#Mali Capital Bamako Explosion

[apollo-likes-writing]

Man down!

Characters: Simon Riley/Ghost, John MacTavish/Soap, John Price, Kyle Garrick/Gaz

Summary: The team get into a spot of trouble while hunting for a Malian arms dealer. Soap needs immediate medical attention as a result.

Word count: 1.9k

Warnings: Injury, violence, medical terms, blood, gore(sort of? It's not described in detail)

Authors note: I am trained in first aid but I am not a combat medic myself. There may be some terms that are confusing for some, so I have put an asterisk next to them(*) and I will be explain what they mean at end.

Also! For those who don't know, everyone in Special Forces is medically trained whether they were a combat medic beforehand or not. Take this information as you will. :).

P.S - I word vomited this entire thing in about four hours. Don't come for me if there are mistakes lol.

The Tomboctou region of Mali is an unforgiving place. One of eight regions in the African country, it is known for its hostile environment and the hostile terrorists that inhabit it. It's quite a beautiful place if you ignore the IEDs that lie in the roads and the fading bloodstains on the ancient architecture. If one were to listen closely, the sound of distant gunfire and explosions can be heard a few miles away.

Taskforce 141 move swiftly through a small village somewhere in the east of the region. It has been evacuated due to unrest in the area, so there are no civilians in sight: a fact that puts the minds of the battle-hardened soldiers at rest. Sort of. It's difficult to be at rest when you're in a situation like this.

The mission is black. No-one other than the 141, Laswell, and a few trusted confidants such as Alex and Nikolai know what the mission entails. Even then, the details are blurry.

The team have very little information. They know of a man named Yoro Cissoko, a Malian arms dealer who works internationally with the likes of Makarov and El Sin Nombre. They have been ordered to find and apprehend Cissoko before he crosses the Tomboctou border and into the capital region of Bamako where he leaves for Russia at midnight.

Laswell has discovered intelligence that Cissoko will make his way to the border via the village the team are currently clearing. The four men hug the walls of the buildings, making sure each of them are empty of hostiles as they go.

"Building is clear. Onto the next one." Gaz's voice turns tinny with the static of the comm in Price's ear.

"Copy," the Captain replies, shifting his rifle about in his hands. "Street clear. Move up."

The four men begin to cross the road, the Malian sun peaking above the horizon. So far, all has been quiet.

"I don't like this, L.T. It's too quiet," Soap states, voicing everyone's silent opinions.

The masked man besides him glances at him. "Just keep focused, Johnny. Cissoko will be here in 5 minutes. We need to-"

BANG

Gunfire erupts around them and Soap falls with a shout. The rest of the team scramble for cover as lead wasps fly past their ears.

"Where the fuck did they come from?" Gaz yells.

"I don't know but Soap is down!" Price replies, poking his head out of cover to return fire.

Soap lies on the dusty ground in the middle of the street. Blood seeps out of a gaping wound in his thigh and soils his uniform a disgusting red. He groans and pulls a tourniquet from one of the many pockets in his combat vest and begins to pull it above the wound in his leg. He tightens it with a wince and picks up his weapon, returning fire from where he sits in the road.

"Ya wee buggers. You should'a hit something more important!" he screams as he shoots one of Cissoko's men and watches him drop to the floor.

"Soap! Get to cover!" Ghost yells at him. Soap immediately turns onto his stomach and crawls towards his companions voice, his chest almost flat on the ground. It's agony but he pushes through and manages to reach the rusted car that Ghost crouches behind.

"You broken?" Ghost asks.

"Just got shot, L.T. What do you think?" he replies, pulling himself into a sitting position with his back to the car.

"I'll rephrase. Where are you broken?"

"Left leg. Mid thigh."

Ghost nods and reaches for his backpack. He opens one of the smaller pockets and retrieves the first aid kit that each of the men are supplied with before missions. He grabs scissors and cuts the ever-dampening material of Soap's combat trousers carefully until the wound comes into view. It isn't pretty.

"Shit."

"What's wrong?" Soap asks nervously.

"It's about an inch away from your femoral artery*. You're lucky you're not dead."

"Huh. Nice."

"This isn't a joke, Johnny. You're losing a lot of blood," Ghost scolds, peering at the wound.

"Trust me, L.T. I know," the smaller man responds.

"Apply pressure. I'll tell Price we need exfil." Soap does as he is asked and puts his hands over the wound. He winces in pain as he applies pressure. "That's gonna sting in the morning.."

"Price. Soap's in bad shape. We need exfil. Now."

"Roger. I'll call for Nik to pick us up." Price's tinny voice replies through the radio.

"Copy that."

"I'm not losing anyone today," Price states, "Keep him safe."

Ghost grunts an affirmation through the radio and turns back to Soap. The scot is quiet. He's slumped forwards and his arms lie limp at his sides.

"Shit," Ghost exclaims, rushing over to him. "Soap? Soap! It's Ghost. Wake up! Can you hear me? Wake up!" Ghost pinches the man in the arm, taps him roughly on his collarbone, squeezes his earlobes; anything that could make Soap respond.

"Fuck!" Ghost pulls Soap down from a sitting position into a lying one on the ground. He quickly puts him in the recovery position before tightly bandaging the wound in Soap's thigh.

"Price! Soap's unresponsive. Where's that exfil?"

"Hold tight. We're on our way. I'm calling off the mission."

Ghost sighs. He knows as much as anyone what Cissoko will do if he leaves the country. "Copy," he states grimly. He hates the idea of letting a man as vile as Cissoko go, but Soap is more important and he knows that.

"We've got 18 hours until he leaves. We'll have another chance." Ghost scoffs at that but otherwise says nothing. Almost immediately after, Gaz appears and fires at the opposition from behind a crumbling brick wall nearby. Price shows up soon after and crouches next to Ghost.

"We need to get him out of here. Come on!" Price and Ghost band together to pick Soap off the floor and hook his limp arms around their shoulders. With Gaz covering, the three men move out from behind the old Toyota and drag their way to an alleyway that leads to the edge of the sandy village. From there, the vast expanse of the dessert beyond can be seen between the space of the buildings. If the team were not otherwise preoccupied with the unconscious Soap, they'd be able to see the black dot in the distance that is Nik's helicopter.

"Bullets!" Gaz yells as he falls back to the group, now out of rounds.

"Fuck's sake," Price growls, handing off Soap to Gaz as he points his weapon to the entrance of the alleyway. "Get to the other side of the alleyway. Now!" Gaz and Ghost drag Soap's deadweight to the end of the alleyway as instructed, Price following shortly behind.

"Nik, please tell me you're close," Price speaks into his radio.

"Don't worry, my friend. I'm here," Nik responds, setting down his helicopter behind the cover of the village buildings.

"Nikolai! Ain't you a sight for sore eyes," Ghost responds.

"Get in. I'll get you out of here." Ghost and Gaz work together to heave Soap onto the chopper before following after. Ghost trains his rifle towards the alleyway as Gaz tends to Soap. Price, after shooting down a few of Cissoko's men, jumps into the helicopter before tapping Nik's shoulder. At that signal, Nik raises helicopter and flies away.

"How's he doing?" Price asks when the team are a safe distance away.

"Not good, Cap. He needs a hospital," Gaz responds to which Price nods. Soap's face is visibly paling by the minute.

"I have a celox bandage**. Shove that in there," Ghost states, handing Gaz a stack of bandages. The sergeant nods and begins to unwrap Ghost's previous handiwork. His lip curls in disgust when he sees the state of his friends leg.

"Fucking hell. How is he not dead?"

"Because I'm a stubborn fucker, laddy. I thought you knew that."

All three men surrounding the injured scot shoot up.

"What? Is there something on my face?" Soap slurs, a weak smile gracing his features.

"Just that shit-eating grin, Johnny. Might want to wipe it off," Ghost replies.

"Now that's permanent, L.T. You ain't gonna get that off."

Ghost sighs. "I'll tolerate it for now, mate. Just keep talking to me, okay?"

"Now that's something I can do," Soap chuckles, the sound more gravelly than what was normal. He winces suddenly as Gaz shoves the celox bandage into the wound in Soap's leg.

"Sorry mate. Need to soak up the blood," Gaz states as he presses it down before wrapping it in a regular bandage and tying it tightly.

Soap shrugs. "I know, laddy. Don't worry."

During the flight back to base, Soap continued to fall in and out of consciousness. Everytime he went unresponsive, the heavy lumps in the throats of the 141 got thicker and thicker. The distance between the village and the base was only about 40 miles, but even with Nik pushing his chopper as fast as it could go, the journey felt like years. When they got home, Soap was still unconscious. The team handed him over to the CMT's***, giving them the information they needed. He was then put on a stretcher and whisked away.

[1 hour later]

"I'm sorry, sir. He is still in critical condition. You can't visit him."

"Is he conscious?" Price asks the combat medic in front of him, crossing his arms.

"Well- yes sir-," he replies, "But he's not ready for visitors yet. We need to make sure he's stable before he can see anyone."

"I don't care. He's part of my team. It's my job to make sure he's okay." With that, he shoves past the man and enters the tent. He scans the room of injured soldiers and finds Soap in the corner, lying down on a small hospital bed with his leg elevated on several pillows.

When Soap sees the Captain, his mouth cracks open into a grin. "Miss me already, eh Price?"

"Just making sure you're okay," he replies, a small smile gracing his face. He drags a metal stool to Soap's bed and sits down on it.

"Docs said I'll be benched for a while. They're gonna send me back to the hospital back at Timbuktu**** to recover."

John sighs. "Understandable. We'll miss you here."

"I'm sure you'll do fine without me, boss man. Laswell will keep me company."

"Good." Price stands up again. "See you in a bit, mate. Nice knowing you're alright. Don't die on me, okay? That's a lot of paperwork."

Soap laughs. "I make no promises."

With that, Price leaves. He exits the tent to see Ghost and Gaz harassing the medic he was talking to earlier.

"I'm sorry, Sergeant, but he's already had one visitor when he's not supposed to. Please come back later. I assure you we'll keep him safe." Gaz was about to retort but Price beat him to it.

"He's fine, lads. He's heading back to Timbuktu in the morning."

Gaz nods, much to the appreciation of the combat medic in front of him. He turns with Ghost and the three of them leave the area.

"So what are we going to do about Cissoko?" Gaz asks.

"I've got a plan for that. I'll brief you later," Price replies, turning in the direction of the officers tents with Ghost.

"Got it."

--

Terms:

* Femoral Artery - an artery that runs down the inside of your leg. The main artery that delivers blood to your legs. If that gets sliced in any way you've got about a minute to live.

** Celox bandage - this thing basically works like a tampon but for the rest of your body. You shove it into a wound and it soaks up the blood and expands which then blocks the wound up. Pretty solid piece of kit.

*** CMT's - an acronym that means "Combat Medical Technician". Its a fancy term for a combat medic.

**** Timbuktu - the capital city of Tomboctou.

Masterlist

[lagmennet]

Assault on Mali Military Training Camp Raises Security Risks

The army reported an attack on a military training center in Mali’s capital early Tuesday. Col. Marima Sagara, deputy director of the army’s communications division, said the army had received reports of an attack on a gendarme training facility in Bamako but had no further details. An Associated Press reporter heard two explosions and observed smoke rising in the distance. The training…

[burlveneer-music]

BKO - Djine Bora - a blast from Mali

In response to the current political and ecological turmoil, the famous Malian quintet BKO appeals to the magical spirit of the djinn with Djine Bora (the appearance of the genie). An explosive and mystical third album, embodied by a music of resistance, the fruit of their unique experimentation with Mandingo music and their extraordinary history. The three letters B.K.O. are the code for Bamako airport. It is in the Malian capital that the group has been rehearsing since 2012. In the same year that Mali declared a state of emergency, no one could have imagined that these musicians would be responsible for three albums and over 450 concerts in 25 different countries. BKO fights, does not fail, unifies and looks like no one else. In this album, the band delivers an abrasive music where tradition is tinged with rock, polyphonies, distortions and shrill breaks. They invoke ancestral spiritualities by marrying for the first time in Mali two diametrically opposed traditions. An electric combination of Djeli N'goni, the guitar of griot Mamoutou Diabaté, and Donso N'goni, the six-stringed lute of Adama Coulibaly, a member of the secret brotherhood of Bambara animist hunters. These inimitable sounds are supported by a rhythm section represented by the two founders of BKO, percussionist Ibrahima Sarr and Aymeric Krol with his drums rigged with percussion (calabash, dununs and cymbals). But above all, this hypnotic sound exploration with its visceral and feverish rhythms could not exist without the presence of their charismatic singer Fassara Sacko. His hoarse voice is inhabited, it blazes and revives the multi-secular songs as well as the claims of the people of Bamako (infant mortality in Sadiona, immigration in Tounga, poverty in Koli). Although he has lost his eyesight over the course of the tours, his energy and conviction is unrivalled, perhaps the djinn has something to do with it, or it has become incarnated in each of the musicians. In the course of the ten tracks of Djine Bora, BKO propels the traditions within a powerful and hybrid universe, just like Bamako. In this bewitching atmosphere, crackling concrete and ritual ceremonies meet. The group has released one of its most accomplished albums, tinged with trance, enigmatic melodies (Ntiaro's Peulh prayer) and unifying messages (Maya, Bamako, Toumaro). Music and Lyrics by BKO FASSARA SACKO : LEAD VOCAL (1,2,5,6,7) ou (A1, A2, A5 / B1, B2) / KHASSONKÉ DUNUN ADAMA COULIBALY : LEAD VOCAL (3) ou (A3) / DONSO-NGONI ALOU SANGARE : LEAD VOCAL (4) ou (A4) NFALY DIAKITÉ : LEAD VOCAL (8,9,10) ou (B3, B4, B5) / DONSO-NGONI IBRAHIMA SARR : DJEMBE, BACKING VOCALS MAMOUTOU DIABATÉ : DJELI-NGONI AYMERIC KROL : DRUMS, BACKING VOCALS

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 12

The Flat Five

It’s November, and the culture is telling us to be thankful again, at least from a distance. We’re a prickly, argumentative bunch here at Dusted, but I think we can all agree on gratitude for our health, each other and the music, good and bad, that comes flooding in from all sides. So while we may not agree on whether the best genre is free jazz or acid folk or vintage punk or the most virulent form of death metal, we do concur that the world would be very dull without any of it. And thus, seasonably overstuffed, but with music, we opine on a number of the best of them once again. Contributors this time include Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Mason Jones, Patrick Masterson, Jonathan Shaw and Justin Cober-Lake. Happy thanksgiving. 

Cristián Alvear / Burkhard Stangl — Pequeños Fragmentos De Una Música Discreta (Insub)

Pequeños fragmentos de una música discreta by CRISTIÁN ALVEAR & BURKHARD STANGL

The acoustic guitar creates instant common ground. Put together two people with guitars in their hands together, and they can potentially communicate without knowing a word of each other’s language. They might trade blues licks, verses of “Redemption Song,” or differently dire remembrances of “Hotel California,” but they’re bound to find some sort of common language. This album documents another chapter in the eternal search. Cristián Alvear is a Chilean classical guitarist who has found a niche interpreting modern, and often experimental repertoire. Burkhard Stangl is an Austrian who has spent time playing jazz with Franz Koglmann, covering Prince with Christoph Kurzmann and realizing compositions that use the language of free improvisation with Polwechsel. This CD collects eight “Small Fragments Of Discreet Music” which they improvised in the course of figuring out what they could play together. Given their backgrounds, dissonance is part of the shared language, but thanks to the instrumentation, nothing gets too loud. Sometimes they explore shared material, such as the gentle drizzle of harmonics on “No5.” Other times, they find productive contrasts, such as the blurry slide vs. palindromic melody on “No6.” And just once, they flip on the radio and wax melancholic while the static sputters. Sometimes small, shared moments are all you need.

Bill Meyer

 Badge Époque Ensemble — Self Help (Telephone Explosion Records)

Self Help by Badge Époque Ensemble

 Toronto collective Badge Époque Ensemble display the tastefully virtuosic skill of a particular strain of soul-inflected jazz-fusion that politely nudged its way into the charts during the 1970s. Led by Max Turnbull (the erstwhile Slim Twig) on Fender Rhodes, clavinet and synthesizers with members of US Girls, Andy Shauf’s live band and a roster of guest vocalists, Badge Époque Ensemble faithfully resurrect the sophisticated sounds of Blue Nun fuelled fondue parties and stoned summer afternoons by the pool. Meg Remy and Dorothea Paas share vocals on “Sing A Silent Gospel” which is garlanded with Karen Ng’s alto saxophone and an airy solo from guitarist Chris Bezant; it’s a track that threatens to take off but never quite does. The strength of James Baley’s voice lifts the light as air psych-funk of “Unity (It’s Up To You)” and Jennifer Castle does the same for “Just Space For Light” during which Alia O’Brien makes the case for jazz flute — Mann rather than Dolphy — with an impressive solo. The most interesting track here is the 11 minute “Birds Fly Through Ancient Ruins” a broodingly introspective piece which allows Bezant, Ng and bassist Giosuè Rosati to shine. Self-Help is immaculately played and has some very good moments but can’t quite get loose enough to convince.

Andrew Forell  

 Better Person — Something to Lose (Arbutus)

Something to Lose by Better Person

Like any musical genre, synth-pop can go desperately awry in the wrong hands. The resurgence of all things 1980s has been such a prevalent musical trend in recent years that it takes a deft touch to create something that taps into the retro vibe without coming across as smug. Under his Better Person moniker, Berlin-based Polish artist Adam Byczyowski manages to summon the melancholy vibe of 1980s classics such as “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, and “Drive” by The Cars, reimagined for the 21st century and set in a run-down karaoke bar. This succinct and elegant half-hour set pivots around atmospheric instrumental “Glendale Evening” and features three Polish-language tracks — “Na Zawsze” (“Forever”), “Dotknij Mnie” (“Touch Me”), and “Ostatni Raz” (“Last Time”) — that emphasize the feel of cruising solo through another country and tuning into a unfamiliar radio station. There’s roto-toms, glassy synth tones, suitably melodramatic song titles (including “Hearts on Fire,” “True Love,” and “Bring Me To Tears”), plus Byczyowski’s disaffected croon. It all creates something unexpectedly moving.

Tim Clarke

 Big Eyes Family — The Disappointed Chair (Sonido Polifonico)

The Disappointed Chair by Big Eyes Family

Sheffield’s Big Eyes Family (formerly The Big Eyes Family Players) released the rather fine Oh! on Home Assembly Music in 2016. Its eerie blend of folk and psych-pop brought to mind early Broadcast, circa Work and Non Work, before Trish Keenan and James Cargill started to explore more experimental timbres and themes of the occult. Bar perhaps the haunted music box instrumental “Witch Pricker’s Dream,” Oh!’s songs cleaved along a similar grain: minor keys, chiming arpeggiated guitar, spooky organ, in-the-pocket rhythm section, plus Heather Ditch’s vocal weaving around the music like smoke. The Disappointed Chair is much the same, enlivened with a touch more light and shade, from succinct waltz “(Sing Me Your) Saddest Song,” to the elegant Mellotron and tom-toms of “For Grace.” “From the Corner of My Eye” is stripped right back, with an especially affecting guitar line, plus Ditch’s vocals doubled, with the same words spoken and sung, like a voice of conscience nagging at the edge of the frame. It’s a strong set of songs, only let down by the boxy snare sound on “Blue Light,” and on “The Conjurer,” Ditch’s lower register isn’t nearly as strident as her upper range.

Tim Clarke

 Bounaly — Music For WhatsApp 10 (Sahel Sounds)

Music from Saharan WhatsApp 10 by Bounaly

The tenth installment in Sahel Sounds’ Music For WhatsApp series introduces another name worth remembering. In case your attention hasn’t been solely faced on the ephemeral charms of contemporary Northwest African music in 2020, here’s the scoop: Each month, Sahel sounds uploads a brief recording that a musician from that corner of the world recorded on their cell phone and delivered via the titular app, which is the current mode of music transmission in that neck of the woods. At the end of the month they take it down, and that’s that. This edition was posted on November 11, so set your watch accordingly. Bounaly is originally from Niafounké, which was the home of the late, great Ali Farka Touré. Since civil war and outside intervention have rendered the city unsafe for musicians of any speed, he now works in Mali’s capital city, Bamako, but his music is rooted in the bluesy guitar style that Touré championed. Accompanied solely by a calabash player and surrounded by street sounds, Bounaly’s singing closely shadows his picking, which is expressive without resorting to the amped-up shredding of contemporary guitarists like Mdou Moctar.

Bill Meyer  

 Cash Click Boog — Voice of the Struggle (CMC-CMC)

Last year, Cash Click Boog made a few very noticeable appearances on other people albums (especially on Lonnie Bands’ “Shred 1.5” and Rockin Rolla’s First Quarter) but his own Extras was a minor effort. This Californian rapper was always a dilettante at music, but that was his main appeal and ineradicable feature: you always knew that he’s always caught up in some very dark street business, and he appears in a booth once every blue moon, almost by accident. He is that sort of a player who always on the bleachers, yet when they let him on the field he always does a triple double or a hat trick (depending on a kind of sport).

Voice of the Struggle was supposed to be his big break, the album in which he would expend his gift for rapping while remaining in strictly amateurish frame. Sadly, Boog has chosen another route, namely going pop. He discards his amateur garbs almost completely and auto-tunes every track. If earlier he was too dark even by street standards, now almost all the tracks could be safely played on a radio. The first eight songs are more or less pop-ish ballads about homies in prison, tough life and the ghetto. By the time we reach the last three tracks where Boog recovers his old persona, it’s already too late. The struggle remains but the voice is gone.

Ray Garraty 

 The Flat Five — Another World (Pravda)

The Flat Five musters a great deal of Chicago musical fire power. Alt.country chanteuse Kelly Hogan, Andrew Bird collaborator Nora O’Connor and Casey McDonough sing in Andrews Sisters harmonies, while NRBQ mainstay Scott Ligon minds the store and Green Mill regular Alex Hall keeps the rhythm steady. The sound is retro —1930s radio retro — but the songs, written by Ligon’s older brother Chris, upend mid-century American pieties with sharp, insurgent wit. A variety of old-time-y styles are referenced — big band jazz, country, doo wop and pre-modern pop — in clean, winking style. Countrified, “The Great State of Texas” seems, at first, to be a fairly sentimental goodbye-to-all-that song, until it ends with the revelation that the narrator is on death row. “Girl of Virginia,” unspools a series of intricate, Cole Porter-ish rhymes, while waltzing carelessly across the floor. The writing is sharp, the playing uniformly excellent and the vocals extra special, layered in buzzing harmonies and counterpoints. No matter how complicated the vocal arrangements, no one is ever flat in Flat Five.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sam Gendel — DRM (Nonesuch)

Normally, Sam Gendel plays saxophone in a classic jazz style. You might have caught him blowing dreamy, airy accompaniments on Sam Amidon’s last record, for instance, or putting his own spin on jazz standards in the solo Satin Doll. But for this album, Gendel experimented with ancient high tech — an Electro Harmonix DRM32 drum machine, some synthesizers, a 60-year-old nylon-string guitar —t o create hallucinatory fragments of beat-box-y, jazz-y sound, pitched somewhere between arty hip hop and KOMPAKT-style experimental electronics. “Dollars,” for instance, laces melancholy, Latin-flavored guitar and crooning with vintage video-game blips and bleeps, like a bossa nova heard dimly in a gaming arcade. “SOTD” dances uneasily in a syncopated way, staccato guitar runs paced by hand-claps, stuttered a-verbal mouth sounds and bright melodic bursts of synthesizer. “Times Like This” poses the difficult question of exactly what time we’re in—it has the moody smoulder of old soul, the antic ping and pop of lush early 00s electronics, the disembodied alien suavity of pitch-shifted R&B right now. The ringer in the collection is a cover of L’il Nas’ “Old Town Road,” interpreted in soft Teutonic electro tones, like Cluster at the rodeo. It’s odd and lovely and hard to get a bead on, which is pretty much the verdict for DRM as a whole.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kraig Grady — Monument of Diamonds (Another Timbre)

MONUMENT OF DIAMONDS by Kraig Grady

The painting adorning the sleeve of Monument of Diamonds is entitled Doppler Effect in Blue, and rarely has the cover art’s name so accurately described the sound of the music paired with it. The album-length composition, which is scored for brass, saxophones and organs, consists almost entirely of long tones that Doppler in slow motion, with one starting up just before another peters out. The composer, Kraig Grady, is an Australian-based American who used to release albums that purported to be the folk music of a mythical land called Anaphoria. Nowadays he has no need for such subterfuge, since this lovely album holds up quite well on its own merits. Inspired by Harry Partch and non-Western classical music systems, Grady uses invented instruments and strategically selected pitch intervals to create microtonal music that sounds subtly alien, but never harsh on the ears. As the sounds glide by, they instigate a state of relaxed alertness that’ll do your blood pressure some good without exposing you to unnecessary sweetener.

Bill Meyer  

 MJ Guider — Sour Cherry Bell (Kranky)

Sour Cherry Bell by MJ Guider

MJ Guider’s second full length is diaphanous and monolithic, its monster beats sheathed in transparent washes of hiss and roar. “The Steelyard” shakes the floor with its pummelling industrial rhythms, yet shrouds Guider’s spoken word chants with surprising delicacy. “Body Optics” growls and simmers in woozy synth-driven discontent, while the singer lofts dreamy melodic phrases over the roar. There’s heft in the low-end of these roiling songs, in the churn of bass-like synthetics, the stomp of computer driven percussion, yet a disembodied lightness in the vocals, which float in pristine purity over the roar. Late in the disc, Guider ventures a surprisingly unconfrontational bit of dream pop in “Perfect Interference,” sounding poised and controlled and rather lovely at the center of chiming, enveloping synthetic riffs. Yet the murk and roar makes her work even more captivating, a glimpse of the spiritual in the midst of very physical wreck and tumult.

Jennifer Kelly

 Hisato Higuchi — キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? (Ghost Disc) 

キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? by Hisato Higuchi

Since 2003, Tokyo-based guitarist Hisato Higuchi has quietly released a series of equally-quiet albums, many on his own Ghost Disc label, which is appropriately named. Higuchi's work on this and the previous two albums of his "Disappearing Trilogy" is a sort of shimmering, melancholy guitar-and-vocal atmosphere — downer psych-folk in a drifting haze. His lyrics are more imagery than story, touching on overflowing light, winter cities, the quiet world, and the transience of memories. As the guitar floats slowly into the distance, Higuchi's voice, imbued with reverb, is calmly narcotic, like someone quietly sympathizing with a friend's troubles. These songs, while melancholy, convey a peacefulness that's a welcome counterbalance to the chaotic year in which we've been living. Like a cool wind on a warm summer evening, you can close your eyes and let Higuchi's music improve your mood.  

Mason Jones

 Internazionale — Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade) (Janushoved)

Wide Sea Prancer (At The Blue Parade) by Internazionale

It’s been nearly half a decade since Copenhagen’s Janushoved first appeared in these annals, and in that time, a little more information — and a lot more material — has cropped up to lend some context to the mystery. The focus, however, steadfastly remains with the music — perhaps my favorite of which among the regular projects featured is label head Mikkel Valentin’s own swirling solo synth vehicle Internazionale. In addition to a reissue of 2017’s The Pale and the Colourful (originally out on Posh Isolation), November saw the release of all-new songs with Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade), 14 tracks of gently abrasive headphone ambient that carry out this type of sound very well. Occasionally there is a piano (“Callista”) or what sounds like vocals (“El Topo”), but as it’s been from the start, this is primarily about tones and moods. Notes for the release say it’s a “continuation and completion of the narrative set by the release Sillage of the Blue Summer,” but it’s less the narrative you should be worried about missing out on than the warmth of your insides after an uninterrupted listen.

Patrick Masterson    

 Iress — Flaw (Iress)

Flaw by Iress

Sweeping, epic post-metal from this LA four piece makes a place for melodic beauty amid the heaviness. Like Pelican and Red Sparrows, Iress blares a wall of overwhelming guitar sound. Together Michelle Malley and Alex Moreno roust up waves and walls of pummeling tone as in opener “Shame.” But Iress is also pretty good at pulling back and revealing the acoustic basis for these songs. “Hand Tremor” is downright tranquil, with wreathes of languid guitar strumming and Malley’s strong, gutsy soprano navigating the full dynamic range from whisper to scream. “Wolves” lumbers like a violent beast, even in its muscular surge, there’s a slow, anthemic chorus. Likewise, “Underneath” pounds and hammers (that’s Glenn Chu on drums), but leaves space for introspection and doubt. It’s rare that the vocals on music this heavy are so good or so female, but if you’ve liked Chelsea Wolfe’s recent forays into ritual metal, you should check out Iress as well.

Jennifer Kelly

Junta Cadre — Vietnam Forever (No Rent Records)

"Vietnam Forever" (NRR141) by Junta Cadre

Junta Cadre is one of several noise and power electronics projects created by Jackson Abdul-Salaam, musician and curator of the long-running Svn Okklt blog. As the project’s name implies, Junta Cadre has an agenda: the production of sound that seeks to thematize the ambiguities of 20th-century radical, revolutionary politics. The project’s initial releases investigated the Maoist revolution in China, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Vietnam Forever shifts topics, to the American War in Vietnam, and tactics, including contributions from other prominent harsh noise acts and artists: the Rita, Samuel Torres of Terror Cell Unit, Leo Brucho of Controlled Opposition and others. Given those names, Vietnam Forever is as challenging and rigorous as you might expect. Waves of dissonant, electronic hum and fuzz accumulate and oscillate, crunching and chopping into textured aural assaults; wince-inducing warbles and needling feedback occasionally assert themselves. Abdul-Salaam’s harsh shout cuts in and out of the mix. The tape (also available as a name-yo’-price DL on Bandcamp) presents as two side-long slabs of sound, both over seventeen minutes long, both completely exhausting. At one point, on Side A, Abdul-Salaam repeatedly shouts, “Beautiful Vietnam forever!” It’s hard to say what he means. An affirmation that Vietnam survived the war? That its people and culture endure? Or that the U.S. can’t seem to shake the war’s haunting presence? Or even a more worryingly nihilistic delight in the war’s carnage, so frequently aestheticized in films like Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Da Five Bloods (2020)? The noise provides no closure. Maybe necessarily so.  

Jonathan Shaw  

 Bastien Keb — The Killing of Eugene Peeps (Gearbox)

The Killing of Eugene Peeps is a soundtrack to a movie that never was, a noir-ish flick which winds restlessly through urban landscapes and musical styles, from the orchestra tremors of its opening through the folky group-sing of “Lucky the Oldest Grave.” “Rabbit Hole” wafts by like an Elephant Six outtake, its woozy chorus lit by glockenspiel notes, while “God Bless Your Gutters” conjures jazzy desolation in piano and mordant spoken word. “All the Love in Your Heart” shimmers like a movie flashback, a mirage of blowsy back-up singing, guitar and muttered memories. “Street Clams” bristles with funk and swagger, an Ethio-jazz sortee through rain slicked streets. What’s it about? Musically or narratively? No idea. But it’s worth visiting these evocative soundscapes just for the atmosphere. It’s a film I’d like to see.

Jennifer Kelly

 Jesse Kivel — Infinite Jess (New Feelings)

Nostalgia haunts the new solo album from Kisses guitarist/singer Jesse Kivel. Infinite Jess is full of that knowing melancholy of The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout and The Pale Fountains that was so magnetic to a certain brand of sensitive young thing seeking to articulate their inchoate visions of a future steeped in romance and adventure. Think wistful mid-tempo songs wrapped in cocoons of strummed guitars, shuffling percussion and wurlitzer piano fashioned into a catalogue of adolescent radio memories. These tunes are topped by the understated sincerity of Kivel’s voice and lyrics which effectively evoke the place, time and emotion of his vignettes. The production suffers occasionally from a distracting reliance on too perfectly rendered tropes — overly polite drum programming, thumbed bass, blandly smooth electric piano — but the overall effect is oddly beguiling. Infinite Jess closes with a charmingly wobbly instrumental cover of Don McLean’s “Vincent” played on the wurlitzer that captures the poignancy of the melody and serves as a fitting epilog to the record.

Andrew Forell

 Kyrios — Saturnal Chambers (Caligari Records)

Saturnal Chambers by KYRIOS

The corpsepaint-and-spiked-codpiece crowd are still making tons of records, but fewer and fewer of them are interesting or compelling. The retrograde theatrics and cheap pessimism can be irritating enough (I’d rather be reading Schopenhauer, thanks); it’s even more problematic when the songs can muster only the vividness and savor of stiff leftovers from the deep-freezer’s darkest and dankest corners. Still, every now and then a kvlty band that follows the frigid dictates of black metal’s orthodoxy creates a set of songs worth listening to. This new EP from Kyrios is super short, comprising three tracks in just under 10 minutes that pull off that neat trick: when it’s over, you want to hear more. Sure, the dudes in the band call themselves silly things like Satan’s Sword and Vornag, but the tunes are really good. Check out the churning strangeness of “The Utterance of Foul Truths.” Kyrios claims Immortal, Enslaved and Dissection as primary influences, and the band recognizes the stylistic debt they owe to Deathspell Omega (let’s hope Kyrios digs the twisted guitars and weird-ass time signatures, but passes on the National Socialism declaimed by that French band’s vocalist). Stuff gets even more engaging when bleeping and blooping keyboards vibrate at the edges of the mix, giving the songs a spaced-out vibe. “Saturnal Chambers”? Maybe Kyrios has met the astral spirit of Sun Ra somewhere along their galactic journeys into the heavenly void. He liked bleeping, blooping noises and gaudy costumes, too.

Jonathan Shaw

 Matt Lajoie — Light Emerging (Trouble In Mind)

Light Emerging by Matt Lajoie

The second volume of Trouble In Mind Records’ Explorers series is, like its predecessor a cassette that comes concealed within a brown slipcase. Like many other discretely wrapped products, the fun is on the inside. This time, it’s a tape by guitarist who understands that toes aren’t just for tapping. At any rate, I think he’s managing his pedals with his feet. Most likely Lajoie has spent some quality time listening to mid-1990s Roy Montgomery. But since a quarter century has passed, he doesn’t just stack up the echoes. Sped-up tones streak across the surface of this music like swallows zooming close to that sheet you hung on the side of your barn the last time you had everyone over for a socially distanced gathering to watch Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Wait, did that really happen? Maybe not, but if someone were to make a fake documentary about the hanging of the projective surface, this music is suitably epic to provide the soundtrack.

Bill Meyer

 Lisa/Liza — Shelter of a Song (Orindal)

Shelter of a Song by Lisa/Liza

Lisa/Liza makes a quietly harrowing sort of guitar folk, singing in a high, ghostly clear soprano against delicate traceries of picking. The artist, real name Liza Victoria, inhabits songs that are unadorned but still chilling. She sings with childlike sincerity in an ominous landscape of dark alleys and chilly autumnal vistas. She wrote this album while chronically ill, according to the notes, and you can hear the struggle against the body in the way her voice sometimes wavers, her breath comes in sudden intakes. But, as sometimes happens after long sickness, she sometimes strikes clear of the physical, achieving an unearthly purity as in “From this Shelter.” A touch of plain spoken magic lurks in this one, in the whispery vocals, the translucent curtains of guitar notes, though not much warmth. “Red Leaves” is earthier and more fluid, guitar flickers striking out from a resonant center, and the artist murmuring dreamily about the beauty of the world and its transience.

Jennifer Kelly

Keith Morris & The Crooked Numbers — American Reckoning (Mista Boo)

It's easy to imagine Keith Morris as perpetually frustrated. His last album, after all, took on psychopaths and sycophants, and the title of his new release American Reckoning doesn't suggest happy thoughts. There's plenty of bile on these five tracks, of course, but Morris approaches the album like a scholar. The opening verse describes the US as “Machiavellian: the mean just never ends” before referencing Othello and Yo-Yo Ma (the latter for a “yo mama” joke). If Morris and the Crooked Numbers just raged, they might be justified, but they'd be less interesting. Instead, they use a wide swath of American musical styles to thoughtfully consider racial (and racist) issues in our contemporary society. “Half Crow Jim” turns a Southern piano tune into a surprising tale about the fallout from slavery. It's a sharp moment, and it highlights that the only disappointing part of this release lies in its brevity. Morris has said he has more music on the way, and if he continues to mix styles, wordplay, and cultural analysis, it'll be worth a study.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Tatsuya Nakatani and Rob McGill — Valley Movements (Weird Cry)

Valley Movements by Tatsuya Nakatani / Rob Magill

In most percussion ensembles, the gong-ist is a utility player, charged with banging out a note once or twice per composition for drama and ideally not screwing it up. Tatsuya Nakatani works on a wholly different level, transcending the possibilities of this ancient, archetypical instrument with vision and an unholy technique. More specifically, his set-up includes at least two standing gongs, each about as tall as he is himself. He plays them with mallets, standing between, in blur speed rolls that range all over the surface of the instrument. The sound he evokes is distinctly unpercussive, more resembling string instrument glissandos than any form of drums, a full-on high-register wail of sound that he sculpts and roils and coaxes into compositions of incredible force and complexity. He also plays a bunch of other percussion instruments, little drums and cymbals which he layers on top of each other so that when he strikes one, the others resonate. It is quite an experience to see him at it, and if you ever get a chance, you should go. Here, he works with the saxophonist Rob McGill unfurling a single 40-minute improvisation at a studio in the appealingly named Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. McGill is an agile player, laying alternately lyrical and agitated counterpoints onto Nakatani’s rhythms, carrying the tune and threading a logical through line through this extended set. He finds frequencies that complement Nakatani’s antic, nearly demonic drum sounds and knows when to let loose and when to let his partner through the mix. The result is a very high energy, engaging adventure in sound that evokes a rare response: you wish you could hear the drums better.

Jennifer Kelly

 Overmono — The Cover Mix (Mixmag)

Mixmag · The Cover Mix: Overmono

It’s a really weird time to be advocating for club music of any kind, but Overmono’s Everything U Need EP out recently on XL again showcases what the fraternal duo known better as Tessela and Truss do best: melding thoughtful percussion patterns with these airy, gliding synth melodies that work at home just as well as in the club (theoretically, anyway). It’s not just original material they do well, though; whether it was the Dekmantel podcast a few years back or their live cassette from Japan or this mix for Mixmag, Ed and Tom Russell also have a knack for pacing in their sets. This one features stuff from the new EP as well as three unreleased tracks (not counting the Rosalía remix, which remains one of the year’s most addicting) and names both old and new — listen for DJ Crystl’s 1993 jungle jam “Deep Space” sidled up next to Smerz’s new skyscraper “I Don’t Talk About That Much.” If that sounds like everything you need, lock in and let Overmono do the hard work. Truly, they do not miss.

Patrick Masterson

 Pole — Fading (Mute)

As Pole, Stefan Betke’s work has always been both comforting and disconcerting. The amiotic swells and heartbeat bass frequencies generate a warm human feel in his music despite their origins in serendipitously damaged equipment. Fading, his first album in five years explores Betke’s reactions to his mother’s dementia and reflects on the nature of personality, memory and soul. Building on his trademark glitchy beats and oceanic bass tones, the eight tracks echo a consciousness unmoored by the fog of unfamiliarity that smothers and distorts but never completely submerges awareness. “Tölpel” (slang for klutz) evokes impatient fingers tapping out the guilty resentment of the forgotten and the frustration of the forgetful. The title track closes with a woozy waltz punctuated by recurrent sparks. Fading is a deeply felt work; somber, reflective, stumbling towards understanding and acceptance, alive to the nuances and petty nettles of grief and above all beautiful in its ambivalence.

Andrew Forell

Quakers — II: The Next Wave (Stones Throw)

II - The Next Wave by Quakers

After eight years of silence following 2012’s self-titled debut, Stones Throw production trio Quakers (Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as Fuzzface, 7-Stu-7 and Katalyst) dropped the 50-track beat tape Supa K: Heavy Tremors out of nowhere in September and now, just two months later, are back with another 33-track behemoth that allows a litany of emcees to shine. Calling this The Next Wave is a bit of a stretch when you consider many of the voices on here are from guys who’ve been in the game for years or even decades (Jeru the Damaja, Detroit’s Phat Kat and Guilty Simpson, Chicagoan Jeremiah Jae, etc.), but even so, the dusty grooves and Dilla loops prove perfect foils for many of those who hit the mic. My favorite might be Sageinfinite slotting in with the organ grinder “A Myth,” but even if you don’t like it, everyone’s in and out quick. If you’re burned out on Griselda, give this a go for 1990s vibes of a different kind.

Patrick Masterson   

 Rival Consoles — Articulation (Erased Tapes)

There are deep pockets of silence in “Articulation,” ink black stops between the thump and clack of dance beat, sudden intervals of nothingness amidst limber synthetic melodies. London-based producer Ryan West, who records as Rival Consoles, layers sound on sound in some tracks, letting the foundations slip like tectonic plates on top of one another, but he is also very much aware of the power of quiet, whether dark or luminously light. Consider, for instance, his closer, “Sudden Awareness of Now,” whose buoyant melody skitters across factory-sized fan blasts of whooshing sound. The rhythm is light footed and agile, pieced together from staccato elements that hold the air and light. Like Jon Hopkins, West uses the glitch and twitch to insinuate the infinite, chiming overtones and hovering backdrops to represent a gnostic, communal state of existence. “Vibrations on a String” may jump to the steady thump, thump, thump of dance, but as its gleaming plasticine tones blow out into horn blast dissonance, the cut is more about becoming than being.

Jennifer Kelly

  Sweeping Promises — Hunger for a Way Out (Feel It)

Hunger for a Way Out by Sweeping Promises

The title track bounds headlong on a rubbery bassline, picking up a Messthetick-y blare of junk shop keyboards. All the sudden, there’s Lira Mondal unleashing a giddy screed of angular pop punk tunefulness, her partner in Sweeping Promises, Caulfield, stabbing and stuttering on guitar. In some ways, this band is straight out of late 1980s London, jitter-flirting with offkilter hooks a la Delta Five or Girls at Our Best. In others, they are utterly modern, lacing austere pogo beats with lush, elaborate vocal counterpoints. “Falling Forward” is a continuous rush of clamped in guitar scramble and agile, bouncing bass, anthemic trills breaking for robotic chants; it’s a mesh of sounds that always seems ready to collapse in a heap, but instead finds its antic balance just in time.

Jennifer Kelly

Martin Taxt — First Room (SOFA)

First Room by Martin Taxt

Sometimes a room is more than a room. In the matter at hand, it is a space that proposes a state of mind and a consequent set of experiences. It is also the score for a piece of music that extrapolate that state into the realm of sound. The cover of First Room depicts a pattern of tatami mats that you might find in a Japanese tea room. Martin Taxt is a microtonal tubaist and also the holder of an advanced degree in music and architecture (next time someone tells you that some good thing can’t happen, remember that in Norway you can not only get such a degree; you can then go ahead and present a CD that shows your work. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in our society.). This music takes inspiration from the integrated aesthetic of the tea ceremony, using carefully placed and deliberately sustained sounds to create an environment in which subtle changes count for a lot. The album’s contents were created by mixing together two performances, one with and another without an audience. Taxt and accompanist Vilde Marghrete Aas layer long tones from a tuba, double bass, viola da gamba and sine waves. Their precise juxtapositions create a sense of focus, somewhat like a concentrated version of Ellen Fullman’s long string music, and if that statement means something to you, so will this music.

Bill Meyer

 Ulaan Janthina — Ulaan Janthina II (Worstward)

Ulaan Janthina (Part II) by Ulaan Janthina

Part two of Steven R. Smith’s latest recording project echoes the first volume in several key aspects. It is a tape made in small numbers and packaged like a present from your favorite cottage industry; in this case, the custom-printed box comes with an old playing card, a hand-printed image of jellyfish, an old skeleton key and a nut. And Smith, who most often plays guitars and home-made stringed instruments, once more plays keyboards, which enable him to etch finer lines of melody. The chief difference between this tape and its predecessor is the melodies themselves, which have begun to attain the evocative simplicity of mid-1970s Cluster.

Bill Meyer

 Various Artists — Joyous Sounds! (Chicago Research)

Joyous Sounds! by Various Artists

It’s been less than two years, but Blake Karlson’s Chicago Research imprint has already made its presence known both in the Windy City and beyond as fine purveyors of all things industrial, EBM, post-punk and experimental electronics. There were two compilations released within days of one another toward the beginning of October, and while Preliminaries of Silence veers more toward soothing ambient textures, Joyous Sounds! is more upbeat and rhythmic (Bravias Lattice’s “Liquid Vistas” is a beautiful exception). My favorite track is Club Music’s “Musclebound” (not a Spandau Ballet cover, as it turns out), but the underlying menace of Civic Center’s “Filigree” and Rottweiler’s pummeling “Ancient Baths” sit alongside merely unsettling fare like Lily the Fields’ “Porcelain” well. If you’re not already aboard or just have a Wax Trax-sized hole in your heart, you have a lot of work ahead of you with this label’s consistently superlative output.

Patrick Masterson

  Kurt Vile — Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (Matador)

Given John Prine's passing from COVID-19 this year, the new Kurt Vile EP might be received as a tribute to the late artist, with extra significance coming from Prine's appearance here. Four years in the works, Speed, Sound, Lonely KV offers more than just tribute, though. Prine's guest spot (if you could call it that) on his own “How Lucky” certainly makes for a moving highlight, the two singers fitting together nicely as Prine's gruff tone balance's his partner's smoother voice. Vile also covers Prine on “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” and he adds “Gone Girl” by Cowboy Jack Clement as he takes further cosmic steps.  

His two originals here complete the record, and, mixed in with the covers, draw out the lesson. Vile's entire EP blends the country influences with his more typical dreamy sound, the guitar work bridging the gap between a songwriter's backing and something more ethereal. Nashville, it seems, has always suited Vile just fine, and hearing him embrace that tradition more immediately adds an extra layer to his work. Putting a cowboy hat on his previous aesthetic puts him opens up new but related paths for him, and the five tracks here could play on either a Kris Kristofferson mix or a laid-back indie-rocker playlist. Either way, they'd be highlights on an endless loop.

Justin Cober-Lake

 WhoMadeWho — Synchronicity (Kompakt)

Danish trio WhoMadeWho — drummer Tomas Barfod, guitarist Jeppe Kjellberg and bassist/singer Tomas Høffding — make enjoyable indie dance music that suffers somewhat from lack of personality and a tendency toward a middle ground. That may be due to an effort to accommodate a roster of Kompakt-related collaborators including Michael Mayer, Echonomist and Robag Wruhme. While there’s nothing bad and some pretty good here, the individual songs flit by, pausing briefly to set one’s head nodding and feet tapping, before evaporating from the mind. “Shadow of Doubt” featuring Hamburg’s Adana Twins has the kind of driving bass that anchored New Order hits but also, unfortunately, the unconvincing vocals only Bernard Sumner could get away with. More successful moments like the eerie piano riff and jazz inflections of “Dream Hoarding” with Frank Wiedemann, the arpeggiated house of “Der Abend birgt keine Ruh” featuring Perel and miserablist Pet Shop Boys inflected closer “If You Leave” do stick. Synchronicity might work well on the dance floor, but it doesn’t quite sustain at home.

Andrew Forell

[etthawitthi]

සාම සාධක හමුදා රථයකට ප්‍රහාරයක් - ලංකාවේ කපිතන්වරයෙක් ඇතුළු 2ක් මරුට

සාම සාධක හමුදා රථයකට ප්‍රහාරයක් – ලංකාවේ කපිතන්වරයෙක් ඇතුළු 2ක් මරුට

මාලි රාජ්‍යයේ එක්සත් ජාතින්ගේ සාමසාධක රාජකාරිවල නියුතු ශ්‍රී ලංකා යුද්ධ හමුදාවේ WMZ වර්ගයේ සන්නද්ධ රථයක් බටහිර අප්‍රිකාවේ මාලි රාජයේ ඩුඑන්සා ප්‍රදේශයේ මුර සංචාරයේ යෙදී සිටිය දී ප්‍රහාරයකට ලක්ව තිබේ.

මාලි රාජ්‍යයේ වේලාවෙන් අද (25) දින උදෑසන 6.30 ට පමණ වැඩිදියුණු කරන ලද දුරස්ථ පාලකයකින් ක්‍රියාකරන ලද අධිබලැති පුපුරණ ද්‍රව්‍ය ප්‍රහාරයකට මෙලෙස ලක්ව ඇත.

දෛනික මෙහෙයුම අවසන් කරමින් WMZ සංග්‍රාමික…

[thisdaynews]

BREAKING:6 Troops Killed, 15 UN Peacekeepers Wounded In Separate Mali Attacks

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/breaking6-troops-killed-15-un-peacekeepers-wounded-in-separate-mali-attacks/

BREAKING:6 Troops Killed, 15 UN Peacekeepers Wounded In Separate Mali Attacks

Six Malian officers were killed on Friday in an assault in the focal point of the conflict torn Sahel state, in a brutal day that additionally saw 15 United Nations peacekeepers injured in a vehicle bomb assault further north.

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The UN said on Twitter that a clearing was in progress after a vehicle bomb struck an impermanent base close to Tarkint, in the untamed north of Mali.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said 12 of the peacekeepers were German and that three were genuinely harmed.

Two of the three were in a steady condition, she said in an articulation, while one has gone through a medical procedure. The entirety of the injured have been cleared by helicopter, Kramp-Karrenbauer added.

One Belgian warrior was additionally harmed in the assault, as indicated by a Belgian protection service proclamation.

Around 13,000 soldiers from a few countries are sent in the UN’s MINUSMA peacekeeping mission across the huge semi-parched country.

Mali is attempting to contain an Islamist uprising that emitted in 2012 and which has guaranteed a huge number of military and regular citizen lives.

Regardless of the presence of thousands of French and UN soldiers, the contention has immersed the focal point of the country and spread to adjoining Burkina Faso and Niger.

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A security official, who declined to be recognized, disclosed to AFP that the MINUSMA forward working base assaulted on Friday was just set up the earlier day, after an explosive trap harmed an UN vehicle nearby.

The peacekeepers set up the base to eliminate the harmed vehicle, the security official said.

Independently on Friday, aggressors likewise assaulted a Malian military station in the town of Boni in the focal point of the nation, killing six warriors and harming another.

Mali’s military expressed on Twitter that the soldiers had “energetically reacted” to “synchronous assaults” dispatched in Boni in the early evening.

Ten Malian fighters had been killed in a comparable snare in Boni in February.

Focal Mali — which is the focal point of the contention in the Sahel — additionally saw six French warriors and four regular people injured on Monday when a vehicle bomb exploded almost a French shielded vehicle.

Previous frontier power France, which interceded in Mali in 2013 to beat back the jihadists, at present has 5,100 troopers sent across the Sahel area.

However, French President Emmanuel Macron reported recently that he would unwind the Barkhane power.

France intends to pull together its energies on fortifying a global team of extraordinary powers in Mali, known as Takuba.

A few hundred individuals accumulated in Mali’s capital Bamako on Friday to request the flight of French powers from the country, an AFP writer detailed.

[annafricatv]

Tanker Truck Explosion In Mali Capital Kills Seven, Wounds 46 

At least 7 persons were reported killed in a tanker truck explosion in Mali`s capital city Bamako.

The government says a tanker truck carrying 14,000 liters of fuel was lying on its side for an unknown reason near a gas station and a hotel on Tuesday. An explosion occurred when people attempted to lift the truck.  Nearly 50 persons are said to have been injured.

Minister of communication and…

[vioncentral-blog]

Mali continues to make progress, but swift action needed as civilians still face threats – UN envoy

http://www.vionafrica.cf/mali-continues-to-make-progress-but-swift-action-needed-as-civilians-still-face-threats-un-envoy/

Mali continues to make progress, but swift action needed as civilians still face threats – UN envoy

A battalion of peacekeepers from MINUSMA patrol the streets of Gao, northern Mali at night. Photo: MINUSMA/Harandane Dicko

5 October 2017 – While recent crises threatening the peace process in Mali had been overcome and new agreements reached, progress must be accelerated as the situation remains perilous for peacekeepers and civilians, the head of United Nations peacekeeping efforts in the West African country told the Security Council today.

“Despite the positive developments, we must remember that the agreed deadlines of 2018 are quickly approaching and the challenges are enormous,” said Mahamat Saleh Annnadif, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Mali and Head of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said via videoconference from the Malian capital, Bamako.

“All parties must redouble their efforts to re-establish trust between them and, despite the prolonged delays in the implementation of the Agreement [on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali], engage in necessary reforms and provide a peace dividend to the people,” he added.

He said that the period under the Council’s review, mid-June to mid-September, witnessed debate over a draft revision of the national Constitution amid armed clashes between the Platform and Coordination, the two coalitions that had signed onto the 2015 peace agreement. The combined efforts of the signatory movements and the international community had allowed MINUSMA to overcome the crises, but delays in implementing the agreement persisted.

Following the clashes, he said, truces were agreed upon in August, with further commitments to end hostilities having been signed in September. Earlier in the day, several prisoners held by the groups had been freed and recent progress included the participation in a 20 September high-level meeting in New York of both coalition leaders, who had agreed to accelerate the peace agreement’s implementation.

Some of the specifics they had discussed included establishing a second chamber of Parliament, operationalizing territorial collectives, launching demobilization activities, security sector reform and redeploying the reformed national military.

“Yet, the challenges remain enormous,” he stressed. The Human rights situation remains a source of deep concern, particularly given the rise of armed extremism, the absence of State authority in certain areas and the imposition of anti-terrorism measures. While progress in fighting impunity for abuses that occurred during the 2012 crisis included the conviction of Aliou Mahamane Touré, there must be justice for all and every perpetrator must held accountable, he said.

He added that the recently authorized sanctions regime was an important part of the pursuit of justice and peace. Initiatives such as the dissemination of information on human rights and the establishment of the international commission of inquiry would also help fight impunity, he said, adding that MINUSMA continued to support State institutions in all areas through regular dialogue.

The security situation remained a major obstacle, he said, with nearly daily losses of UN peacekeepers due to anti-personnel mines and improvised explosives. Accelerated reconciliation efforts were needed as was the full deployment of the escort battalion for the regional reaction force. Given all the challenges, he reiterated the need for funding to invest in protection, improve monitoring, enhanced patrolling and detection, and early warning systems to reduce the toll of attacks.

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Mali: Security Council strongly condemns deadly attack on UN peacekeepers

[newstfionline]

The world’s deadliest U.N. mission

By Kevin Sieff, Washington Post, February 17, 2017

GAO, Mali--Since World War II, U.N. peacekeepers have been dispatched to 69 conflicts--civil wars, border disputes and failed states. But now they are confronting an unsettling new threat: al-Qaeda.

Here in the vast, lawless desert of northwest Africa, their convoys are being torn apart by improvised explosive devices and their compounds blasted by 1,000-pound car bombs. It is a crisis that looks more like the U.S. ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the cease-fires traditionally monitored by U.N. missions.

In the past four years, 118 peacekeepers have been killed--making the U.N. mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, the deadliest ever. The bloodshed has raised questions about how an institution developed in the 1940s can serve a world under threat from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The issue is especially potent given the expectation that U.N. peacekeepers will eventually go to places such as Syria and Libya.

“We are trying to learn these lessons here, rather than in Iraq, Libya or Syria,” said Dutch Col. Mike Kerkhove, commander of the U.N. intelligence unit in Mali. “This is not the end of this type of mission. It’s the beginning.”

In 2012, Islamist radicals linked to al-Qaeda hijacked an uprising by ethnic Tuareg people and went on to seize cities across northern Mali, holding on for nearly a year until they were forced out by a French military intervention. When 11,000 U.N. troops arrived in 2013, they were meant to protect a fledgling peace deal and train the Malian army. But Islamist extremists regrouped across the region. It did not take long before the militants started targeting peacekeepers, whom they dubbed “Crusader occupation forces.”

The United Nations was remarkably unprepared for the threat. Most of its troops from Africa and South Asia brought tanks and vehicles that were easy targets for explosives, unlike U.S. mine-resistant vehicles. The U.N. compounds, dotted with metal storage containers turned into offices and bedrooms, had flimsy perimeter security and were vulnerable to the massive car bombs used by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the regional affiliate of the extremist group. For a while, U.N. forces didn’t have a single attack helicopter.

“We weren’t ready for these challenges,” said Mohamed El-Amine Souef, a native of the Comoros Islands who is the top U.N. official in Gao, a city in northern Mali. Last year, Souef’s compound was struck by a suicide bomber, the shrapnel battering his front door.

But the United Nations’ dilemma goes beyond a lack of preparation or anti-terrorism equipment. At its New York headquarters and around the world, diplomats are debating: Should U.N. forces be engaged in counterterrorism at all?

“It’s time for us to realize that this kind of front-line role is central to the future of the United Nations,” said Peter Yeo, a senior official at the U.N. Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that supports the goals of the world body.

Yeo and others argue that without a counterterrorism capability, U.N. peacekeepers can’t operate productively in many of the world’s war zones.

But critics say that such a role would violate the peacekeepers’ core principle of impartiality and ultimately make them less effective.

“Peacekeepers are only meant to use deadly force to protect civilians or to stop spoilers from threatening a peace process, not to pursue any group’s military defeat,” said Aditi Gorur, director of the Protecting Civilians in Conflict program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based research center.

If peacekeepers had a more aggressive counterterrorism mandate, she and others argue, that could hurt the United Nations’ ability to mediate between warring groups, which sometimes include violent Islamists.

Already in Mali, the International Committee of the Red Cross has described the United Nations as a “party to the conflict.”

In the slide-show presentation he shows to visitors at his base in Bamako, the capital of Mali, Kerkhove includes an aerial photo taken last year of a compound that appeared to be used by a terrorist group. When he received the photo, Kerkhove debated what to do.

The men inside might be planning an assault on U.N. personnel, he thought, or a strike against civilians. Over the past two years, extremist groups have used Mali as a staging ground for attacks on luxury hotels, beach resorts and restaurants in West Africa. In 2016, al-Qaeda and its allies and affiliates launched at least 257 attacks in the region, according to the Long War Journal. But Kerkhove knew that the nearest battalion of U.N. troops, from Senegal, didn’t have the weapons or air support to engage in a fight with trans­national terrorists. Ultimately, U.N. forces decided not to approach the compound.

The Mali mission is the only one of the 16 active U.N. peacekeeping operations that authorizes troops to deter and counter “asymmetric threats”--that is, terrorist groups--that could harm its work or civilians. Last year, the U.N. Security Council said the mission should become “more proactive and robust”--language that some read as encouraging more offensive operations.

“We need to be able to hit the terrorists where they are, before they hit us,” said Souef, the U.N. official in Gao.

But peacekeepers worry that they don’t have the tools to deal with armed extremists.

“We are gathering the intelligence, but we lack the forces who can act on that information,” said Swedish Lt. Col. Per Wilson.

Richard Gowan, an expert on U.N. peacekeeping at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, said that U.N. missions lack the resources and doctrine for counter­terrorism work. He noted that even well-equipped Western military forces were outmaneuvered by terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It is reasonable to ask why on earth the Security Council thinks that a U.N. force can do any better in Mali, even with European reinforcements,” he said.

Over the years, the United Nations has increasingly had to confront the scourge of terrorism. Militants blew up its political assistance office in Baghdad in 2003, killing 22 people, including the U.N. envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

But the Mali mission marks the first time a significant peacekeeping contingent has been sent to help a state regain control over areas contested by terrorist groups.

In a review in 2015, a panel of U.N.-appointed experts said that peacekeeping forces were “not the appropriate tool for military counter­terrorism operations.” But it noted they do deploy in areas threatened by armed extremist groups “and must be capable of operating effectively and as safely as possible therein.”

On their patrols through the sandy side streets of Gao, an ancient city along the Niger River lined with mud-brick houses, U.N. convoys are greeted by throngs of residents.

The locals always have the same complaint, said Senegalese Capt. Diagne Meth, standing outside his armored personnel carrier during one patrol: “They want us to do more.”

Specifically, he said, they ask for more offensive operations, targeting radical Islamists as well as criminal groups.

“But I have to tell them, ‘That’s not what we’re here to do,’” Meth said.

On Jan. 18, Islamist extremists drove a truck laden with explosives into a compound in Gao where the United Nations was protecting Malian forces. Seventy-six men--from national forces and armed groups that had joined the peace process--lost their lives in the blast. (No peacekeepers were killed.) The attack was claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which said it involved one of its allies, al-Mourabitoun.

The explosion was staggering, but so was the lack of security at an installation ostensibly protected by peacekeepers. Three days before the attack, a visiting Washington Post reporter saw only a few Bangladeshi peacekeepers sitting inside a personnel carrier outside the compound. Terrorist groups had already struck U.N. facilities in the city several times, but the base was protected by only a flimsy metal gate.

Souef, the U.N. official, acknowledged that his own compound in the city was vulnerable.

“We shouldn’t be living in a place like this,” he said.

[etthawitthi]

Sri Lankan army contingent comes under attack in Mali

Sri Lankan army contingent comes under attack in Mali

One Sri Lankan Army Captain and a trooper were killed and three others were injured when their convoy came under an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack in Mali today, the Sri Lanka Army said.

An armoured vehicle, WMZ carrying Sri Lankan Peacekeeping troops on patrol in the general area of Douentza in Mali, came under the remote-controlled IED attack around 6.30 am local Mali time.

“The…