Samantha Villegas Fohrweisser | A00999020
Miss Joy Vogel | English Class 12:00
Weekly Magazine

AL QAEDA
For this time, I read an article from News Week that talk about the terrorist group of Al Qaeda. Honestly was really interesting since the beginning. In this article the author, starts to tell the story of Hafiz Hanif- this is not the real name, but the one he asks to use on the article- a young Afghan, since he was little he dreamed to be part of Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist crew “Al Qaeda”. In Afghanistan is really common to see young people be influenced by those crews.
Hanif wanted to live and fight for his country, against the American army; and he talked about a confrontation that they had with missiles, when he was under the 15; March 16 he was “under a mission” with the rest of his group, they stopped outside a walled compound and Hanif was supposed to go for some supplies, in Afghanistan is considered rude if he stays there waiting, he just knocked and then started to go back with his group, but before he finally came there, one of the cars –they were using 2 cars- exploded and just after that the other one did the same, that happened because of the missiles, a special kind of missiles that actually don’t make any sound before the impact. Because of that later on they had to hide from those missiles.

Also Hanif talks about one of thegreatest tragedies of the CIA, when seven agents die in a suicide bomb, he says that he actually knew the person who did it, a double agent named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, Hanif met him on the training place called Khisora in South Waziristan. He said that Balawi was a really nice guy, who always joked, really funny. He was in the Al Qaeda crew because he wanted to help his country.
In Khisora also says that in that place he met a lot of people not only from Afghanistan also from Turkey, Germany, Chechnya, Arabs, etc, etc. In that place they train young people specially to do suicide bombs, bombs, fight one-on-one with a knife, to use a AK-47, how to not be nervous before detonate a suicide bomb, Hanif said proudly that he made on bomb by himself and also says that every day was harder and harder, really demanding for them.
But he got even more excited with the pass of the time, because he always thought he was closer to finally make his dream come true. But he also said that was kind of surprised that some people of the training camp didn’t look over the 12, he says that before this never happened but after the death of the Director of the camp on a fight, the second important started to bring or let young kids to go into the terrorist crew Al Qaeda.
According to the article, the phrase “They preferred kids with smart minds who could followorders, read maps and stay calm and not blow themselves up far away from the target” (News Week, page 28)

Hanif says why they wanted young people, was easier and more effective.
Almost at the end of the article Hanif says that he went to visit his parents he was 15 and his parents were really worried, but he told them that he wasn’t happy at her house, his heart was with the cause, to save Afghanistan from the Americans.
Even though they tried to persuade him he came back, with his friends. After that the article says: “The boy wrote a last will and testament, like all Qaeda suicide bombers, and it reminds on his computer; addressed to all of his make kinsmen. He urges them to join the jihad –the name that the warriors use, but in a low rank like soldiers-.” “So I will see you, my beloved brothers, in the company of virgins with me” (News Week, page 31)
The document was dated Dec 21, 2009, just as he was turning 16.

Opinion:
When I read the article I couldn’t stop to read it all, I’m really surprised that young Afghans join Al Qaeda’s crew. We can see also that their sense of nationality and proud of the country is really amazing, the only motivation of nationalism make them want to fight for their country and somehow I understand them, because I were attacked or invaded for other people and tried to steal what is mine, well maybe I would do thesame. Honestly is quite understanding, they have their own right to do it, but I think is bad that they let kids to join, just because they are more effective than adults. I don’t think that’s right.
According to the article, it can be inferred that the Afghan people is really influenced by terrorist crews, especially the young people.
Words:

Walled: Having or enclosed by, a wall or walls.
* China is almost all walled, because they wanted to protect themselves from the enemy long time ago.
* They made a stop outside a big walled compound, and they knocked the door so look for Anna.
Facing: A piece of material sewn to the edge of a garment; such as a dress or coat, as lining or decoration.
* In Afghanistan is considered impolite to wait facing someone’s door long time.
* While Anna was waiting for Saul, she was facing an old door with a gothic style.
Rude: Discourteous or impolite, especially in a deliberate way: a rude reply.
* Eating with the open mouth is considered rude; it’s a courtesy rule that must be done.
* Sonia went to a restaurant last week and she told me that the manager of that place, were just too rude with her and her boyfriend. She promised she won’t go anymore.
Tangle: To hinder, obstruct, or confuse by or as by covering, circling, entwining, etc.
* There was only a tangle mess of smoking metal were thetanks had been.
Reliable: Able to be relied on.
* The information I found on Encarta was really reliable, related to universities and other sources.
* I think what she said is reliable because has much sense of the way they are. She knows them really well.
https://cursos.itesm.mx/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_340405_1%26url%3D
Oxford Reference online, premium. Bilingual Dictionaries.
Losing to Terrorism
Putin’s get-tough policies are a disaster, as the Moscow airport bombing proves. Why are Russians so unwilling to admit it?
(Page 1 of 4)
As much as she longs to avenge the killing of her husband, Taisa Satabalova needs to stay alive and look after their two small children. But her rage has not faded since he was beaten to death last May by police, according to Satabalova, in the Russian Caucasus village of Dylym, a few kilometers east of the Chechen border in neighboring Dagestan. When Marat Satabalov and two friends drove into town for bread and other items, they were accosted by two cops. A suicide bomber had just attacked a nearby police checkpoint, leaving two dead and 10 times that number injured; according to the Russian human-rights group Memorial, people in town thought Satabalov looked suspicious, with the long beard and shaven mustachehe wore as a devout follower of the Salafi Muslim sect. Egged on by onlookers, the cops allegedly bludgeoned the three men with rifle butts and then hauled them to the local police station, where witnesses say townspeople gathered outside and shouted, “Beat the big beard!” Hours later, Satabalov died in the hospital. Now his wife has nothing but their two children—and a bottomless hatred. Her husband was no militant, she says: “Damn the executioners of my husband, and everybody who runs this country.”
She’s not alone in her fury. Vladimir Putin rose to power nearly a dozen years ago promising to defend Russia from secessionist Chechen terrorists. In September 1999, responding to a series of still unexplained apartment-house explosions that killed 293 people in Moscow and southern Russia, the Army rolled into the breakaway republic with overwhelming force. Thousands of people were killed, and thousands more were driven from their homes. But the terrorist threat has not disappeared, instead mutating from nationalist violence to insatiable vendettas, only worsened by a deepening descent into a holy war inspired by Al Qaeda. Government moves against suspected terrorists, sometimes justified and sometimes not, have only provoked lethal retaliation. There were 29 suicide attacks in Russia over the past 12 months; 108 Russians were killed by terrorists,compared with only nine Israelis in the same period.
As NEWSWEEK went to press, government investigators were still working to identify the suicide bomber who killed 35 people and injured 168 others at the arrivals hall of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on Monday. Still, there was little doubt that the atrocity was carried out in retaliation for Russian actions in the Caucasus—and similarly little doubt that Moscow would find targets for punishment, whether or not they were directly responsible for the airport attack. Official suspicion quickly fell on a shadowy group of militants calling themselves the Nogai Battalion, after a 14th-century Mongol khan, a convert to Islam whose warriors controlled the Caucasus and ranged as far afield as Poland and Lithuania. A woman belonging to the group was killed on Dec. 31 at a rented house when a bomb exploded prematurely. Police say it was wired to a mobile phone and theorize that it was set off by a spam SMS message from the phone company sending New Year’s greetings to its customers. Another alleged member of the group, arrested during the subsequent investigation, is said to have told police that a major attack was in the works.
Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova -January 30, 2011-
https://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/30/losing-to-terrorism.html
Yousafzai, Sami y Ron. Moreau. «The Lure of Al Qaeda.» News Week (2010): 27-31.