RUTHFULLY YOURS

AMBOULI, Djibouti—French aircraft struck and likely killed one of the most wanted senior al Qaeda operatives in southern Libya this month, marking a new level of cooperation between France and the U.S. on targeting militants, U.S. officials said.

This wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. thought that a strike killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an elusive insurgent leader known as the “one-eyed terrorist” because of an accident years ago that left him disfigured. Reports of his death following previous operations to target him over the years have proved false.
Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar is seen in an undated picture from the U.S. Justice Department. ENLARGE
Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar is seen in an undated picture from the U.S. Justice Department. Photo: US Department of Justice/REUTERS

But based on what they described as the caliber of the intelligence, U.S. officials expressed greater confidence that the latest strike, conducted by French aircraft in southern Libya based in part on intelligence feeds from the U.S. earlier this month, likely was successful. Efforts are under way to determine its outcome, officials said. Officials at the White House and the Pentagon declined to comment on the strike. A spokesman for the French Ministry of Defense declined to comment.

Mr. Belmokhtar has raised tens of millions of dollars for al Qaeda affiliates through smuggling and by taking European hostages and selling illicit goods, and is considered directly responsible for the deaths of at least three Americans, according to U.S. officials.

The U.S. in 2013 launched a multiagency effort to find him that included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the military’s Joint Special Operations Command and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Mr. Belmokhtar, once the head of the al Qaeda chapter in North Africa and the Sahel region—known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM—has been on the U.S. wanted list for at least a decade. He was thought to have been killed at least twice before, including in an airstrike in June and a drone strike last year.

If the strike this month was successful, it would represent a culmination of efforts by the U.S., French and other allies to capture or kill Mr. Belmokhtar. It would also reflect the extent of new military and intelligence cooperation between the two countries, U.S. and French officials said. The U.S. contributed intelligence to add to what French officials already knew about Mr. Belmokhtar’s whereabouts in anticipation of this month’s strike, U.S. officials said.

The killing of Mr. Belmokhtar would be the first confirmation that France has conducted airstrikes in Libya. Paris has for months tried to keep a low profile on its operations in the country, fearing that public military intervention would be seen as taking sides in Libya’s internal conflicts.

Yet the presence of thousands of militants in the country who have sworn allegiance to Islamic State and al Qaeda has prompted France to launch covert operations there for at least the last year, Western officials say. The missions include supporting local forces on counterterrorism missions and directly hunting down extremists, officials say.

After denying the existence of Libyan operations for months, France in July was forced to acknowledge its presence on the ground when three French intelligence agents died in a helicopter crash near the eastern city of Benghazi.

The U.S. and France have long had an intelligence-sharing relationship for counterterrorism purposes, but it became more formalized following last year’s Paris attacks. An agreement, announced by President Barack Obama in November 2015, directs U.S. officials to share operational planning and intelligence with their French counterparts.

The agreement has been expanded quietly, with more information sharing and intelligence cooperation, officials said.

Lisa Monaco, Mr. Obama’s homeland-security adviser, wouldn’t confirm details of the recent strike. But she said France is one of the “most effective allies” in bringing pressure against Islamic State, in Syria, Iraq and in Africa.

“The French have been indispensable partners, bringing resources, expertise and determination to the fight,” she said.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is set to meet in Washington Monday with his French counterpart, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, with the military and intelligence relationship continuing apace since the Paris attacks. American senior defense intelligence officials met last week as part of the so-called Lafayette Committee, formed after the agreement made with France last fall. The first of the semiannual meetings was in May.

The strike in southern Libya this month stands in contrast to French airstrike operations following the attacks in and around Paris a year ago, when French officials, under pressure by the French public to respond to the attacks, conducted strikes against Islamic State over Syria, but with little initial coordination with U.S. officials.

The intelligence the U.S. shares with France, though expanded, is still not considered akin to the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance between the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The two countries are still working through longstanding issues when it comes to trust and the ability of both intelligence apparatuses to share information. But U.S. officials want to deepen the relationship as much as possible, U.S. officials said. CONTINUE AT SITE

On a trip to Cuba in the late 1990s I met a young man who was trying to earn hard currency as a tour guide in Old Havana. It was obvious he wasn’t trained for the job. But I didn’t care. I wanted to hear from locals and, as I discovered, he wanted to be heard.

Over the course of several days we walked around the crumbling city while I peppered him with questions about daily life on the island. I got an earful about the absurdity of revolutionary Cuba, the privation, the frustration, the alienation.

He was angry. But when it came to talking about the hypocrisy of Fidel Castro, who everyone knew lived lavishly while his subjects struggled to get by, my guide was more careful. One evening over dinner he whispered, “Maria, don’t put what I say in your newspaper or Fidel will . . .” and he put his hands around his throat in a gesture of strangulation. He was afraid.

I heard the news around 2 a.m. Saturday that the 90-year-old despot had finally departed. I thought of that young man. And of the many other aspiring 20-somethings I met on my trip who wanted me to know of their longing for freedom.

The death of Cuba’s former dictator Fidel Castro late Friday was met with both celebration and regret, with a number of American politicians spotlighting the violent oppression of his regime while some world leaders mourned his loss.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump labeled Castro a “brutal dictator” and described his legacy as one of “firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.” Trump said his administration will work to help the Cuban people move away from oppression.

“While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve,” Trump said Saturday. “Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty.”

President Obama, who has cultivated warmer relations with Cuba, offered condolences to Castro’s family and acknowledged the “powerful emotions” that the event will foster in the Cuban people. Obama did not relay any direct criticism of Castro for his leadership.

“We know that this moment fills Cubans—in Cuba and in the United States—with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him,” Obama said.

Cuban President Raul Castro announced the death of his brother late Friday in a televised address. Fidel Castro, who was 90 years old, ruled over Cuba for almost five decades before passing the power to his younger brother in 2008. A polarizing figure, Castro has been widely criticized for cracking down on political and economic freedoms, while some have praised him as a revolutionary.

Fidel Castro’s legacy of 57 years in power is best understood by the fates of two groups of his countrymen—those who remained in Cuba and suffered impoverishment and dictatorship, and those who were lucky or brave enough to flee to America to make their way in freedom. No progressive nostalgia after his death Friday at age 90 should disguise this murderous and tragic record.

Castro took power on New Year’s Day in 1959 serenaded by the Western media for toppling dictator Fulgencio Batista and promising democracy. He soon revealed that his goal was to impose Communist rule. He exiled clergy, took over Catholic schools and expropriated businesses. Firing squads and dungeons eliminated rivals and dissenters.

The terror produced a mass exodus. An April 1961 attempt by the CIA and a small force of expatriate Cubans to overthrow Castro was crushed at the Bay of Pigs in a fiasco for the Kennedy Administration. Castro aligned himself with the Soviet Union, and their 1962 attempt to establish a Soviet missile base on Cuba nearly led to nuclear war. The crisis was averted after Kennedy sent warships to intercept the missiles, but the Soviets extracted a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba again.

The Cuba that Castro inherited was developing but relatively prosperous. It ranked third in Latin America in per-capita daily calorie consumption, doctors and dentists. Its infant mortality rate was the lowest in the region and the 13th lowest in the world. Cubans were among the most literate Latins and had a vibrant civic life with private professional, commercial, religious and charitable organizations.

Castro destroyed all that. He ruined agriculture by imposing collective farms, making Cuba dependent first on the Soviets and later on oil from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. In the last half century Cuba’s export growth has been less than Haiti’s, and now even doctors are scarce because so many are sent abroad to earn foreign currency. Hospitals lack sheets and aspirin. The average monthly income is $20 and government food rations are inadequate.

All the while Fidel and his brother Raúl sought to spread their Communist revolution throughout the world, especially in Latin America. They backed the FARC in Colombia, the Shining Path in Peru and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Their propaganda about peasant egalitarian movements beguiled thousands of Westerners, from celebrities like Sean Penn and Danny Glover to Secretary of State John Kerry, who on a visit to Havana called the U.S. and Cuba “prisoners of history.” The prisoners are in Cuban jails.

On this score, President Obama’s morally antiseptic statement Saturday on Castro is an insult to his victims. “We know that this moment fills Cubans—in Cuba and in the United States—with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation,” Mr. Obama said. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.” Donald Trump, by contrast, called Castro a “dictator” and expressed hope for a “free Cuba.”

President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning after the longtime former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, died Friday at the age of 90.

“Fidel Castro is dead!” Trump tweeted.

In an official statement released later Saturday morning, Trump referred to Castro as a “brutal dictator” who “oppressed his own people” for decades.

“Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights,” Trump said in the statement.

He added: “While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.”

Castro, whose health had been failing for years, was pronounced dead at 10:29 p.m. local time, his brother and current Cuban leader Raul Castro announced on state-run television.

“At 10:29 in the night, the chief commander of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, died,” Raul Castro said in the televised address. “Ever onward, to victory.”

President Barack Obama has made efforts to normalize relations with Cuba over the past few years. He became the first sitting president to visit the Communist-ruled island since Calvin Coolidge in March. Obama’s statement on Castro’s deathtook a markedly different tone than the president-elect.

Trump frequently criticized Obama’s Cuba policy on the campaign trail, but it’s unclear how the president-elect will continue relations with the island country.

“Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty,” Trump said Saturday.

The ruling Islamist party drafted a bill — and then suspended it — that would release about 3,000 men who married children, including men who raped them.

In 2011, Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage, and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.”

A senior Turkish judge mentioned a particular case in which three men kidnapped and raped a girl, then one of them married her and the sentences for all three were lifted.

In 2015 alone, 18,033 female children gave birth, including 244 girls under 15. The number of recorded child abuse cases rose from 5,730 in 2005 to 16,957 in 2015.

If the government had gone ahead with its plans, a 60-year-old man who married a 12-year-old girl through religious procedures, would benefit from the amnesty.

Turkey, officially, is the world’s biggest jailer of journalists. But its ruling Islamist party has drafted a bill that would release about 3,000 men who married children, including men who raped them. Public uproar has only convinced the ruling conservative Muslim lawmakers to consider revising the bill.

Muslims in general have a confused mind about the permissible age for marriage. The Quran does not mention a specific minimum age. But most Muslims believe that their prophet, Mohammad, married Aisha when the bride was nine years old — although there are some sources that claim the marriage took place when Aisha was 19 or 20 years of age. Some modern sources of Islamic authority, however, especially Wahhabi, have in recent years issued “extreme” fatwas. In 2011, Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.”

Residents of Essen complained that police often refuse to respond to calls for help and begged city officials to restore order. One resident said: “I was born here and I do not feel safe anymore.” City officials flatly rejected the complaints.

The Sarah Nußbaum Haus, a kindergarten in Kassel, said that “because of the high proportion of Muslim children,” and because of the different cultures of the children, the school was “renouncing” Christian rituals.

During the first six months of 2016, more than 2,000 migrants who requested asylum were found to be carrying false passports, but German border control officers allowed them into the country anyway. Migrants with false papers could be linked to the Islamic State, security analysts warned.

German President Joachim Gauck said he believed that Germany will eventually have a Muslim president.

Muslims are attacking Christians at refugee shelters throughout Germany. “The religious minorities in refugee accommodations are now experiencing the same oppression prevalent in their countries of origin,” according to the NGO Open Doors.

The Federal Statistics Office reported that the birthrate in Germany reached the highest level in 33 years in 2015, boosted mainly by babies born to migrant women.

A 49-year-old Syrian refugee in Rhineland-Palatinate is seeking social welfare benefits in Germany for his four wives and 23 children.

October 1. Two migrants raped a 23-year-old woman in Lüneburg as she was walking in a park with her young child. The men, who remain at large, forced the child to watch while they took turns assaulting the woman.

October 2. A 19-year-old migrant raped a 90-year-old woman as she was leaving a church in downtown Düsseldorf. Police initially described the suspect as “a Southern European with North African roots.” It later emerged that the man is a Moroccan with a Spanish passport.