The leader of Al-Qaeda in Maghreb was killed in Mali.
The French Minister of Defense –Florence Parly – announced on 5 June 2020 that Emir Abdelmalek Droukdal and several of his followers, were engaged and killed in combat by the French Army deployed in Mali, on 3 June 2020.
Abdelmalek Droukdal
The French Forces deployed in the region of the (three borders) between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger (a 5100 strong contingent) had already previously arrested another important jihadist commander – Mohamed el Mrabat – from the Sahel component of the Islamic State.
The different Islamic radical groups in the region fight against each other and the National and International forces, in a permanent “state of war” situation that brings numerous casualties, misery and chaos to the local civilian population.
The Portuguese Defense Minister meets the Portuguese Air Force personnel about to deploy to the UN mission in Mali. The Portuguese Air Force will be deploying this month of June one C-295M aircraft and 63 air and ground crew military personnel.
Portuguese Air Force C295 Aircraft and staff with the Portuguese Defense Minister
MINUSMA – United Nations Multinational Integrated Stabilization Mission – is a peacekeeping mission created in 2013 with the goal to stabilize Mali which had been suffering attacks from insurgent groups. The situation in the country is dangerous and over 3.2 million people are in a dare situation, desperately needing Humanitarian Aid from the UN.
The Portuguese Air Force detachment will have the mission to provide air support to MINUSMA, such as transport of personnel and cargo, tactical airlift using improvised runways and bare bases, Medical Evacuations, parachutist activity, air surveillance,
This will be the fifth detachment of the Portuguese Air Force in MINUSMA (2014 with a C130; 2015 with a C-130 and later with a C295; 2016 with a C295). The C295 will deploy starting 26 June 2020 and ending 31 December 2020.
Existe uma lenda nas montanhas do Hindukush que reza assim:
– “Quando Alá fez o Mundo, sobraram-lhe um monte de pedaços e restos da criação que não encaixavam em mais lado nenhum. O Divino reuniu todos esses fragmentos e atirou-os para a Terra, criando o Afeganistão.”
Esta lenda descreve bem a paisagem afegã; uma paisagem austera, plena de montanhas e desertos, com luxuriantes oásis rodeando os rios que correm no fundo dos vales profundos. Contudo, não se deve pensar que a aridez do cenário significa ausência de presença humana. Também existe um proverbio afegão que dita:
– “Por mais alta que seja a montanha, irás sempre encontrar uma tribo!”
As terras afegãs foram, ao longo dos milénios, o local de criação ou de expansão de impérios e religiões. Os viajantes antigos consideravam o Afeganistão como o centro do Mundo, porque tinham sempre de o atravessar com as suas caravanas quando percorriam a famosíssima Rota da Seda.
Estando no centro da Ásia Central, o Afeganistão é o herdeiro de Ariana; um império de nobre e culto povo da antiguidade distante.
Passei muitas noites no Afeganistão a ouvir velhas lendas com heróis a derrotarem dragões, combates titânicos entre exércitos, reis e gigantes do submundo, a Arca de Noé, o número mítico 7 e o número tabu 39, etc. Os próprios afegãos descrevem a paisagem das montanhas do Hindukush como sendo o esqueleto de um enorme monstro apocalíptico. Todavia, as estórias mais marcantes foram aquelas a que assisti ao vivo, sofridas na carne pelas pessoas das tribos locais, as quais, embora distintas umas das outras, partilhavam o mesmo sentimento de pertença a um País chamado Afeganistão.
Capa do Diário de Missão no Afeganistão
Agora que o eBook sobre a missão na Bósnia Herzegovina (Bosnia 95 – Peacekeeping in a War zone) está prestes a ser liberado, é altura de rever o diário de missão da UNAMA, no Afganistão.
There is a legend in the Hindukush Mountains that reads like this:
– “When Allah made the world, He was found out that there were a lot of leftovers of his creation that didn’t fit anywhere else. The Divine gathered all these fragments and threw them to Earth, and that how he created Afghanistan.”
This legend describes the Afghan landscape very well; an austere landscape, full of forested mountains and arid deserts, with lush oases surrounding the rivers that run deep in the deep valleys. However, even in the deepest arid region, or at the highest permanently snowed mountain top, one should not think that the scenario means the absence of human presence. There is also an Afghan proverb that dictates:
– “No matter how high the mountain, you will always find an Afghan tribe!”
Afghan lands were, over the millennia, the place of creation or expansion of empires and religions. The ancient travelers thought that Afghanistan as the center of the world, because they had to cross it with their caravans whenever they traveled the very famous Silk Road.
Being in the center of Central Asia, Afghanistan is Ariana’s heir; an empire of noble and cultured people of distant antiquity.
I spent many nights in Afghanistan listening to old legends with heroes defeating dragons, titanic battles between armies, kings and giants of the underworld, Noah’s Ark, the mythical number 7 and the taboo number 39, etc. Afghans themselves describe the landscape of the Hindukush mountains as the skeleton of a huge apocalyptic monster. However, the most striking stories were those that I watched live, suffered in the flesh by the people of the local tribes, who, although distinct from each other, shared the same feeling of belonging to a country called Afghanistan.
Afghanistan Mission Diary cover
Now that the eBook of Bosnia Herzegovina (Bosnia 95 – Peacekeeping in a War zone) is about to be released, it is time to start reviewing the UNAMA mission diary; Afghanistan.
One of the (UNMO) Airfield Monitors’ tasks, in Belgrade, was to inspect and clear the airlift of medical evacuations (MEDEVAC) in/out Belgrade to in/out Bosnia.
The civilians wounded in Bosnia’s war zone were flown to Belgrade in order to be assisted at the very competent and well organized Yugoslav hospital system. However, those MEDEVAC flights were not impartial; they only brought in Serbs. Still, those were humanitarian flights, and the UN supported it; as long as a previous permission had been requested to UNPROFOR HQ Belgrade.
After receiving and analyzing the MEDEVAC request, HQ UNPROFOR Belgrade would notify Zagreb and dispatch an UNMO officer to the heliport of the Military Hospital, downtown Belgrade, in order to inspect the flight. The goal was to verify if the aircraft and its crew/passengers were configured for medical purposes, or if it was being used for military operations.
In 1995, the City of Belgrade had a heliport infrastructure, close to its Military Hospital, worth of envy by any European Capital. It could support simultaneously two medium/heavy helicopters flights, day or night, in perfect safety conditions. Each helicopter had a dedicated large racket shaped landing area, paved, marked and lighted in accordance with the parameters of international aviation. The two racket edges were separated 25 meters from each other, connected by taxiways in an angle of 45 degrees, in order to permit the transit between both helipads and the landing/take-off point in the center of the aeronautical infrastructure. Serving the central landing point there was a visual approach slope indicator (VASI), which gave lighting visual signs to the pilots, in case of bad weather landing conditions. Each helipad had its own refueling system and there was a deep ditch surrounding them, to receive the snow, water and other objects cleaned from the landing surface. There was also a building and a small hangar, which had a calibrated windsock indicator and some antennas on the roof, demonstrating the capability to maintain radio communication with the incoming/outgoing aircraft. The entire infrastructure was fenced and guarded by military personnel.
This type of sophisticated infrastructures was a demonstration of the high level of social support, and good life quality, the Yugoslav population had before the country entered the crisis turmoil.
Each MEDEVAC inspection required the presence of a Yugoslav Army Liaison Officer, tasked to coordinate and facilitate the UNMO officer activity, as well as to overtake the language barrier between the English speaking UN personnel and the Yugoslav staff. These Liaison Officers were not always the same person, but they were all selected specifically to liaise with the UN.
The inspections were made on both legs of the mission; at the departure and at the arrival of the helicopter. That was, of course, a very naïf attitude, because the helicopters’ pilots could land anywhere in between, and do whatever they wished, without the UNMO inspection noticing it. The UNMO officers were aware of it, but those were the rules; and they stuck to it. As long as there were wounded people on the return flight, and no weapons or soldiers on board, it was a genuine MEDEVAC.
In fact, checking wounded passengers was the deplorable part of those inspections. The UNMO inspectors had to witness the intense human suffering of people wounded in battle. The helicopters normally landed with the deck floor covered with vomit and blood, and the nurses trying to calm down crippled people of all ages.
As a matter of fact, those were not really Medical Evacuations (MEDEVAC); they were Casualty Evacuations (CASEVAC). The difference resided on the place the helicopters had to recover the wounded person, and how the casualty had been handled before. If it was a transfer from a medical service to another more suitable one; it was a MEDEVAC. If it was a recover flight of a combat casualty, at the site of the incident, with almost no medical attendance; it was a CASEVAC. Technically, a CASEVAC would require some level of combat engagement, because both the helicopter and the evacuee had to be protected. Nevertheless, for UNPROFOR HQ Belgrade kept it simple and they considered it all MEDEVAC; and no one ever contested it.
Sometimes the helicopters were coming to Belgrade to collect medical teams tasked to do “on site surgery” in the middle of the battlefield. On the return path, those overworked and depressed doctors and nurses would bring the wounded people they managed to save, but they always said they couldn’t save them all.
During my six month mission in Belgrade, I’ve inspected more than 20 MEDEVAC flights to/from Bosnia. Each casualty showed wounds uglier than the previous one. Some flights had nothing to report; others had items that were not allowed on board due to the UN embargo. However, if it was harmless items not related to warfare activities – such as tobacco or beer – the UNMO inspectors did not report it in order to maintain a favorable relation with the aircrews and the liaison officers. Without that open relation, there were not conditions to do a proper job.
Um jovem perguntou-me como eram os tipos da Força Aérea.
Respondi-lhe que o pessoal da Força Aérea era caracterizado por ser alguém (homem ou mulher) que está disponível “à mínima solicitação”, demonstrando “força e grandeza de ânimo” e que actua “com militar engenho e sutil arte”. Alguém que procura “saber para bem servir”, que sabe que “alcança quem não cansa” e que grita bem alto: “nós outros, cuja fama tanto voa”.
É pessoal preparado para “adivinhar os perigos e evitá-los”, que gosta de “cumprir além do dever” “e do mais necessário vos proveja”. São homens e mulheres que, “servindo com engenho e arte”, têm “o saber de experiencia feito”, cumprindo a missão com “firmeza e ardor”. Talhados para “manter e vigiar”, procuram “servir para mais longe alcançar”, sempre numa postura de “honra valor e fama gloriosa”. São resilientes, com “intenção de fixar resistência” nos piores momentos, “aqui e em toda a parte”, agindo com o mínimo dispêndio para atingir o máximo proveito”.
E assim, acabei por lhe dizer os lemas de todas a Unidades principais da Força Aérea.
If war is the ultimate chaos unleashed to deliberately exercise extreme human cruelty, peacekeepers are the extraordinary glimmer of humanity and hope.
War is the most extreme of the human experiences, which last in the human mind as ghosts as the International Crime Court for former Yugoslavia put it:
– “This was terrible. The screams. I dream them, you know, sometimes. I wake up with them and I go to sleep with them.”
(Vukovar Hospital Case, ICTY, IT-95-13A, p. 925).
In 1988, the Norwegian Nobel Committee drafted a note explaining why it had decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. The Nobel Committee asserted that:
– “Peacekeeping Forces of the United Nations have, under extremely difficult conditions, contributed to reducing tensions where an armistice has been negotiated but a peace treaty has yet to be established.”
The Committee further advanced the idea that one of the reasons to award this international recognition was the fact that “The Peacekeeping Forces are recruited from among the young people of many nations, who, in keeping with their ideals, voluntarily take on a demanding and hazardous service in the cause of peace.”
…..
(Extract of the Prologue, by University Professor (and former UNPROFOR UNMO) Francisco Leandro, on the eBook “Bosnia 95 – Peacekeeping in a War Zone“)
The year was 1995 and the UN mission was UNPROFOR – United Nations Protection Force – for the Former Yugoslav conflicts. At that time, it was the most complex, most dangerous, and most expensive UN mission ever done, with a budget of 1.6 trillion US Dollars, and the task of:
“… interim arrangement to create the conditions of peace and security required for the negotiation of an overall settlement of the Yugoslav crisis …”
(UN Security Council Resolution 743 – 1992)
Back in those times, many said that UNPROFOR was an operational disaster. It was described as a waste of material and human resources; unable to stop a deadly conflict at the doorstep of Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Romania.
Every day from 1992 to 1995, TV sets filled our living rooms with horrible images of people being shot by snipers; skinny prisoners of war huddled in concentration camps; Sarajevo being hammered by artillery fire; muddy trenches; killed children; and all other atrocities characteristic of a full scale war, with absolutely no respect for any international convention, or human compassion.
The International Public Opinion was asking:
– “What about the UN? Don’t they have UNPROFOR on the ground? What are they waiting for to stop it?”
This story will try to answer those questions and give a retroactive voice to the hundreds of thousands of blue helmets that, like me, had proudly served for UNPROFOR and felt indignant with the lack of understanding of what was going on in the field.
Regardless of the perceptions in people’s living rooms, the Peacekeepers deployed in Bosnia, Croatia and Northern Macedonia were very much engaged in the resolution of those wars. The UN commitment to solve the Yugoslav conflicts was intense, and very serious. At a certain stage, there were about 38.600 Peacekeepers deployed in UNPROFOR; 213 of them paid the ultimate price to solve those conflicts, many others returned home with wounds on their bodies and in their souls, with many cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
UNPROFOR was not the perfect mission, but let’s not confuse the actions of the few with the dedication of the many. Those blue helmets had a poor mandate, with a ridiculous set of Rules of Engagement, restricting them to do little more than “watch and report”.
In spite of the criticism, many lessons were learned and UNPROFOR became the tipping point on the way the UN conducts Peace Support Operations. After UNPROFOR, the UN Security Council started to be more cautious in its expectations about the belligerents’ willingness to comply with the established agreements. That precautionary approach became evident on the delegation of Peace Enforcement mandates to Regional Organizations, as well as more “robust Peacekeeping” mandates, enabling the blue helmets’ to apply the use of force, if needed, for the protection of civilians.
When analyzing the war in the former Yugoslavia, there’s a point that always comes highlighted:
There were weapons everywhere, some of it of a highly sophistication.
One can’t help asking, where did all those weapons come from?!
Marshal Tito had created the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), under the spectrum of the Cold War. In those times, SFRY was notably the fifth military power in Europe. Tito refused to be a puppet of the Soviet Union but, at the same time, did not wish to upset the Kremlin by becoming a NATO member; therefore, he optioned for SFRY to be a “non-aligned” country. Not being part of a military block and laying on the geographic frontier between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Tito considered all his neighbouring countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Greece, Austria, Hungary and Albania) as potential aggressors. Allegedly, Marshal Tito used to joke, saying that Yugoslavia was surrounded by BRIGAMA (the M stands for Hungary, which is pronounced Madjarska in Serbo-Croatian language). The word “brigama”, in Serbo-Croatian, means “troubles”.
Consequently, Tito took preventive measures and transformed his Yugoslavia into a fortress, with the population trained and ready for war. Every major public investment had a military use. The houses had to have basements (to be used as bunkers), the factories had arsenal rooms where the (trained) workers could collect weapons to respond immediately to a surprise attack; the highways could be transformed into airfields; etc. Even the kids, at school, were trained to react and support the military effort, in a (militarized) type of Scout’s organization. It was a pure “Cold War” posture, aiming to protect one of the greatest countries in Europe.
With such a proliferation of weapons, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the political conflict between the three ethnic parties could rapidly raise to an armed confrontation. And so it did!
OPen samento 