related trials are keeping such atrocities fresh in the minds of Guatemalans. The CREOMPAZ case is full of tragicomic contradictions. The site of the atrocities is now a regional training center for United Nations peacekeeping operations. Instead of being commended for their work, FAFG staff are vilified in the media by state apologists and conservative entities, such as the Fundación Contra el Terrorismo, which targeted FAFG in advertisements and newspaper articles. Perhaps most fantastically of all, many of the officers now implicated are intimately connected to the National Convergence Front (FCN–Nación), the political party founded by retired military officers that brought comic actor Jimmy Morales to victory in last year’s elections. Some of those arrested were expected to serve in Morales’s cabinet. On January 14, just eight days after the CREOMPAZ arrests, Morales took office as president. Now, his presidency may well be defined by the most important anti-impunity efforts in Guatemala’s history—efforts that could set a standard for the rest of Latin America, or continue the farce that has left the victims’ families without the justice they so desperately seek. © 2016 Open Society Foundations, some rights reserved.

It’s not difficult to accuse the bad guys of genocide – Colin Powell had no problem over Darfur in 2004. We should stand up to the real bullies. Why won’t US politicians talk about genocide every time it occurs? AP All week, the G-word has been rattling around the foreign ministries of the world. Ever since John Kerry – he of Israeli-Palestinian peace “in six months” fame – announced that Isis was committing genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims, we’ve been trying to work out just what he’s talking about. Even the poor old Canadians and their super-liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau, have since been refusing to recognise the Isis atrocities as “genocide” – the attempt to exterminate an entire race of people – preferring instead to talk about “crimes perpetrated…against religious and ethnic minorities.” Could this be, ask Canadian critics, because Canada last month withdrew the last of its clapped out CF-18 fighter jets from the battle against Isis? More likely the Canadians have caught on to the whole genocide trap. But first: yes, Isis have indeed committed horrific crimes against minorities under their control. Their massacre of Shia Muslims and the murder and enslavement of Yazidi and Christian women and children are all real – perhaps 10,000, perhaps 100,000, the figures are as numbing as they are vague. The Isis magazine Dabiq admits all this – perhaps the closest anyone has come to self-incrimination since Pol Pot listed his crimes in Cambodia. But there’s a problem. These terrible atrocities are being committed on the very land and deserts upon which a far more terrible genocide was perpetrated just over a hundred years ago by the Turks who head-chopped and knifed and shot to death a million and a half Armenian Christians, raping their women and throwing so many of their dead men into the waters of Anatolia that the very rivers changed course. And Turkey – heaven be praised – is now our good friend, Nato ally and, since this month, our bastion against the Muslim refugee “invasion” of Europe. Back in 1915, the Brits and Americans had no problems in naming the guilty party, along with the Turks’ militia ally – again, take in your breath – the Kurds, now our brave allies against the forces of Isis darkness. All this, you see, is a bit embarrassing. The Yazidis and Christians of Iraq have certainly been massacred – including a few Armenian grandchildren of the 1915 survivors, although that hasn’t cut much ice in the US – although the Shia Muslims of Iraq were being slaughtered in Iraq by the thousand during the latter half of America’s military occupation. The Shia, I suspect, have been given a bloodbath upgrade to genocide because Shia Iran agreed to a nuclear deal with the rest of the world. But back to Yazidis for a moment. One of the worst genocides against this forlorn, centuries-old religion occurred in 1892 when the Turkish Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II targeted them for mass extermination. But the Sultan included among his victims tens of thousands of 19thcentury Armenians – whom Mr Kerry cannot bring himself to declare victims of genocide in the 20th century (although he did so for many years when he was a mere Senator). So earlier references to Yazidi extermination have to be left out of the Kerry narrative of history. The current Kerry mantra for the Armenian genocide is “one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century”. La Clinton is going to be no help in all this. She regularly condemned the Armenian genocide until she became Secretary of State to Barack Obama and discovered that the frightful persecution of the 1915 Christians – a teaching forum for future Nazis who witnessed the genocide as young German army officers and later put their lessons into practice against the Jews – was now “a matter of historical debate”. Donald Trump has not yet entered this particular blood-boltered ‘debate’ although his Trump hotel in Azerbaijan – a country which, like Turkey and (to its shame) Israel, denies the Armenian genocide – suggests that we shall be hearing from him soon. Much of the rest of the world – governments and parliaments of 29 countries up to last year – have recognised the Armenian genocide. For 20 years, The Independent has regularly referred to the Armenian Holocaust – with a capital ‘H’, the very same word (‘Shoah’ in Hebrew) used by many ordinary Israelis to describe the slaughter. But not the Americans. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose Sukhoi jet had of course not yet been shot down by the Turks, attended the official genocide memorial day in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, declaring the genocide a fact of history – to the fury of the Turks — while President Obama skulked in Washington, still too fearful of offending his Nato ally whose airbases – ironically built, in many cases, on lands stolen from murdered Armenians – were so important to the US Air Force which was already supposedly destroying Isis. All in all, then a pretty mess. Kerry tells us that Isis is “genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology and by actions…” as if the destruction of the Armenian people in 1915 was not – and is perfectly happy to label the dark forces of the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ as genocidal themselves – which they clearly are. But it raises another frightful question. Since we know that Isis sells Syrian and Iraqi oil to the Turks – Russian bomber pilots have seen miles of Isis oil convoys running to the horizon towards Turkey – and since Turkish journalists have been imprisoned for reporting on secret Turkish arms transfers to Islamists in Syria – the Americans are, in effect, blaming Isis for the genocide of a hundred thousand or more human beings while being too frightened to label the Armenian massacres of a million and a half souls as genocide lest it offend Isis’ sinister chums in Turkey. It’s not difficult to accuse the bad guys of genocide – Colin Powell had no problem over Darfur in 2004 – but shouldn’t we stand up to the real bullies who prevent us honouring the memory of those million and a half Christians who were treated just as Isis treats the Yazidis and Christians and Shia today: the Turkish government and the Turkish army and the Turkish institutes of state? And all this at a time when an increasing number of brave Turks are themselves acknowledging the Turkish genocide of 1915? Forget it: 75 million visas to Turkey in response to their $3-billion European bailout to block those refugees is enough to keep the Armenian mass graves of 1915 well and truly closed. Just ask John Kerry. © 2016 The Independent

The Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, expressed his satisfaction at today’s verdict by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) against Radovan Karadzic, who was President of the Republika Srpksa and Supreme Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army from April 1992 to July 1996. Mr. Karadzic has been found guilty of ten out of eleven charges against him, including charges of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, war crimes for taking hostage United Nations peacekeepers serving in the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), and war crimes and crimes against humanity during the siege of Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serb Army. “Today is an historic day. The verdict by the ICTY against Radovan Karadzic sends a clear message that impunity will not prevail and that no one is above the law.” Special Adviser Dieng paid his respect to the victims of the crimes committed by Mr. Karadzic and expressed full solidarity with them. “This verdict renders justice to the survivors and the families of victims of the atrocity crimes committed by Karadzic. Nothing will return their loved ones to them but they can now have the comfort of knowing that those crimes will not go unpunished.” At the same time, he stressed that today’s verdict “is not only about the past but is also about the future. Accountability constitutes a critical component of prevention and also an important step along the path to national post-crisis reconciliation.” In his view, “this verdict will assist the entire region to think about what happened, learn the lessons of the past and chart a future that fully acknowledges the past.” Special Adviser Dieng underlined that the impact of today’s verdict would be felt well beyond Bosnia-Herzegovina and the region. “This verdict will resonate across the world and is a warning to all those who are committing or condoning the commission of acts that can incite or constitute atrocity crimes: it sends the message that wherever and whoever you are, sooner or later you will also face the weight of justice.” In his view, this verdict is also important because impunity has become norm in so many cases and is having a direct impact on the failure to prevent the escalation of crises. “It is abundantly clear when we look at events of the last decades that absence of accountability increases the risk that atrocity crimes will be committed. Let us spare no effort to ensure that all necessary measures are taken to facilitate access of every single victim to impartial and independent justice.” In this regard, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide reiterated his full support for the work of the ICTY, which has prosecuted the most serious international crimes committed in Europe since the Nuremberg trials, and for the work of the International Criminal Court and other international tribunals. He called on all Member States to abide by their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and enact the necessary legislation that will allow these crimes to be prosecuted at the national level, in a manner fully compliant with fair trial standards. For media queries please contact: Mario Buil-Merce United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/ Tel: +1 917 367 5001 Email: buil-merce@un.org

Why did the Sudanese opposition forces refuse to sign the Roadmap Agreement proposed by the AUHIP? Sudan Democracy First Group: “Sudan Update” | A non-periodical issued by Sudan Democracy First Group On 21 March 2016 and in a clear violation and departure of the well-recognized international standard and ground rules of mediation and negotiation, the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), headed by the former South African President Thabo Mbeki, signed, as a witness, a Road Map Agreement (RMA) with the Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP). All other opposition forces which were invited, by the AUHIP Chairman, to attend the strategic consultation meeting that took place in Addis Ababa between the 18th, and the 21st, of March 2016, announced their objection to the RMA and hence refuse to affix their signature to the document. The opposition forces that attended the opening session of the meetings included the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the Sudan Liberation Movement – Minni Minawi (SLM-M), Sudan People Liberation Movement-North (SPLMN), and the National Umma Party (NUP). The Chair of the AUHIP, presented a RMA that was essentially intended to push the opposition forces to take part in the discredited National Dialogue in Khartoum, which was organized, supervised and managed by the Government of Sudan (GoS), without implementing the necessary prerequisites that would ensure inclusivity, impartiality, and seriousness of the process. The Sudan Democracy First Group (SDFG) would like to point to the unprecedented deviation of the AUHIP Chair from the rules and regulations that govern mediation between the parties of the Sudanese crisis. This was apparent in the mismanagement of negotiations during the consultation meeting and the inconsistent terms of the RMA that tried to link the security arrangements and the National Dialogue in a way that completely neglected the context pertaining these issues. The terms of the document had also violated the mandate and clauses of the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) communiques number 456 and 593. The referenced communiques, recognized the importance of holding a national dialogue preparatory meeting in Addis Ababa that will bring together all stakeholders including the National Consensus Forces (NCF) and the Civil Society Initiative (CSI). Yet these entities, NCF and CSI, were deliberately excluded and not invited by the AUHIP to attend this meeting. As such, the mediation was basically trying to replace the said preparatory meeting with a none inclusive consultative one. Moreover, the AUPSC communiques have also made it clear that for an inclusive national and constitutional dialogue to take place, the GoS is required to create a conducive environment for a genuine, inclusive and just dialogue. President Mbeki has completely disregarded these communiques by forcing this unilateral RMA which practically has discarded all the previous efforts exerted, to achieve a just peace and a genuine democratic transformation, by the African Union and the international community. To add insult to injury, the document gives a false and undeserved legitimacy to the crippled national dialogue in Khartoum. The AUHIP decision to acknowledge and sign the RMA with one party to the conflict in Sudan, is a testimony to its partiality and overt support of the ruling NCP. Moreover, the hastiness through which the Chair of the AUHIP elected to conclude the consultation and pass the RMA, only after four days of a unique gathering that brought together, for the first time, armed and civil opposition groups, has resulted in the refusal of these groups to sign the document. In addition, the failure of the AUHIP to compel the regime in Sudan to implement any of the prerequisites stipulated in the two mentioned AUPSC communiques during the last year, particularly the government’s negotiating position pertaining to Darfur and the two areas, during all previous rounds of negotiations have increased skepticism about the impartiality, seriousness and the ability of the AUHIP to successfully manage this or any other negotiations. SDFG believes that the position of the AUHIP is an explicit support the policies of the Bashir regime and would lead to the escalation of the ongoing military campaigns in Darfur around Jebel Marra, in South Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and in Blue Nile around Kilqo Mountain area. Moreover, such a position will also encourage the regime to continue its repressive policies through more restriction on all freedoms. The refusal of the credible opposition forces signifies a positive step the direction of unifying all opposition forces as well as a keenness to realize a just and lasting peace, democracy and equality through a credible and genuine dialogue. Sudan Democracy First Group. Copyright © 2016. All Rights Reserved For Sudan Democracy First Group.

MINNEAPOLIS — Reading back over Abdi Nur’s Twitter feed, his chilling progression from the basketball courts of South Minneapolis to the battlefields of Syria is clear. Early last year, he began posting stern religious pronouncements and snippets of scripture. By April 2, a day after turning 20, he hailed Islamic fighters: “If the sky would be proud of the existence of the stars, the land should be proud of the existence of the Mujahideen.” On May 29, the day he disappeared, he posted, “I Thank Allah For Everything No Matter What!” Soon he was in Turkey, rebuffing his mother’s and sister’s anguished pleas to come home. In late July, he declared, “What A Beautiful Day in Raqqa,” the de facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria. Last Aug. 7, he posted a picture of himself online with his finger on the trigger of a Kalashnikov. Mr. Nur had become one of a small number of Americans enticed by the apocalyptic religious promise of the self-described Islamic State, which has seized large sections of Syria and Iraq and claims to be building a caliphate. A slightly built man with an easy smile, he is a rare example of an American fighting for the terror group whose story can be pieced together from online postings, interviews and public records. His case suggests that the Islamic State may rely on recruiters inside the United States and shows how hard it is to predict who will be swept away by ideological fervor. Mr. Nur was enrolled in community college outside Minneapolis and spoke of becoming a lawyer. Then he started visiting a new mosque and dressing in more traditional garb. He plotted his getaway with a friend, Abdullahi Yusuf, 18, but their fates starkly diverged. Mr. Yusuf was stopped as he tried to leave the country and is now in a Minneapolis halfway house, part of a closely watched experiment to spare him a long prison term and give him a role dissuading others attracted to terrorism. The number of Americans drawn to the Islamic State remains modest, especially by comparison with the 3,000 or so who have joined the group from Europe. More than two dozen men and women have been stopped by the F.B.I. and charged before they could fly away. Social media posts and court records suggest that perhaps another two dozen have made it to the group in Syria, though even intelligence agencies do not have an exact count. At least four Americans have died fighting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. With no clear pattern among recruits, law enforcement officials have scrambled to identify people attracted to the terror group in time to intervene — blocking their travel or potentially stopping a plot at home. Most of the American ISIS volunteers display an earnest religious zeal, usually newfound. In an incongruous touch, several have visited malls to buy athletic gear before leaving for jihad — Mr. Nur, for instance, went to Macy’s for Nike apparel, the F.B.I. discovered. The majority of the Islamic State recruits are men, but there are quite a few women. The volunteers include teenagers too young to drive and middle-aged adults with families and careers; petty criminals and diligent students. A substantial minority are converts to Islam, while others are the children of immigrants with roots in 10 Muslim countries. The only cluster in the country is in Minneapolis, where two dozen young men with Somali roots departed in recent years to fight with the Shabab, the affiliate of Al Qaeda in Somalia. Now, to the distress of Somali elders, more than a dozen others have left or have tried to leave to join ISIS. But the trickle of volunteers has come from across the country. On Tuesday, a 47-year-old Air Force veteran with a checkered work history was charged in Brooklyn with trying to join the Islamic State. Two weeks earlier, a computer-savvy 17-year-old boy in Virginia was charged with helping a man a few years older make contact with the terrorist group and get to Syria. A 50-page guide for Islamic State volunteers was distributed online in February, offering practical travel advice on what to pack, and more tailored counsel on how to avoid detection by the authorities. The cases raise a pressing question: Is the slick online propaganda that ISIS has mastered enough to lure recruits, or is face-to-face persuasion needed? A federal grand jury in Minneapolis is investigating whether an Islamic State recruiter gave Mr. Nur and Mr. Yusuf cash to buy plane tickets. “No young person gets up one day and says, ‘I’m going to join ISIS,’ ” said Abdirizak Bihi, 50, a Somali activist who has worked against radicalization since his nephew left Minnesota in 2008 and was killed fighting for the Shabab. “There has to be someone on the ground to listen to your problems and channel your anger,” Mr. Bihi said. “Online is like graduate studies.” Travel Guide for Jihadists Biographies are most complete on those caught at airports trying to leave the United States. Michael Todd Wolfe, 23, a convert to Islam from Texas with a record of assault and theft charges, for example, was stopped at the Houston airport. He had agonized over whether he would fit better with the Islamic State or the Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate. F.B.I. agents were waiting at the Denver airport for Shannon Conley, a 19-year-old who thought she could use her skills as a nurse’s aide to help ISIS fighters. She hoped to marry a Tunisian recruiter for the Islamic State whom she had met online. Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, took his younger brother and sister with him to O’Hare airport in Chicago, where agents intercepted them. He left his parents a long letter saying he could not stay in the United States because his taxes might be used to kill Muslims overseas. Recruits have a remarkable ISIS travel guide to draw on, called “Hijrah to the Islamic State” — hijrah meaning “emigration” or “journey.” Distributed on the web since February, the 50-page book mixes Fodor’s-style advice on electrical plugs and packing — “I also advise a backpack with many small pockets” — with more tailored counsel, including the Twitter accounts of 15 men and three women with ISIS in Syria who offer guidance. “Use a software to ‘hide’ all jihadi material you might be bringing,” the book warns, in flawed English. It advises travelers on what to tell suspicious officials in Turkey, the usual transit country. It comically alters a Turkish visa form to add a new checkbox for “purpose of trip”: “Commit jihad in Syria.” It advises travelers to check “tourism” instead. For the most part, the Americans who have reached ISIS can be glimpsed only through their occasional online appearances, hidden behind screen names. Anat Agron, who studies the online trails of English-speaking foreign fighters in Syria for the Middle East Media Research Institute, said she had tracked six men and three women who credibly claimed to be Americans now with ISIS. Ms. Agron also found a young woman who calls herself Chloe, a Muslim convert from San Francisco who appears to have married a Welsh fighter who joined the Nusra Front. Both posted pictures of their cat on Twitter, along with expressions of marital devotion. Chloe’s posts are mostly religious exclamations or lighthearted remarks about her life in Syria, including the niqab, or face veil. “At the market being hugged by every little kid with a niqabi mother lol #niqabproblems#notyomama,” she tweeted on March 8. Another woman calling herself “Umm Jihad” posted a picture of an American passport, along with the passports of three other Western women. “Bonfire soon,” she wrote on Twitter, “no need for these anymore.” A man posting online as Bandar al-Californi documented his preparations for hijrah in a long-running Twitter series. “I have much to do yet. Learn Arabic, save money, plan my course,” he wrote last November, adding that he was giving himself six months to leave. Abdi Nur in an image posted to Facebook in August. Mr. Nur, who used “DustyFeet” and other screen names, was upbeat in his early Twitter posts from Syria but later hinted at homesickness. “What an honor,” he tweeted to a self-described Islamic State fighter. “I hope to be in Sham soon,” he added, using a name for greater Syria. His Twitter account was suspended late last year, making it hard to say if he had succeeded. Then there are those who encountered the violence of the Islamic State and the brutal war it is fighting. One American from Pennsylvania and three from Minnesota have died in combat with the group. Last month, when masked militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach, their leader spoke to the video camera in American-accented English, leading to speculation that he might have lived in the United States. On March 2, ISIS-linked Twitter accounts claimed that a suicide truck bombing outside the Iraqi city of Samarra was carried out by “Abu Dawoud al-Amriki,” a nom de guerre that indicated he was an American. Officials say they have not been able to determine the bomber’s identity. ‘Who Brain Washed You?’ Because Mr. Nur, the Minneapolis man, is active on social media and has been charged in absentia with supporting ISIS, his story is easier to follow than most. His family declined to be interviewed. “They are devastated,” said Omar Jamal, a Somali-American activist in Minneapolis who spoke to family members. “They are afraid.” They are worried that anything they say might somehow endanger their son in Syria or relatives in Somalia, he said, in addition to attracting a hostile reaction from neighbors and co-workers. Mr. Nur’s immigrant parents most likely did not see that by late March of last year, he was posting a quote from Anwar al-Awlaki, the late American recruiter for Al Qaeda: “We are fighting for truth and justice and you (americans/westerners) are fighting for oppression and worldly gain.” Somehow “you” had become his fellow Americans. “We” were the jihadists. It was a few weeks after Mr. Nur and Mr. Yusuf had begun visiting a new mosque in Bloomington, outside Minneapolis. It was there that they became interested in ISIS, which was not yet associated with the videotaped beheadings of Westerners that would come later. A passport specialist, suspicious when Mr. Yusuf applied for an expedited passport and seemed vague about its purpose, alerted the F.B.I. On May 28, agents intercepted Mr. Yusuf at the Minneapolis airport and kept him from boarding. They found that the blue Volkswagen Jetta that had dropped him off belonged to the boyfriend of Mr. Nur’s sister. But when they searched for Mr. Nur late on May 29, they learned he had left the country hours earlier. Word that he was missing was a blow for the city’s large Somali community. “It went out like wildfire that he had left and nobody knew where he had gone,” said Abdirizak Warsame, a friend and, like Mr. Nur, a 2013 high school graduate. They had played basketball together just a few days earlier. “I had no clue,” he said. The next day, May 30, Mr. Nur’s older sister, Ifrah, walked to the police station near the family’s apartment to report his disappearance. Over the next day or so, she managed to reach him in Turkey via messages on Facebook and an app called Kik. Their exchanges are recorded in court papers. She challenged him, saying that their father “went into shock” and telling him that “going to kill poor people is not the answer.” She made an emotional appeal: “respond to me I love u and can’t live knowing this.” He gently put her off, saying that “if I didn’t care I wouldn’t have left but I want jannah” — paradise — “for all of us.” During his early months in Syria, Mr. Nur was upbeat and posted frequently online. He was teaching English (“Got a Full Class”), trading tips on handguns and pistols, expressing excitement about fighting Kurdish forces (“Never Felt So Hyped”) and praising the “amazing brothers” with him. On Aug. 7, he answered questions on the website Ask.fm, including some from angry friends in Minneapolis. “Who brain washed you?” one asked. Mr. Nur was unfazed. “The Words of Allah, The Quran, that’s what brain washed me,” he wrote. ISIS Recruits in the United States Since 2013, 29 people in the United States have been charged or detained as juveniles on allegations of supporting the Islamic State, usually after trying to travel to Syria to fight for the terrorist group. Two dozen other Americans are believed to either be with the Islamic State or to have been killed in the fighting. Source: Federal court records The New York Times But there were hints of homesickness — multiple messages about the mothers of jihadists — and his posts fell off. “Oh Mother Be Patient,” he wrote, suggesting that they would be reunited in the afterlife. Experiment in Rehabilitation Since then, two related dramas have unfolded in Minneapolis. The federal grand jury investigating recruitment has called many young Somalis as witnesses. According to people who have talked to him, Mr. Yusuf said he received $1,500 for his plane ticket to Turkey from a young acquaintance who claimed he got it from a local man. Meanwhile, leaders of the Bloomington mosque, Al Farooq Youth and Family Center, have publicly accused Amir Meshal, a 31-year-old mosque volunteer, of encouraging militancy among the teens there. “When they learned in June that this particular individual was spreading radical views, they had him banned from the premises,” said Jordan Kushner, a lawyer for the mosque. A complaint filed with the police speaks of “concerns about Meshal interacting with our youth.” Officials at a second local mosque made a similar complaint about Mr. Meshal in local media. Mr. Meshal, an American citizen originally from New Jersey who has been involved in a long-running lawsuit against the federal government, said in a statement, “I would never suggest that anyone join ISIS or any other group that kills innocent people, nor would I provide money to do so.” In his 2009 civil rights lawsuit, Mr. Meshal accused F.B.I. agents and other American officials of threatening him while he was imprisoned secretly for four months in 2007 in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. By his account, he was studying Islam in Somalia when fighting broke out; the government claims he got weapons training and helped translate for leaders of the Shabab. His lawsuit was dismissed last year, though the judge called his treatment “appalling.” The case is now on appeal. Mr. Yusuf, Mr. Nur’s co-defendant, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support for terrorism and faces a maximum sentence of 15 years. But in an experiment being watched nationally, Judge Michael J. Davis of Federal District Court agreed to a presentence plan to divert Mr. Yusuf to a halfway house with the support of Heartland Democracy, an education nonprofit in Minneapolis. He worked at Best Buy and attended community college until late November, when he was jailed for a time in connection with his attempt to travel to Syria. His supporters are now working with the court to get him back in classes and eventually back in a job. The idea, said Mary McKinley, executive director of Heartland Democracy, is to gradually reintegrate Mr. Yusuf into the community, and possibly give him a role in countering the radicalization of young people. “Ideally, Abdullahi will be able to tell his story in a way that is useful to young people who are frustrated and disengaged,” Ms. McKinley said. His lawyer, Jean M. Brandl, said her client was not prepared to speak publicly. Federal prosecutors opposed giving Mr. Yusuf a break, noting that he had lied to F.B.I. agents at the airport. But Judge Davis, who knows the Somali community well enough to ask about clans and sub-clans, went along with the plan, intended to reduce the chasm between Somalis and law enforcement officials. Parents and friends concerned about a young person drawn to the Islamic State are more likely to call the police, advocates say, if they believe there is an alternative to a long prison sentence. Meanwhile, in Syria, Mr. Nur, or someone using his account, still occasionally posts on Twitter. If he has regrets, he does not acknowledge them. In January, he praised the two gunmen who attacked a satirical newspaper in Paris: “Well well well done Iqwah,” or brothers, he wrote. On March 2, he posted a photograph of Beretta handguns, adding: “How Sweet Does That Look.” His most recent post came on March 8. “All Warfare,” he wrote, “Is Based on Deception.” Correction: March 29, 2015 An article last Sunday about Americans recruited by the Islamic State misstated the affiliation of the husband of a Muslim convert from San Francisco who calls herself Chloe online. He is a fighter with the Nusra Front, not the Islamic State. Because of that error, the article also misstated the number of American women that Anat Agron, a researcher with the Middle East Media Research Institute, said are associated with the Islamic State. It is three, not four. The article also misstated the current status of Abdullahi Yusuf, who was caught trying to leave Minneapolis for Syria and is awaiting sentencing. He does not currently work at Best Buy or attend community college because his work and studies were interrupted when he was jailed for a time starting in late November. (His supporters say they are working with the court to get him re-enrolled in classes and eventually back to work.) © 2016 The New York Times Company

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Office of the Spokesperson For Immediate Release March 17, 2016 Secretary of State John Kerry on Daesh and Genocide March 17, 2016 Press Briefing Room Washington, D.C. SECRETARY KERRY: Good morning, everybody. In 2014, the terrorist group Daesh began to seize territory in Syria and Iraq, overrunning major cities and committing atrocities. The United States responded quickly by denouncing these horrific acts and – more importantly – taking coordinated actions to counter them. In September of that year, President Obama mobilized an international coalition, now 66 members strong, to halt and reverse Daesh’s momentum. And that is what we are doing. In the 18 months since, coalition airstrikes have helped to liberate Kobani, Tikrit, Ramadi, and other key cities and towns. We have pushed the terrorists out of 40 percent of the territory that they once controlled in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria. We have degraded their leadership, attacked their revenue sources, and disrupted their supply lines. And currently we are engaged, as you all know, in a diplomatic initiative aimed at trying to end the war in Syria. That civil war fuels Daesh, and in doing what we are doing now, we are working to further isolate, to weaken and ultimately to defeat them. We are working intensively to stop the spread of Daesh and its affiliates within and beyond the region. All of this constitutes an extraordinary effort by a large segment of the international community and the United States. And that effort is fully warranted by the appalling actions of the organization that we oppose. My purpose in appearing before you today is to assert that, in my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims. Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions – in what it says, what it believes, and what it does. Daesh is also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups and in some cases also against Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and other minorities. I say this even though the ongoing conflict and lack of access to key areas has made it impossible to develop a fully detailed and comprehensive picture of all that Daesh is doing and all that it has done. We have not been able to compile a complete record. I think that’s obvious on its face; we don’t have access to everywhere. But over the past months, we have conducted a review of the vast amount of information gathered by the State Department, by our intelligence community, by outside groups. And my conclusion is based on that information and on the nature of the acts reported. We know, for example, that in August of 2014 Daesh killed hundreds of Yezidi men and older women in the town of Kocho and trapped tens of thousands of Yezidis on Mount Sinjar without allowing access to food, water, or medical care. Without our intervention, it was clear those people would have been slaughtered. Rescue efforts aided by coalition airstrikes ultimately saved many, but not before Daesh captured and enslaved thousands of Yezidi women and girls – selling them at auction, raping them at will, and destroying the communities in which they had lived for countless generations. We know that in Mosul, Qaraqosh, and elsewhere, Daesh has executed Christians solely because of their faith; that it executed 49 Coptic and Ethiopian Christians in Libya; and that it has also forced Christian women and girls into sexual slavery. We know that Daesh massacred hundreds of Shia Turkmen and Shabaks at Tal Afar and Mosul; besieged and starved the Turkmen town of Amerli; and kidnapped hundreds of Shia Turkmen women, raping many in front of their own families. We know that in areas under its control, Daesh has made a systematic effort to destroy the cultural heritage of ancient communities – destroying Armenian, Syrian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic churches; blowing up monasteries and the tombs of prophets; desecrating cemeteries; and in Palmyra, even beheading the 83-year-old scholar who had spent a lifetime preserving antiquities there. We know that Daesh’s actions are animated by an extreme and intolerant ideology that castigates Yezidis as, quote, “pagans” and “devil-worshippers,” and we know that Daesh has threatened Christians by saying that it will, quote, “conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women.” Shia Muslims, meanwhile, are referred to by Daesh as, quote, “disbelievers and apostates,” and subjected to frequent and vicious attacks. In December, a year ago, a 14-year-old boy named Usaid Barho approached the gate of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, unzipped his jacket to show that he was wearing an explosive vest and he surrendered to the guards. He had been recruited by Daesh in Syria, and joined to serve Islam, but he was told after his recruitment that, unless he obeyed every order, Shiites would come and rape his mother. Daesh said of Shias, and I quote, “It is a duty imposed upon us to kill them, to fight them, to displace them, and to cleanse the land of their filth.” One element of genocide is the intent to destroy an ethnic or religious group, in whole or in part. We know that Daesh has given some of its victims a choice between abandoning their faith or being killed, and that for many is a choice between one kind of death and another. The fact is that Daesh kills Christians because they are Christians; Yezidis because they are Yezidis; Shia because they are Shia. This is the message it conveys to children under its control. Its entire worldview is based on eliminating those who do not subscribe to its perverse ideology. There is no question in my mind that if Daesh succeeded in establishing its so-called caliphate, it would seek to destroy what remains of ethnic and religious mosaic once thriving in the region. I want to be clear. I am neither judge, nor prosecutor, nor jury with respect to the allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing by specific persons. Ultimately, the full facts must be brought to light by an independent investigation and through formal legal determination made by a competent court or tribunal. But the United States will strongly support efforts to collect, document, preserve, and analyze the evidence of atrocities, and we will do all we can to see that the perpetrators are held accountable. I hope that my statement today will assure the victims of Daesh’s atrocities that the United States recognizes and confirms the despicable nature of the crimes that have been committed against them. Second, I hope it will highlight the shared interest that otherwise diverse groups have in opposing Daesh. After all, the reality of genocide underscores even more starkly the need for a comprehensive and unified approach to defeating Daesh both in its core in Syria and Iraq and more broadly in its attempt to establish external networks. Part of our response to Daesh must, of course, be to destroy it by military force, but other dimensions are important as well, and we dare not lose track of that. In the past two and a half years, the United States has provided more than 600 million in emergency aid to Iraqis who have been displaced from their communities by Daesh. We are working closely with local authorities to assist in the recovery of cities that have been liberated and whose residents face grave challenges – both material and psychological – and people who desperately need help in rebuilding their lives. We are funding the investigation of mass graves, and supporting care for the victims of gender-based violence and those who have escaped captivity. We continue to engage with the government of Baghdad to make sure that its security forces and other institutions are more representative and inclusive. And we are coordinating with our coalition partners to choke off Daesh’s finances and to slow its recruitment of foreign fighters. And we are preparing for future efforts to liberate occupied territory – with an eye to the protection of minority communities. In particular, the liberation of Mosul, of Nineveh province in Iraq, and parts of Syria that are currently occupied by Daesh, and that will decide whether there is still a future for minority communities in this part of the Middle East. For those communities, the stakes in this campaign are utterly existential. This is the fight that Daesh has defined. Daesh has created this. Daesh has targeted their victims. Daesh has self-defined itself as genocidal. So we must bear in mind, after all, that the best response to genocide is a reaffirmation of the fundamental right to survive of every group targeted for destruction. What Daesh wants to erase, we must preserve. That requires defeating Daesh, but it also demands the rejection of bigotry and discrimination – those things that facilitated its rise in the first place. This means that, as more areas are liberated, residents will need help not only to repair infrastructure, but also to ensure that minorities can return in safety, that they are integrated into local security forces, and that they receive equal protection under the law. Our goal, after all, is not just to defeat Daesh – only to find that in a few years some new terrorist group with a different acronym has taken its place. Our purpose is to marginalize and defeat violent extremists once and for all. Now, that is not easy; we know that. As President Obama and I have consistently said – it won’t happen overnight. But today, I say to all our fellow citizens and to the international community, we must recognize what Daesh is doing to its victims. We must hold the perpetrators accountable. And we must find the resources to help those harmed by these atrocities be able to survive on their ancestral land. Naming these crimes is important. But what is essential is to stop them. That will require unity in this country and within the countries directly involved, and the determination to act against genocide, against ethnic cleansing, against the other crimes against humanity must be pronounced among decent people all across the globe. Thank you.

First they shot her husband. Then the soldiers killed her two sons, ages 5 and 7. When the uniformed men yanked her daughter from her hands next, Mary didn’t think it could get any worse. Mary and her family were members of the Nuer tribe in South Sudan, caught up in a vicious power struggle between the new country’s President Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, and his Vice President, Riek Machar, a Nuer. Their war, fought largely along ethnic lines, has turned the northern part of the country into a wasteland. At least 50,000 people have been killed, according to the U.N., nearly 4 million face famine, and another 2.2 million have fled their homes, recounting tales of civilian slaughter, gratuitous torture and even forced cannibalism. Mary and her family were among the tens of thousands of civilians seeking refuge at a U.N. peacekeeping base in the northern city of Bentiu when they ran into Kiir’s forces on the road in June 2014. The 27-year-old recounts what occurred next distantly, as if she were explaining something that happened to someone else. The soldiers told Mary that they considered the Nuers in the camps to be rebels, and that they killed her sons because they couldn’t risk letting them grow up to be fighters. “We don’t kill the women and the girls,” the soldiers told Mary. “They said they would only rape us. As if rape were different than death,” says Mary, speaking in a safe house in neighboring Uganda run by Make Way Partners, an American Christian organization that provides housing, medical care and schooling for South Sudanese orphans and victims of human trafficking. After the soldiers killed her husband and sons, five of them held her down and forced her to watch as three others raped her 10-year-old daughter. Her name was Nyalaat. When the men were done, Mary says, “I couldn’t even see my little girl anymore. I could only see blood.” Then the men took turns with Mary. Nyalaat died a few hours later. “I wanted to die too.” Lynsey Addario—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEKanyere Neema, 7, with her grandmother, Ndahondi Domina, 53, in the Heal Africa hospital in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 5, 2015. Two years prior, Kanyere’s village of Ishasha was attacked by armed men, and her parents were killed in front of her. She was raped so many times by different men that she was left paralyzed, and stopped speaking. Instead, Mary made it to a U.N. camp for civilians displaced by war. The conflict raged on, and soldiers—she’s not even sure from which army—were able to slip in to the camp through gaps in the fence and rape whichever women they could catch. “It happened to all of us: little girls, grandmothers. They didn’t care.” The rules were simple, says Mary, who asked that her full name not be used. “If you calm down when they are raping you, they won’t beat you. But if you resist, they will beat you, even so much to use the gun in you.” Photographer Lynsey Addadario and reporter Aryn Baker discuss the difficulties of reporting on rape. Rape in war is as old as war itself. But the intimate nature of sexual assault means that the horrors often go undocumented, sanitized out of history books and glossed over in news accounts that focus on casualties and refugee numbers. Yet that mass rape is so common in wartime only makes it more corrosive. It spreads disease. Its stigma destroys families and breaks down society. It leaves unwanted children who serve as constant reminders of the worst day of their mother’s life. “Rape is a weapon even more powerful than a bomb or a bullet,” says Jeanna Mukuninwa, a 28-year-old woman from Shabunda, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “At least with a bullet, you die. But if you have been raped, you appear to the community like someone who is cursed. After rape, no one will talk to you; no man will see you. It’s a living death.” Mukuninwa knows. In 2004, at the end of Congo’s own factional war, soldiers attacked her village. They tortured and killed the men. Then they stripped the women, including Mukuninwa, and staked their arms and legs to the ground, and left them to be used by any passing soldiers. Mukuninwa doesn’t know how many men raped her during captivity, but she remembers that they used sticks and rifle barrels as well. She was 16 years old. When the women passed out from the pain, soldiers revived them with buckets of water. The U.N. reports that 200,000 Congolese women and children have been raped during Congo’s long-simmering conflict. Estimates for South Sudan are in the thousands. Both numbers are likely too low, says Pablo Castillo-Diaz, a specialist on sexual violence in conflict for U.N. Women, the U.N. agency tasked with issues of women’s equality, protection and empowerment. “Rape is one of the most underreported war crimes that there are. Women, if they survive the attack, rarely tell anyone else. We only hear of the most brutal incidences or the public ones that the whole community sees.” But that’s begun to change. Rape may be a common war tactic, but it was only prosecuted as a crime against humanity in 1998, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, following the discovery of the rape camps used by Serb soldiers during the Bosnian war. At the same time, Rwandan officials were also charged with rape as a war crime during that country’s 1994 genocidal conflict. Widespread media coverage of both trials drew international condemnation. Talking about rape in war became less taboo. Most recently, harrowing revelations about ISIS’s sale of Yezidi women as sexual slaves in Iraq and Syria, and Boko Haram’s abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls for forced marriages in Nigeria, have pushed survivors and activists to demand a real global response to a war crime with consequences so enduring it all but precludes peace. “The raping of women, the holding of women as chattel and slaves is utterly horrific, but it isn’t new. It’s just an escalation and amplification of what has been going on for many years,” says Eve Ensler, the American playwright and activist. “Anytime people are talking about this, it’s a good thing. But what hasn’t happened is that we haven’t ended the violence. That is the next step.” The next step is being taken in Congo of all places, a country whose grim ­history—it has been dubbed both “the rape capital of the world” and “the world’s worst place to be a woman” by high-ranking U.N. officials—has made it an accidental lab for some of the most progressive work on rape recovery. Bukavu, in South Kivu, and Goma, in North Kivu, the areas of eastern Congo most devastated by the war, are home to ambitious international and local programs dedicated to turning rape victims into rape survivors. Their experiences could help women around the world. “It would be a good thing,” says Mukuninwa, “that our suffering here in Congo might be able to help other women somewhere else turn their pain into power, as we are starting to do here.” First, she says, silence must end. As long as rape remains hidden and shameful, recovery is impossible. As a gynecologist and the medical coordinator for Panzi Hospital’s center for survivors of sexual violence in Bukavu, Dr. Neema Rukunghu knows better than anyone else the physical damage wrought by rape. She has stitched up the tears, and she has retrieved inserted objects. She has repaired flesh seared by the heat of a bullet fired inside a vagina that by some miracle, or curse, didn’t kill but crippled for life. Her work is vital. Women with fistulas—tears between the vagina, the anus, the bladder and the bowel—from rape cannot retain their urine or feces. No matter how often they clean, they smell. They are shunned by their communities and are even unwelcome in church. For many women, fistula surgery is the only route to a new chance at life. But Rukunghu says that the invisible wounds from rape are far more ­devastating—and far harder to repair. “Just imagine a husband who is forced to watch his wife be raped, or his daughter. There are things that stay in your head for life.” The work she does at Panzi, she says, seems insignificant compared with the scale of that psychic trauma. “In these surgeries, we repair damage, but I never get real closure. Are we truly healing her? Are her problems over? I can’t ever say with certainty that I have fixed anyone.” On average Panzi treats 1,300 to 1,900 women a year, even though Congo’s war officially ended a decade ago. When Rukunghu first started, seven years ago, she saw young and ­middle-aged women. Now she is even treating toddlers. In late 2015 she attended to a 3-month-old baby girl who had been abducted from her parents’ house and returned a day later, ravaged and near dead. It’s unlikely that she will ever be able to potty-train, or walk, or have a child of her own. Mukuninwa spent a total of seven years at Panzi Hospital. At first it was for the treatments, then because she had nowhere else to go. Physically she was strong, but she couldn’t stand to be touched and spent most of her days alone. In 2007, Ensler visited Bukavu at the invitation of Panzi’s founding doctor and gynecologist, Denis Mukwege. There she met local women’s-rights activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver, who worked with Mukwege and wanted to help rape survivors regain their lives after surgery. Together, they canvassed patients for ideas. Mukuninwa was one of the most outspoken. “I couldn’t say I wanted therapy, because I didn’t know what it was,” she says. Instead, Mukuninwa asked for schooling. She wanted a safe place to live among supportive peers, where women could learn their rights and where their voices mattered. In 2011, Schuler-Deschryver and Ensler opened City of Joy, a six-month residential program for rape survivors that combines group therapy with literacy classes, leadership training, self-defense courses and lessons in human-rights law. Ninety women attend each semester. The focus is on empowerment, says Ensler. “City of Joy is not a refuge. It is a center for transformation. We are literally saying that the violence which was done to you, through a process of love, healing therapy and education, can be turned into a motor that makes you a leader.” The therapy, says Mukuninwa, lets women understand that the rape was not their fault. The life skills and leadership training gain them confidence, and the nurturing atmosphere enables them to build support networks that last long after the program finishes. Graduates are expected to establish women’s support groups when they go home and become leaders in their community. “People think that, after being raped, you are just a victim,” says Mukuninwa. “What City of Joy taught me is that life goes on after rape. Rape is not the end. It is not a fixed identity.” Lynsey Addario—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEMaiombi Thomas,16, sits alongside her brother, Innocent Kongomani, 22, in the Mugunga 1 camp for internally displaced people, outside Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 5, 2015. Maiombi became pregnant after she was raped by a ranger when she went to get firewood outside the camp. After spending a year at the displaced-persons camp in South Sudan, Mary decided last April to leave for the capital of Juba. By this time she was pregnant and could only guess at which of the six different men that had raped her at the camp might be the father. It was too late to take the herbs that some of the other women in the camp used to rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies, and a medical abortion would have been impossible to obtain. Instead, Mary planned to poison the baby as soon as it was born and throw it in the garbage, a curse from God that she would return to God. “I had nothing. No family, no income. I was thinking, ‘How will I be able to take care of a child that reminds me, every time I look at its face, of what happened to me in the camp?’” In the end, Mary kept the baby, now a burbling 8-month-old, after a friend convinced her that she would find support. Still, Mary struggles with the trauma of her daughter’s conception. She cannot bring herself to say, out loud, that she loves the child, but her tender caresses and softly sung lullabies make it clear that she does. Unwanted pregnancies like Mary’s are one of the most painful problems resulting from conflict-related rape. Not only are the women stigmatized, but so too are their children. In eastern Congo alone, as many as 50,000 children were born of rape over the past two decades. In many countries in Africa and the Middle East, they are not eligible for national IDs without a father’s name on the birth certificate, which prevents them from going to school or receiving government assistance. Growing up, they are ostracized as the sons and daughters of loathed enemies and often face discrimination. Yet there are few ways for the victims of rape to abort their pregnancies even if they want to. The U.S.’s Helms Amendment, enacted in 1973, prevents American assistance funds from going to programs that also provide abortions. Since most international humanitarian medical organizations rely in some part on U.S. funding, they are reluctant to take the risk, even if they believe there is a need. In July a consortium of 56 international human-rights, legal, medical and religious groups from 22 countries petitioned President Barack Obama to issue an Executive Order affirming the rights of female war-rape victims to comprehensive medical care, including abortion, under the Geneva Conventions. So far, Obama has not officially responded. “We think in terms of making an actual difference in women’s lives, the ability to obtain an abortion in the case of ­conflict-related sexual violence would have the biggest impact,” says Diaz of U.N. Women. Still, the notion of aborting a pregnancy is so taboo in the Christian communities of Congo and South Sudan that it’s not clear how many women would avail themselves of the services even if they did exist. Not all women see their children conceived in rape as burdens. Ayak was 17 when she lost her family to a rebel attack on her village near Bentiu, in South Sudan. She was raped while fleeing, alone, for the camp, and like Mary, she was raped repeatedly while she was there. One of her rapists gave her HIV, and now she is pregnant. Make Way Partners, the American Christian organization that helped Mary, also brought Ayak to Uganda for treatment. Speaking in a halting English she picked up as a child in a Kenyan refugee camp, Ayak says that her unborn child is the only family she is likely to ever have. In South Sudan, having HIV would make her a social pariah. “I want a family, I want a husband. But the doctors say there is no cure for my disease. No one will ever marry me.” She cradles her pregnant belly with both hands and smiles sadly as she envisions a lonely future. “This baby will be my friend. He will keep me company.” Husbands usually have a harder time accepting children born of rape. When Fabien Mwira found that his wife Judith Niraneza had conceived a child through rape after a 2007 attack on his village of Mugunga, near Goma, he abandoned her. A year later, after pressure from his family, he returned, but he hated the child. When Niraneza asked for money to feed the little girl or buy her clothes, he would beat his wife, telling her to go ask the child’s father. Men, says Mwira, often feel emasculated and guilty when their wives are raped, and don’t know how to reassert their role in the family—except through violence. “We men don’t have fistulas that need to be repaired, but we have a trauma that needs healing,” he says. “And it is just as important for bringing peace to our communities that we be healed as it is for the women to be healed.” Mwira was part of a 2012 pilot program for male partners of rape survivors developed by a psychologist in tandem with Promundo, a U.S.-based NGO that focuses on domestic violence. The program, called Living Peace, targets men who have been flagged as particularly violent or who have abandoned their wives. Over a 15-week series of guided group therapy sessions, the men are taught that rape is not their wives’ fault and that it is no reflection of their inability to provide for and protect their families. They also learn how to be better husbands and fathers. “I was so ashamed,” says Mwira. “I thought I was the only one whose wife had been raped. But when I understood that others had the same problems as me, I started to understand that it wasn’t her fault. And by then I started to come closer to her bit by bit.” After an initial pilot program that started with 300 men in 2012, Promundo is set to bring the therapy program to 9,000 more men and their wives by 2019. “Yes, it’s important to focus on the victims of sexual violence, and even on the children born of sexual violence,” says Benoit Ruratotoye, Living Peace’s Goma-based founding psychologist. “But to complete the circle, to really help this society change, we need to involve the author of this violence: men.” Josephine Mwamini, 42, was raped in 2010 in her village, Walikali, by FDLR soldiers. Her neighbors found her and sent her to the HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma, where she stayed for two years, getting multiple fistula surgeries. She went back home in 2012, but in June 2015 armed men attacked her village again. The soldiers raped her multiple times, and once again she was taken to Heal Africa, where she learned that she had been infected with HIV. Rape in war largely begins, and ends, with men. In Congo, as around the world, Ruratotoye blames a masculine culture rooted in violence that has historically devalued women. Though groups like ISIS and Boko Haram justify wartime rape through twisted interpretations of religious doctrine, at the base is an entrenched belief in the superiority of men. To stop rape, says Ruratotoye, that kind of thinking needs to change. “We have to develop a positive masculinity. One that isn’t based on violence, that promotes the rights of all.” It starts, he says, with boys. “If they are not taught human rights, respect for women, equality, these children will grow into young men who think they are better than women, and they will grow into men who rape women, who will use violence to get their way. They will become violent men.” Education alone isn’t enough to stop rape in war, says Rukunghu, the fistula surgeon at Panzi Hospital. That requires society as a whole to condemn it and the government to act. So far, the Congolese government has convicted 135 soldiers on rape charges since the end of the war, and says that the decline in registered cases of rape in former conflict zones, from 15,000 in 2013 to 10,882 in 2014, is due in part to increased prosecution. But the numbers are still unacceptably high, says Rukunghu, largely because it took more than a decade to react. If other countries are to learn anything from Congo’s experience, she says, it is to address the issue immediately, before wartime rape infects all of society. “When I see these [child] rapes in the community, it makes me think that they are doing it because those who did it before, during the war, were never punished,” says Rukunghu. “Instead it was banalized, and so it was like we accepted that rape is something that can happen.” A man may believe that sex with a virgin girl, even one as young as 3 months old, may bring him wealth or cure disease, she says, “but that is not why he does it. He does it because he knows that there is no prison waiting for him, no death penalty. He knows he can get away with it. No countries need these efforts more than Syria and Iraq, where ISIS has openly codified a system of sexual slavery so repugnant that the world has reacted with outrage rarely seen in other incidences of wartime rape. In August 2014, ISIS attacked the northern Iraqi region of Sinjar, taking thousands of women and children from the Yezidi religious minority as slaves. ISIS’s department of war spoils set prices based on age, and, in a document dated Jan. 29, 2015, but discovered only at the beginning of 2016, its committee for religious rulings detailed the conditions under which a slave could be used for sex. They are horrendous. “I did not want to kill myself—but I wanted them to kill me,” says Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a young Yezidi woman who was held as a sex slave by ISIS in Iraq for a few months before managing to escape If Congo’s experiences with rape in conflict can help victims around the world with recovery, then the global reaction to ISIS’s use of sexual slavery should serve as a template for more effective prosecution. “We have a history of impunity for sexual war crimes that goes back to the beginnings of war,” says Ensler. “When you don’t have accountability, you can basically say you have licensed that kind of sexual brutality forever.” To put an end to rape in war, rather than merely healing it, requires that ISIS’s actions be treated as a war crime, point blank, and not just a “second-class crime that happens to second-class citizens,” according to Zainab Bangura, the U.N.’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict. Rape in war, she notes, is not inevitable. Rather it is a reflection of the subordinate status of women in society. Wartime rape will stop when the status of women changes, and the shame lands on the perpetrators, not the victims. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Time

March 4, 2016 H.E. Ambassador Ismael Abraão Gaspar Martins Permanent Representative, Mission of Republic of Angola to the UN President, United Nations Security Council (March 2016) 820 2nd Avenue, 12th Floor New York, NY 10017 Your Excellency, We, the undersigned 116 representatives of Sudanese and international humanitarian and human rights organizations and advocates, write to you in your capacity as President of the UN Security Council (UNSC) for March 2016 to request your assistance in bringing before the UNSC the outstanding arrest warrants for President Bashir of Sudan, the first of which was issued 7 years ago today on March 4, 2009, for the purpose of encouraging cooperation by the members of the UNSC and all UN member states to facilitate the immediate arrest of Bashir and all those indicted for crimes committed against the people of Darfur in order, as the Rome Statute states, to “put an end to impunity...and to contribute to the prevention of such crimes” in Sudan and throughout the world. The failure of the UN member states to arrest Bashir has caused great suffering for the people of Sudan, the region and the world:  African Islamic University in Khartoum serves as a hub for training Islamists and extremists that operate in Nigeria, Somalia and in other parts of Africa and the Middle East; the regime supports the Muslim Brotherhood and Joseph Kony; and it provides arms to the Islamist rebels in Libya while fueling conflict in South Sudan.  According to UNHCR, the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Sudan has climbed to 2,342,979 and those who have sought refuge in other countries from state sponsored violence totals 640,919.  Camps for IDPs and refugees from Darfur are being attacked and/or dismantled, leaving residents defenseless and homeless.  Massive attacks, including aerial bombardment, in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur have been ongoing since January 15, 2016.  Villages are being burned in El Geneina, the capital of Western Darfur State.  Bombing and a massive government military campaign are underway in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state, where, along with other locations in Southern Kordofan, crimes against humanity are rampant.  Life-saving international humanitarian aid is denied by the government to its victims throughout Sudan including Eastern Sudan.  Dams are being built in Sudan in specific locations designed to eliminate Nubian cultural sites.  Basic freedoms are denied throughout Sudan and those who question the regime face detention, torture and death. Today, while you meet with your colleagues inside the United Nations, we will be in front of the UN, representing the victims of Bashir and calling for his immediate arrest. Today in Sudan, millions of people are hungry, hurting and living in fear, and they are looking to you to stand on their behalf at a time when they feel hopeless and forgotten. Please put intense pressure on the Sudan government to stop aerial bombardment in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and in Blue Nile state and to end all attacks on civilians, especially those in IDP camps. In addition, please require that the Sudan government allow international humanitarian aid to reach Sudanese who are in such desperate need throughout the country. The future of Sudan can look much different than its past, but it will take the courage and resolve of leaders like you to uphold international law and to send a message to criminals world-wide that crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide will not be tolerated. Instead, through your actions and by arresting Bashir, the world will see that the United Nations is committed to maintaining international peace and security, upholding justice, and protecting the fundamental dignity and human rights of all people. CC: H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General, United Nations Amb. Samantha Power, Permanent U.S. Representative to the UN Amb. Matthew Rycroft, Permanent Representative, UK Mission to the UN Amb. François Delattre, Permanent Representative of France to the UN Amb. Liu Jieyi, Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China to the UN Amb. Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta, Permanent Representative of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the UN Amb. Motohide Yoshikawa, Permanent Representative of Japan to the UN Amb. Dato’ Ramlan Ibrahim, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the UN Amb. Gerard van Bohemen, Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the UN Amb. Fodé Seck, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Senegal to the UN Amb. D. Román Oyarzun Marchesi, Permanent Representative of Spain to the UN Amb. Volodymyr Yelchenko, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Amb. Elbio Rosselli, Permanent Representative of Uruguay to the UN Amb. Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño, Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the UN Signed by: Act for Sudan, Martina Knee, Co-Founder, USA Ahmed H. Adam, Visiting Fellow, Institute for African Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Motasim Adam, Human Rights Activist, Brooklyn, NY, USA African Freedom Coalition, Al Sutton, President, New York, NY, USA Alliance of Sudanese Opposition Forces, Adam Abu Altaiman,Canada American African Foundation Against Torture, Inc, Zainelabdin E. Osman, President , Mohamed Y. Khalifa, Secretary General, Schenectady, NY, USA American Friends of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan and Sudan (AFRECS), Richard Parkins, Executive Director, Alexandria, VA, USA Association of the Sons of Darfur in the City of Tucson, Abuelgasim Salih, ChairmanTucson, AZ, USA Beja Organization for Human Rights and Development, Ibrahim Ahmed, Herndon, VA, USA Blue Nile Association For Peace and Development, Omer Abdelsawi Omer, Mulberry, FL, USA Blue Nile Youth Associated Organization for Peace and Stability (BNOPS), Hashim Orta Adaw, Blue Nile, Sudan Brooklyn Coalition for Darfur & Marginalized Sudan, Laura Limuli, Coordinator, Brooklyn, NY, USA Brooklyn For Peace, Charlotte Phillips, M.D., Chairperson, Brooklyn, NY, USA Caceres-Neuffer Genocide Action Group, Prof. John H. Weiss, Founder/Director, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Carl Wilkens Fellowship, Beth Woskow McDaniel, Advisory Board, Redondo Beach, CA, USA Dr. Frank Chalk, Professor of History and Director, The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Christian Solidarity International-USA, Rev. Heidi McGinness, Director of Outreach, Denver, CO, USA Church Alliance for a New Sudan, Faith J. H. McDonnell, Director, Washington, DC, USA Collectif Urgence Darfour, Dr. Jacky Mamou, Chairman, Paris, France The Baroness Cox, House of Lords and President of Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, London, UK DAAM-UK, Ali Abdelatif M. Hussein, London, UK Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy, Daowd Salih, Board President, Falls Church, VA, USA Darfur Action Group of South Carolina, Dr. Richard Sribnick, Chairman, Columbia, SC, USA Darfur Alert Coalition, Dr.Ali Dinar, President, Philadelphia, PA, USA Darfur and Beyond, Cory Williams, Phoenix, AZ, USA Darfur Association, Ismail Adam, Canada Darfur Bar Association, Abdelrahman Gasim, External Relations Secretary, Sudan Darfur Community Organization, Bakheit A. Shata, Founder and Executive Director, Omaha, NE, USA Darfur Interfaith Network, Martha Boshnick, Co-Chair, Washington, DC, USA Darfur People’s Association of New York, Mohamed Haroun Ebead, President, Brooklyn, NY, USA Darfur Women Action Group, Niemat Ahmadi, Founder/President, Washington, DC, USA Dear Sudan, Love Marin, Gerri Miller, Coordinator, Tiburon, CA, USA Democratic Unionist Party, Abubakr Sidahmed, Canada The Rt. Rev. Julian M. Dobbs, Missionary Bishop, Convocation of Anglicans in North America, McLean, VA, USA Doctors to the World, C. Louis Perrinjaquet, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Breckenridge, CO, USA Aicha Elbasri, former Spokesperson for the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur Caroline Faria, Assistant Professor, UT Austin, Austin, TX, USA Genocide No More–Save Darfur, Marv Steinberg, Coordinator, Redding, CA, USA Genocide Watch, reg Stanton, President, Research Professor, School for Con ict Analysis and Resolu on, eorge Mason University, Arlington, A, USA Georgia Coalition to Prevent Genocide, Melanie Nelkin, Chair, Atlanta, GA, USA Government Accountability Project, Beatrice Edwards, International Program Director, Washington, DC, USA Group Against Torture in Sudan-GATS, Mohamed Elgadi, Acting Secretary, Philadelphia, PA, USA Harry Potter Alliance, Matt Maggiacomo, Executive Director, Cranston, RI, USA Help Nuba, Rabbi David Kaufman,Co-Chair, Des Moines, IA, USA Human Rights and Advocacy Network for Democracy (HAND), Abdalmageed S. Haroun, President, Brooklyn, NY, USA Human Rights and Development Organization (HUDO), Bushra Gamar Hussein - CEO, Kampala, Uganda Humanity Is Us, Kimberly Hollingsworth, Founder, New York, NY, USA Institute for the Study of Genocide, Dr. Ernesto Verdeja, Executive Director, US International Justice Project, Monica Feltz, Executive Director, Newark, NJ, USA Investors Against Genocide, Eric Cohen, Chairperson, Boston, MA, USA Institute on Religion and Democracy, Mark Tooley, President, Washington, DC USA Italians for Darfur, Antonella Napoli, President, Rome, Italy Jewish World Watch, Mike Brand, Director of Policy and Programs, Encino, CA, USA Jews Against Genocide, Sharon Silber, Co-Director, New York, NY, USA Joining Our Voices, Slater Armstrong, Founder/Director, Baton Rouge, LA, USA Lehman Center for Human Rights & Peace Studies, Dr. Victoria Sanford, Director, Bronx, NY, USA Long Island Darfur Action Group, Nancy Walsh, Coordinator, Farmingdale, NY, USA Massachusetts Coalition for Darfur, William Rosenfeld, Director, Boston, MA, USA Mukesh Kapila, former Head of the UN in Sudan (2003-2004), Geneva, Switzerland Gill Lusk, Writer on the Sudans, London, UK Martin Technical Services’ Access Coalition Project, Deborah Martin, Director, Nashville, TN, USA National Religious Leaders of African Ancestry, Rev. Dr. Herbert Daughtry, Chairperson, Brooklyn, NY, USA Never Again Coalition, Lauren Fortgang, Co-Chair, Portland, OR, USA New York Coalition for Sudan, Eileen Weiss, Co-Founder, New York, NY, USA New York Darfur Vigil Group, Helga Moor, Coordinator, New York, NY, USA Nuba Mountains Advocacy Group - USA, Gogadi Amoga, Chair, Amelia, OH, USA Nuba Mountains International Association, Fadlallah Hassan, Canada Nuba Mountains International Association USA, Komi Alaiaiser, President, Lorton, VA, USA Nuba Mountains Peace Coalition, Tito Elgassai, Dallas, TX, USA Nuba Now Campaign, Claire Vera, London, UK Nubia Project, Nuraddin Abdulmannan, President, Washington, DC, USA Operation Broken Silence, Mark C. Hackett, Executive Director, Memphis, TN, USA Our Humanity in the Balance, Terry Nickelson, Executive Director, Deming, NM, USA Pax Christi Metro New York, Rosemarie Pace, Director, New York, NY, USA People4Sudan, Valerie Delacretaz, Global Coordinator, Geneva, Switzerland Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition, David Rosenberg, Coordinator, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), W. Mark Koenig, Director, Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations, Louisville, KY, USA Martin Raffel, Human Rights Activist, former Senior Vice President of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, East Brunswick, NJ, USA Eric Reeves, Sudan Researcher, Author of Compromising with Evil: An Archival History of Greater Sudan, 2007 – 2012 (eBook, 2012), Northampton, MA, USA Republican Brotherhood, Buthaina Terwis, Calgary, Canada Hawa Abdalla Salih, Human Rights and Women’s Rights Activist, Recipient, 2012 U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award, Philadelphia, PA, USA San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition, Mohamed Suleiman, President, San Francisco, CA, USA Nina Shea, Director, Center for Religious Freedom, Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, USA Skills for Nuba Mountains(SNM), Lazim Suleiman El basha, Executive Director, Kauda, South Kordofan, Sudan Prof. Emer. Robert Skloot, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA St. Clare's Episcopal Church, The Reverend Ronald D. Culmer, Rector, Pleasanton, CA, USA Society for Threatened Peoples, Ulrich Delius, Africa Desk, Göttingen, Germany Brian Steidle, Author of The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur, USA Stop Genocide Now, Katie-Jay Scott, Redondo Beach, CA, USA Sudan Advocacy Action Forum, Dr. Eleanor Wright, Moderator, Birmingham, AL, USA Sudan Democracy First Group, Monim Al Jak, Acting Executive Director, Kampala, Uganda Sudan Sunrise, Thomas M. Prichard, Executive Director, Reston, VA, USA Sudan Unlimited, Esther Sprague, Founder, San Francisco, CA, USA Sudanese-Canadian Forum for Peace and Democracy, Elham Bakri, Toronto, Canada Page 6 of 6 Sudanese Committee for Change, Magdi Abdulmoniem, Edmonton, Canada Sudanese Community Church of Denver, Ayyoubawaga (Oja) B. Gafour, Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, Denver, CO, USA Sudanese Congress Party, Alharith Elhaj, Canada Sudanese Engineers Trade Union, Hashim Mohammed Ahmed, President Elect of the Legitimate Union, Oxford, UK Sudanese Marginalized Forum-USA, Magid Kabashi, Chair, New York, NY, USA Sudanese Women Association, Solaima Yousuf, Canada The Elsa-Gopa Trust, Nell Okie, Director, Madison, CT, USA The MagkaSama Project, Max Dana, Founder, Paris, France Henry C. Theriault, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, Worcester State University, Worcester, MA, USA Rebecca Tinsley, Founder, Waging Peace, London, UK Samuel Totten, Professor Emeritus, University of Arkansas, Author of An Oral and Documentary History of the Darfur Genocide, Fayetteville, AR, USA Unite for Darfur Organization, Bahar Arabie, CEO, Gaithersburg, MD, USA United Sudanese And South Sudanese Communities Association (USASSCA), Dr. Henry Lejukole, Chairman, Des Moines, IA, USA United to End Genocide, Hon. Thomas H. Andrews, President and CEO, Washington, DC, USA Use Your Voice to Stop Genocide RI, Sandra Hammel, Director, Portsmouth, RI, USA Voices for Sudan, Jimmy Mulla, President and Co-Founder, Washington, DC, USA Waging Peace, Olivia Warham MBE, Director, London, UK Dr. James E. Waller, Cohen Professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Keene State College, Keene, NH, USA Elhag Ali Warrag, Editor in Chief, Hurriyat Sudan, Egypt World Peace and Reconciliation (WP&R), Tobi Indyke, Secretary, Morris Plains, NJ, USA World Without Genocide at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., Executive Director, St. Paul, MN, USA Adeeb Yousif, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR), George Mason University (GMU), Arlington, VA, USA (c) 2016 ICC

Ethiopia provides a significant example of the struggle governments are undertaking to find and implement effective policy responses to faith-based violent extremism and sectarian conflict. Given both demographic shifts and greater religious freedoms, the management of religious conflict and practice has of necessity been a complex and sometimes fraught task. A changed context has seen the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government shift from mediating conflict between faith groups to regulating religious practice, especially where there are political or extremist overtones. Local actors have used the state’s interventionist inclinations in the confessional realm to gain advantage in wider leadership struggles within Ethiopia’s ethnically based regional states. Opposition groups, not always within formal parties, have also used religious issues to score political points. The Ethiopian experience shows not only how faith is an increasing political resource, especially at local levels, but also lessons that can be learned from top-down interventions in the religious sphere. Although often regarded as a predominantly Christian country, the confessional landscape is diverse and evolving, and religion is increasingly politicised by a range of domestic actors, including the state. Faith runs deep, and its religions (particularly the Orthodox Church) have at various times in history been intimately connected to the Ethiopian state and its administration. Always a significant but institutionally disadvantaged minority, the Muslim population has grown in relative terms in recent decades and is at least as numerous as that in Sudan, Ethiopia’s predominantly Islamic neighbour. Previously discriminated against (including by the state), Muslims and Protestants have embraced and capitalised on the lifting of religious restrictions by the 1994 secular constitution. Faith-based communal conflicts have, in modern times at least, been rare though deadly, bringing prompt community and government responses. Sporadic confessional violence over the last decades has not translated into a real threat to a long tradition of religious (though often unequal) co-existence. While inter-confessional tensions remain, they appear to have been largely superseded in recent years by tensions between the government and faith communities. Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and Muslims alike have accused the former of undue interference in their internal religious affairs, whereas the government sees itself as holding the secular line against politicisation and extremism. Ethiopia, like its immediate neighbours, is faced with difficult policy choices involved in guarding against internal radicalisation through systematic (at times constitutionally questionable) interventions that have tended to favour established religious authorities. The government, and donors keen to support global efforts against violent extremism, should always consider first, the risk of such interventions to the state’s neutrality as mediator, and secondly, that taking sides in intra-religious debates could exacerbate communal faith-based conflicts. Above all, those backing interventions should always seek better understanding of what faith means to multi-ethnic, religiously diverse societies like (but not limited to) Ethiopia, in which the distinction between group and individual identity is often not well defined, and rival local actors are apt to make use of religious disputes where social and governmental constraints inhibit open political competition. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2016 International Crisis Group

SPLC’s Intelligence Report: Amid Year of Lethal Violence, Extremist Groups Expanded Ranks in 2015 Intelligence Report 17 February 2016 The number of extremist groups operating in the United States grew in 2015 – a year awash in deadly extremist violence and hateful rhetoric from mainstream political figures, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual census of hate groups and other extremist organizations. The report, contained in the Spring 2016 issue of the SPLC’s investigative journal,Intelligence Report, can be readhere (PDF version is available here). Click here for an interactive map showing hate group names, types and locations across the country. The SPLC found that the number of hate groups operating in 2015 was 14 percent higher than in 2014. Antigovernment “Patriot” groups – armed militias and others animated by conspiracy theories – also grew 14 percent during the same period. “While the number of extremist groups grew in 2015 after several years of declines, the real story was the deadly violence committed by extremists in city after city,” said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the SPLC and editor of theIntelligence Report. “Whether it was Charleston, San Bernardino or Colorado Springs, 2015 was clearly a year of deadly action for extremists.” Hate groups increased from 784 groups in 2014 to 892 last year. Antigovernment “Patriot” groups grew from 874 in 2014 to 998. This growth came amid a series of lethal terrorist attacks by extremists. In June, a white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. In December, Islamist radicals killed 14 people at a work party in San Bernardino, California – just days after an anti-abortion extremist killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. These were just the worst of numerous other attacks and foiled extremist plots reviewed in this issue. “After seeing the bloodshed that defined 2015, our politicians should have worked to defuse this anger and bring us together as a nation,” Potok said. “Unfortunately, the carnage did little to dissuade some political figures from spouting incendiary rhetoric about minorities. In fact, they frequently exploited the anger and polarization across the country for political gain.” Here are the main articles in the issue: The Year in Hate and Extremism — by Mark Potok — The number of hate and antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups grew last year, and terrorist attacks and radical plots proliferated. A Year of Living Dangerously — by Mark Potok — The political violence we saw in 2015 was worse than it seemed. Backlash — by Leah Nelson — Anti-Muslim hatred ratcheted up sharply after the Islamic State attacks in Paris. Then came San Bernardino and Donald Trump. Seeing Red — by Ryan Lenz — After years of avoiding conspiracy theories, anti-Indian activists now see a global communist plot behind a UN plan. Aryan Deflations — by Bill Morlin — A dozen years after the death of its founder, the remnants of the once-infamous Aryan Nations have just about disappeared Culture Jamming — by Keegan Hankes — Racist leaders are increasingly sending out disinformation to spread their ideology online. Fear and Loathing in Montana — by Ryan Lenz — On a decaying former Air Force base, antigovernment ‘sovereign citizens’ are battling the few remaining locals for control. Life After Hate — by Ryan Lenz, illustrations by Brett Affrunti — Staffed by former racists, an ‘exit’ program aimed at disillusioned white supremacist radicals in the U.S. is picking up steam. The demonization of Muslims, Latinos, immigrants and others became commonplace in 2015. Presidential candidate Donald Trump made headlines with a call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and his description of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. He even cited a bogus “poll” by the Center for Security Policy that falsely claimed that a quarter of American Muslims support violent jihadists such as the members of the Islamic State. The Center for Security Policy is one of two anti-Muslim groups listed as hate groups for the first time in this year’s report. The other is ACT! for America. Other political figures launched their own verbal attacks against a host of targets to exploit the anger and fear of some Americans over the country’s changing demographics, immigration, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists. Economic pressure on white, working-class Americans has also contributed to the anger. “Backlash,” a related report within this issue, explores the wave of violence and hatred directed at American Muslims in the wake of shrill attacks by major presidential candidates and recent jihadist massacres in Paris and San Bernardino. These messages by mainstream political figures were often amplified by right-wing media outlets, adding to the sense of polarization and anger across the country – an atmosphere that may be unmatched since the political upheavals of 1968. With the new year beginning with armed militiamen seizing a federal wildlife refuge near Burns, Oregon, the extremist threat in the United States appears likely to get worse before it improves. The hate groups listed in this report include neo-Nazis, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, Klansmen and black separatists. Other hate groups on the list target LGBT people, Muslims or immigrants, and some specialize in producing racist music or propaganda denying the Holocaust. Copyright 2016 Intelligence Report

The European Parliament unanimously passed a resolution on Thursday recognizing the Islamic State militant group’s (ISIS) systematic killing and persecution of religious minorities in the Middle East as a genocide. The vote, decided by a show of hands at a European Parliament plenary session in the French city of Strasbourg, was the first time that the body has recognized an ongoing conflict situation as a genocide. The resolution states that those who intentionally commit atrocities for ethnic or religious reasons be brought to justice for violations against international law, crimes against humanity and genocide. ISIS has systematically persecuted religious minorities in its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria,kidnapping hundreds of Assyrian Christians in Syria, forcing Christians to live under its radical strand of Islam in the central Syrian city of Al-Qaryatain, enslaving and raping Yazidi women and children in northern Iraq, as well as killing Yazidi men and dumping them in mass graves. Lars Adaktusson, Swedish member of the European Parliament for the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) Group, who tabled the resolution, calls the vote a “historic decision” that represented a further step towards recognition of ISIS crimes against Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities at the United Nations. “It’s really important that the Parliament passed it, on a political level and a moral level. The significance is the obligations that follow by such a recognition,” he says, speaking to Newsweek by phone. “The collective obligation to intervene, to stop these atrocities and to stop the persecution in the ongoing discussion about the fight against the Islamic State.” He adds: “It gives the victims of the atrocities a chance to get their human dignity restored. It’s also a historical confirmation that the European Parliament recognized what is going on and that they are suffering from the most despicable crime in the world, namely genocide.” The radical Islamist group views Yazidis as devil-worshippers and Christians as kafir (disbelievers) and infidels. In 2014, ISIS captured Iraq’s largest Christian town, Qaraqosh, forcing tens of thousands to flee, also seizing the Christian towns of Tal Kayf, Bartella and Karamlesh. In their takeover of the Iraqi city of Mosul, churches and Christian shops were attacked and the group forced the Christian population of 3,000 to flee or be killed unless they converted to Islam or paid jizya (a tax paid by non-Muslims). Nuri Kino, the director and founder of the Middle Eastern advocacy group A Demand for Action who also led the push for the genocide to be recognized with Adaktusson, tells Newsweek that the passing of the resolution would help to save lives in the Middle East. “It’s overwhelming. Eighteen months ago we said we will demand action. Today, we can say with pride that we, a team of volunteers from all over the world, worked around the clock to make this happen.” He adds: “Now our goal is the U.N. Security Council. Action must be taken.” The insecurity faced by Christians in the Middle East has seen their population decrease drastically in recent years. As of July last year, a third of Syria’s 600,000 Christians had fled, Lebanon’s Christian population share shrank from 78 percent to 34 percent over the previous century and only a third of the 1.5 million Christians in Iraq in 2003 remain today, according to the New York Times. (c) 2016 News Week

Israel is sharing intelligence with allies battling the Islamic State despite remaining on the sidelines of Syria’s civil war, a top Israeli general says, calling the terrorist group ‘our enemy.’ A top IDF general said Wednesday that the Islamic State group is “our enemy” and that Israel is sharing intelligence with allies battling the extremists despite remaining on the sidelines of Syria’s civil war. Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon said that while Iran remains the greatest threat to Israel, the IS group is also a dangerous adversary. Israel has kept its distance from the civil war on its northern doorstep, wary of appearing to side with any of the warring parties — nearly all of which are hostile to it. But Alon, who heads the IDF’s operations branch, told reporters that Israel is essentially part of the international coalition against IS and shares intelligence with its allies. “From Israel’s perspective, we definitely see Daesh as an enemy,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS. Although IS has yet to strike Israel, the extremist group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in December said “we haven’t forgotten you” and “we are getting closer to you” every day. He said Israeli Jews “will hide behind trees and stones.” Israel is bitter enemies with President Bashar Assad’s government in Syria, which is backed by Iran and is a major sponsor of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. But Israel also fears Islamic extremists among the ranks of the Syrian rebels. Israel has stayed out of the Syrian war, except for returning occasional cross-border fire. It is also widely believed to have carried out airstrikes to prevent Syria’s advanced weaponry from falling into the hands of militants. Alon said the international coalition against IS was making gains, but he anticipates a long struggle. “I don’t think that Daesh will collapse in the coming months or year,” he said. “It won’t be easy. Not short and not easy.” © Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved