The Obama administration was responsible for the spread of Al-Qaeda throughout Africa which led to the rise of Boko Harem, the terrorist group responsible for the kidnap of over 200 schoolgirls.

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Margaret Kimberley: How Not to “Bring Back our Girls”

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it is dispatching a team of US military advisers to Nigeria to aid the government of President Goodluck Jonathan in rescuing over 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram, which has threatened to sell them into slavery. ● The deployment of military advisers—who are to be accompanied by FBI and CIA agents and other US officials—was worked out Tuesday in a discussion between President Barack Obama and President Jonathan. It marks a major advance in the steadily escalating military intervention of Washington and its allies throughout the region. There have been calls from members of Congress for a more aggressive US intervention, including from Senator Susan Collins (Republican of Maine), who demanded that US Special Forces troops be sent to rescue the girls. [...] If the US can gain military control over the flow of strategic resources from Africa, it can exert greater pressure on other powers, particularly China, which is poised to supplant Europe as the continent’s number one trading partner and is engaged in massive investment in infrastructure. Fully one third of China’s oil imports now flow from Africa.

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Boko Haram Is A CIA Covert Operation - Wikileaks
Boko Haram: A CIA Covert Operation

A camp on the Libyan coastline meant to train terror-hunters has instead become a haven for terrorists and al Qaeda. ● A key jihadist leader and longtime member of al Qaeda has taken control of a secretive training facility set up by U.S. special operations forces on the Libyan coastline to help hunt down Islamic militants, according to local media reports, Jihadist web forums, and U.S. officials. In the summer of 2012, American Green Berets began refurbishing a Libyan military base 27 kilometers west of Tripoli in order to hone the skills of Libya’s first Western-trained special operations counter-terrorism fighters. Less than two years later, that training camp is now being used by groups with direct links to al Qaeda to foment chaos in post-Qaddafi Libya. Last week, the Libyan press reported that the camp (named “27” for the kilometer marker on the road between Tripoli and Tunis) was now under the command of Ibrahim Ali Abu Bakr Tantoush, a veteran associate of Osama bin Laden who was first designated as part of al Qaeda’s support network in 2002 by the United States and the United Nations. The report said he was heading a group of Salifist fighters from the former Libyan base. In other words, Tantoush is now the chief of a training camp the U.S. and Libyan governments had hoped would train Libyan special operations forces to catch militants like Tantoush.

Photo: KIGALI, RWANDA - APRIL 07: A woman consoles Bizimana Emmanuel, 22, during the 20th anniversary commemoration of the 1994 genocide at Amahoro Stadium April 7, 2014 in Kigali, Rwanda. Thousands of Rwandans and global leaders, past and present, joined together at the stadium to remember the country's 1994 genocide, when more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over a 100 day period. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Declassified U.S. documents show the Clinton administration refused to label the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda as a genocide. One State Department document read: "Be careful … Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually 'do something.'" At a press briefing in 1994, Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner asked: "How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?" State Department spokesperson Christine Shelly responded, "Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer." Samantha Power, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described the U.S. inaction in her 2001 article, "Bystanders to Genocide." She wrote, "The United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements." We speak to Emily Willard of the National Security Archive, and University of Wisconsin, Madison, Professor Scott Straus, author of "The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda."

A court in Egypt has sentenced to death already 529 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. They were convicted of charges which included murder of a policeman and attacks on people and property. The group, members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, are part of a larger trial of more than 1,200 Morsi supporters. Egyptian authorities have cracked down harshly on Islamists since Mr Morsi was removed by the military in July. Hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested. The Muslim Brotherhood's general guide Mohammed Badie was among those convicted.

A poll shows that a majority of the French people are opposed to military interventions by France in African states and other countries. ● The survey conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) revealed that 59 percent of respondents said they are against French military interventions in other states, while 34 percent were in favor. Some 1,000 people were questioned in the IFOP survey, conducted from January 22 to 24. In recent years, the French government has deployed thousands of troops to a number of African countries, including Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) on the pretext of ending conflicts in those countries.

Finian Cunningham: France triggered CAR slaughter
PressTV: EU to send troops to CAR next month: French official

After running one of the world’s biggest and most controversial private military groups, Blackwater founder Erik Prince is starting a new venture providing logistics for oil and mining companies in remote and dangerous parts of Africa. China is increasingly looking to Africa to meet its ever growing demand for natural resources. Trade between the two reached an estimated $200 billion (121 billion pounds) this year. With 85 percent of Chinese imports from the continent being oil or minerals, Prince sees an opportunity. He wants to use his experience of getting people and equipment in and out of remote places, where there is little or no infrastructure, to help companies looking to exploit abundant natural resources in places like Sudan or Somalia.

Amid a very low voter turnout, Egypt’s election committee claims 98.1 percent approval of a new, military-backed constitution in the first referendum since the US-backed Army ousted the nation's first freely-elected president. Egypt's High Election Commission announced Saturday that only 38.6 percent of the country's more than 53 million eligible voters took part in the two-day poll.

Kevin Barrett: Jewish Al-Sisi Runs Egypt; Now an Israeli-Occupied Territory
henrymakow.com: Al-Sisi is a Crypto Jew. Coup is disguised Zionist Occupation

truthjihad.com: Phony unanimity proves Egypt’s “constitution” a sham ■ That 98% figure says it all. Whenever 98% of voters supposedly vote for anything, you know the “election” is a sham. Fake unanimity is the hallmark of dictatorships. People like Stalin, Mao, and al-Sisi are always “elected” by near-unanimous “landslides.” Full article

Abu Dharr: Who exactly is General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi? ■ Born to a Moroccan Jewish mother, his maternal uncle was a member of David Ben Gurion’s political party. How did this Sephardi sleeper stay within the loop without being exposed for so long and rising to the top spot in the military? [...] But who is this al-Sisi? At least one American news report wants us to believe he is an “Islamist” — but a moderate one! There are murmurs and rumors in Egypt about al-Sisi’s mother. Who is she? And the available answers are that she is a Moroccan Jewess. In normal circumstances there would be nothing wrong with being Moroccan or Jewish. But we are not dealing with normal circumstances. Someone whose mother is Moroccan and Jewish and then becomes Egypt’s Minister of Defense, and now the ultimate authority, raises serious questions. Add to that the favorable press he is receiving in Israel and we have exclamation marks hugging question marks all over our mind and psyche. This coup leader, illegitimate ruler, and arbitrary chief executive and commander for the last two months, and before that the Defense Minister — who is he? This Mr. al-Sisi has been complicit with the Israelis in killing innocent people in the Sinai Peninsula. Our source in Egypt who is very active politically and very well versed on Egyptian matters investigated al-Sisi’s family lineage. And what he came up with is that there is reason to believe that al-Sisi is a crypto-Muslim.

A new decree passed by Libya’s parliament banning satellite television stations critical of the government and the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi violates free speech and Libya’s Provisional Constitutional Declaration. The decree was passed January 22, 2014. The government also slashed scholarship funding for students abroad, along with salaries and bonuses to employees who take part in activities “inimical” to the revolution. “You’d think that Libyans learned long ago that suppressing speech, no matter how harsh, does nothing to foster security or peace,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “The best way to confront opinions that the government doesn’t like is to challenge them with better ideas that will convince Libyans.”

Over a year later, the Obama administration has finally confirmed that Islamic extremists were responsible for the terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, in Sept. 2012. This undermines then-Hillary Clinton’s State Department and its vehement denial that the Benghazi terrorist attack that was the result of an anti-Muslim YouTube video. This morning, the State Department announced that the Muslim extremists group Ansar al-Sharia was responsible for the attacks. According to Secretary of State John Kerry, two branches of Ansar al-Sharia participated in the terrorist attack—the Benghazi branch and the Darnah branch. Darnah is a port city in Libya, approximately 180 miles northwest of Benghazi. Ansar al-Sharia’s Tunisia branch was also behind an attack on Americans in Tunis last year.

As of today, the Ugandan Parliament has passed the draconian "Anti-Homosexuality Bill" ("Kill the Gays" Bill). ● The internet is alight with numerous articles and links spreading this unexpected and shocking maneuver. The bill has, reportedly been revised to remove the death penalty punitive option, but allows life imprisonment to remain on the table. According to one source, part of the jubilation of the people, is that they never received the text of the bill in any of their native languages. There are many groups, each with their own key languages. The bill was provided only in English. A language of which they have little to no mastery.

Initial reports from the Red Cross said the two days of fighting in the Central African Republic capital of Bangui earlier this month left 461 confirmed dead, and likely “over 500.” Today, Amnesty International’s own report suggested the Bangui toll was “nearly 1,000.” ● During the two day period, Muslim Seleka militias moved against Christians in Bangui, while Christian militias moved against Muslims in the nation’s north. The “nearly 1,000” is merely the two-day toll for Seleka attacks in Bangui, with at least 150 others killed in the north, and 60 Muslims killed in Bangui is retaliation for the Seleka strikes. The Seleka militias ousted President Bozize from power in March and were in the process of setting up a new government at the time. Tensions boiled over, however, and the militias quickly turned on one another, and mostly on civilian supporters of their rivals. France and the African Union have both deployed troops to the country to “restore order,” but mass displacement remains the real order of the day, with some 15% of the nation’s 4.4 million population “displaced” form their homes, and unlikely to be able to return any time soon.

Top-secret archive document also reveals that Mandela was 'familiar with the problems of Jewry and of Israel' and that Israeli operatives tried to 'make him a Zionist.' ● Nelson Mandela, the former South African leader who died earlier this month, was trained in weaponry and sabotage by Mossad operatives in 1962, a few months before he was arrested in South Africa. During his training, Mandela expressed interest in the methods of the Haganah pre-state underground and was viewed by the Mossad as leaning toward communism. These revelations are from a document in the Israel State Archives labeled “Top Secret.” The existence of the document is revealed here for the first time. It also emerges that the Mossad operatives attempted to encourage Zionist sympathies in Mandela. Mandela, the father of the new South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, led the struggle against apartheid in his country from the 1950s. He was arrested, tried and released a number of times before going underground in the early 1960s. In January 1962, he secretly and illegally fled South Africa and visited various African countries, including Ethiopia, Algeria, Egypt and Ghana. His goal was to meet with the leaders of African countries and garner financial and military support for the armed wing of the underground African National Congress.

British prime minister says he was being polite when Helle Thorning-Schmidt asked him to take part in picture.
David Cameron and the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, have brushed off criticism of their decision to pose for a "selfie" photograph at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela alongside the US president, Barack Obama. The British prime minister said he was being polite when Thorning-Schmidt, the daughter-in-law of the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, asked him to take part in the picture. He told parliament on Wednesday: "In my defence I'd say that Nelson Mandela played an extraordinary role in his life and in his death in bringing people together." The photo went viral on Tuesday, prompting accusations from some of poor taste. Many noted that Michelle Obama looked on stony-faced during the rainy event in Soweto. Thorning-Schmidt described her impromptu snap as "not inappropriate". Speaking to the Danish media she said: "There were plenty of pictures that day. We've taken very many pictures of Obama, and I just think that it was kind of funny. It shows perhaps that when we meet from state and government, we too are just people who have fun together."

Bill Van Auken: Obama and Mandela ■ The US president was the first of six foreign heads of state to address the crowd assembled in Johannesburg’s FNB Stadium. Filled with demagogic phrases about “struggle,” “liberation,” “freedom” and “revolution,” the speech’s attempt to cloak Obama in the legacy of Mandela’s years of sacrifice, imprisonment and persecution was an obscene exercise in hypocrisy. One would never guess from Obama’s remarks that he is the head of a government that for decades counted the South African apartheid regime as a critical ally on the African continent, and that the CIA, which he now utilizes as a refurbished Murder, Inc., assassinating perceived opponents of US policy with Predator drones, played an instrumental role in Mandela’s 1962 arrest, which led to 27 years of imprisonment. It was not until 2008—nine years after Mandela had stepped down as South Africa’s president—that Washington removed him from its list of foreign terrorists.

Amid the lies and hypocrisy that dominated the platform at Tuesday’s memorial, an element of political reality intruded from the stadium bleachers. The crowd repeatedly booed South African President Jacob Zuma—the subject of endless corruption scandals—upon his arrival, when his face appeared on the giant screens, and upon his introduction as keynote speaker. Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma’s deputy and former mine workers’ union head-turned multimillionaire capitalist, was forced to intervene repeatedly. According to the South African Daily Maverick, he appealed at one point to the crowd in Zulu: “Don’t embarrass us, we have overseas visitors here. We can deal with present day stuff once the visitors have gone.”

Nelson Mandela was memorialized in a boisterous stadium ceremony here Tuesday as a teacher and a healer, an iconic figure who changed history and touched hearts in his native country and around the world. Scores of thousands of South Africans braved a pouring rain to join dozens of world leaders, including President Obama and many other heads of state, for a tribute filled with emotional tributes and joyous song. People from all walks of life, from businessmen to nurses to the unemployed, danced and clapped and sang in the hours leading up to the memorial service, their voices echoing across the stadium as if they were cheering at a soccer match. The rich mingled with the poor, children with the elderly, all there to remember Mandela, the former South African president who died Thursday at the age of 95.

Stephen Lendman: Mandela Eulogies: Reinventing His Disturbing Legacy
Patrick O’Connor: Former South African President Nelson Mandela dies
Washington Post: Obama’s speech at Mandela memorial
PressTV: Mourners gather for Mandela memorial in Johannesburg - Video

Stephen Lendman: John Pilger's work exposed South African apartheid harshness. Doing so got him banned. Thirty years later he returned. He wanted to see firsthand what changed. He interviewed Mandela in retirement. His "Apartheid Did Not Die" documentary followed. "Behind the modern face of democracy, the scourges of inequality, unemployment and homelessness persist," he said. White supremacy remained unchanged. It's no different today. A few blacks share wealth, power and privilege. The vast majority of black society is worse off than under apartheid. Mandela embraced the worst of neoliberal harshness. His successors follow the same model. Pilger posed tough questions. He asked Mandela how ANC freedom fighting ended up embracing Thatcherism. Mandela responded saying: "You can put any label on it you like. You can call it Thatcherite but, for this country, privatization is the fundamental policy." Pilger discovered that 80% of South African children suffered poor health. One-fourth under age six were ill nourished. During Mandela's tenure, more South Africans died from malnutrition and preventable diseases than under apartheid. Concentrated wealth is more extreme than ever. White farmers control over 80% of agricultural land. They dominate choicest areas. Pilger said about one-fourth of South Africa's budget goes for interest on odious debt. He explained how five major corporations control over three-fourths of business interests. They dominate South African life. Concentrated wealth and power are extreme. Whites control about 90% of national wealth. A select few black businessmen, politicians and trade union leaders benefit with them. The dominant Anglo-American Corporation is hugely exploitive. Gold mining exacts an enormous human cost. Pilger said one death and 12 serious injuries accompany each ton of gold mined. One-third of workers contract deadly lung disease. They're left on their own to suffer and die. Post-apartheid democracy reflects the worst of free market capitalism. It's bereft of freedom. Reform denies it. Mandela's "unbreakable promise" was forgotten.

Political and cultural elite set to attend funeral where Mandela's spirit of reconciliation may offer backdrop to unusual meetings | World leaders are preparing to converge in unprecedented numbers on South Africa for Nelson Mandela's funeral, likely to be one of the biggest global gatherings of powerful people in modern history. As South Africa embarked on nine days of mourning, comparisons were being drawn with earlier mammoth funeral ceremonies, of Pope John Paul II, Princess Diana, President John F Kennedy and Winston Churchill. But Mandela's appeal was even broader, cutting across religious divides and the usual geopolitical barriers between north and south, east and west. Barack Obama will fly in, with his wife Michelle, as well as former US presidents. Britain is expected to send senior royals, presumably Prince Charles, and possibly Prince William as well as the prime minister, David Cameron. They are likely to mix in the funeral cortege with leaders from across the globe, including from China, Iran, Cuba, Israel and the Palestinian territories. It is not clear how Syria will be represented, or whether Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, charged with genocide by the international criminal court, will attend.

Russia Today: Mandela’s sharp statements rarely cited in mainstream media
Prison Planet: Mandela Love Fest Ignores Dark Side of Legacy
Patrick O’Connor: Former South African President Nelson Mandela dies

Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president and an enduring icon of the struggle against racial oppression, died on Thursday, the government announced, leaving the nation without its moral center at a time of growing dissatisfaction with the country’s leaders. “Our nation has lost its greatest son,” President Jacob Zuma said in a televised address on Thursday night, adding that Mr. Mandela had died at 8:50 p.m. local time. “His humility, his compassion and his humanity earned him our love.” Mr Zuma said that South Africa’s thoughts were with Mr. Mandela’s family. “They have sacrificed much and endured much so that our people could be free,” he said. Mr. Mandela spent 27 years in prison after being convicted of treason by the white minority government, only to forge a peaceful end to white rule by negotiating with his captors after his release in 1990. He led the African National Congress, long a banned liberation movement, to a resounding electoral victory in 1994, the first fully democratic election in the country’s history.

Mail & Guardian: Nelson Mandela dies
NYT: Mandela as Dissident, Liberator and Statesman - Photos
John Pilger: Mandela's greatness may be assured, but not his legacy [11 July 2013]

South Africa's former president claims that his country was asked to help Britain topple Robert Mugabe.
● Tony Blair’s Government asked South Africa to help Britain invadeZimbabwe and topple Robert Mugabe by force, Thabo Mbeki, the former president, has disclosed. When Zimbabwe began sinking into economic collapse and political repression in 2000, South Africa and Britain held starkly different views over how to respond to the crisis. Mr Mbeki favoured a negotiated settlement; Mr Blair wanted Mr Mugabe to go, by force if necessary. “The problem was, we were speaking from different positions,” said Mr Mbeki, who served as South Africa’s president from 1999 until 2008. “There were other people saying ‘yes indeed there are political problems, economic problems, the best way to solve them is regime change. So Mugabe must go’. This was the difference. So they said ‘Mugabe must go’. But we said ‘Mugabe is part of the solution to this problem’.” Mr Mbeki recalled an interview given by Lord Guthrie, who was Chief of the Defence Staff and Britain’s most senior soldier throughout Mr Blair’s first government. In 2007, Lord Guthrie disclosed that “people were always trying to get me to look at” toppling Mr Mugabe by force.

Simon Jenkins: The bloody disaster of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan is laid bare: Bombs and militia violence make clear the folly of Britain's wars – the removal of law and order from a nation is devastating ■ In each case – Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan – it was easy to see evil in the prevailing regime. These are bad guys that we need to go after, said the Americans. Yet the removal of law and order from a nation is devastating, however cruel that order may have been. Iraqis today repeat that, whatever the ills of Saddam Hussein, under his rule most ordinary citizens and their families could walk the streets at night without fear of murder or kidnap. Religious differences were tolerated. Iraq should have been an oil-rich modern state. Even the Kurds, scourged by Saddam in the past, enjoyed autonomy and relative peace. In each of these cases Britain and its allies, chiefly America, intervened to overthrow the army, disband government, dismantle the judiciary and leave militias to run riot. Little or no attempt was made to replace anarchy with a new order. "Nation building" was a fiasco. The British bombs that flattened government buildings in Kabul, Baghdad and Tripoli did not replace them, or those who worked in them. Those who dropped them congratulated themselves on their work and went home.

UN Urges More Transparency in Killings ● The UN conference on drone strikes opened today in New York with calls from UN experts to see more transparency around the use of drones for extraterritorial executions by nations, and condemnations by several nations of the unlawful use of the attacks en masse by the United States. The Obama Administration was quick to dismiss any complaints, insisting the killings of several thousand people worldwide without any legal oversight by CIA drones was “legal and just.”

The first case of a child being trafficked to Britain in order to have their organs harvested has been uncovered. ● The unnamed girl was brought to the UK from Somalia with the intention of removing her organs and selling them on to those desperate for a transplant. ● Child protection charities warned that the case was unlikely to be an isolated incident as traffickers were likely to have smuggled a group of children into the country. The case emerged in a government report which showed that the number of human trafficking victims in the UK has risen by more than 50 per cent last year and reached record levels. A total of 371 children were exploited, with the majority of them being used as slaves or sexually abused. They included 95 children from Vietnam, 67 from Nigeria and 25 from China. Others hailed from Romania and Bangladesh. The figures also detail how 20 British girls have been victims of human trafficking. It comes after a series of court cases in which British girls were raped and exploited by gangs of Asian men.

Rights group Amnesty International says nearly 1,000 people have died in Nigerian detention facilities. ● In a statement published on Tuesday, Amnesty said it had “credible information” that more than 950 suspected members of the Boko Haram militant group died in custody of the Nigerian military's Joint Task Force (JTF) in the first six months of 2013. “A large proportion of these people are believed to have died in Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri, Borno state and Sector Alpha, commonly referred to as ‘Guantanamo’ and Presidential Lodge (known as ‘Guardroom’) in Damaturu, Yobe state,” the statement read.

● In a stealthy seaside assault in Somalia and in a raid in Libya's capital, U.S. special forces on Saturday struck out against Islamic extremists who have carried out terrorist attacks in East Africa, snatching a Libyan al-Qaida leader allegedly involved in the bombings of U.S. embassies 15 years ago but aborting a mission to capture a terrorist suspect linked to last month's Nairobi shopping mall attack after a fierce firefight.
● A U.S. Navy SEAL team swam ashore near a town in southern Somalia before militants of the al-Qaida-linked terrorist group al-Shabab rose for dawn prayers, U.S. and Somali officials told The Associated Press. The raid on a house in the town of Barawe targeted a specific al-Qaida suspect related to the mall attack, but the operation did not get its target, one current and one former U.S. military official told AP.

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Senior al-Qaida commander accused of orchestrating 1998 US embassy bombings is captured in Tripoli. ● US special forces have carried out raids in Libya and Somalia targeting Islamist militants. The US captured a senior al-Qaida member in Tripoli and launched a dawn raid on the southern Somali hideout of one of the heads of al-Shabaab, the group behind the Kenyan mall attack, but its forces were forced to withdraw, the Pentagon said. US officials confirmed that forces operating in Libya had managed to capture Abu Anas al-Liby, accused of orchestrating the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. His apprehension ended a 15-year manhunt.

The Guardian: Libya demands explanation for 'kidnapping' of citizen by US forces

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it evacuated its embassy in Libya after armed men stormed the complex the day before, apparently seeking revenge for the killing of a Libyan Air Force officer. The Russian statement and news reports described a pitched battle between security officers and the gunmen after they broke into the embassy in Tripoli. The ambassador and other staff members hid in safe rooms. And though it was clear how the attack ended — Russian security personnel expelled the attackers, killing two of them, and then the entire embassy staff left the country — why it started remained murky.

French newspaper says quartet were allegedly involved in inciting political unrest in the African republic ahead of elections last Saturday. ● our Israeli mercenaries were arrested in Guinea last Wednesday on charges of planning a coup to overthrow Guinean President Alpha Condé, the French newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné reported. The four are being held at the island of Casa north of the capital Conakry, which serves as a prison for political activists, according to the report. Guinean’s parliamentary elections, which took place Saturday and marked the country’s transition to democracy following a 2008 military coup, were fraught with tensions and uprisings, with dozens reported killed, which Le Canard Enchaîné attributed to foreign involvement. The newspaper based its findings on intelligence documents from the CIA and DSGE (the French General Directorate for External Security) showing that Israeli, French and South African mercenaries had been involved in planning a coup to overthrow Condé.

● Two years after the end of the US-NATO war in Libya, thousands in the North African country remain imprisoned without charges and are being subjected to systematic torture, according to a report released Tuesday by the United Nations. ● The report, entitled “Torture and deaths in detention in Libya” recorded 27 cases in which the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has gathered evidence substantiating that detainees have been tortured to death. The agency knows of many other cases that it has not been able to investigate. At least 11 of the documented torture deaths took place during the first half of this year.

YourMiddleEast: Libya has been split into three: the emirates of Fezzan, Cyrenaica, and Tripolitania”

Torture and brutality are rife in Libyan prisons two years after the overthrow of leader Muammar Gaddafi in a revolution launched under the banner of freedom and justice, a U.N. report said on Tuesday. ● Around 8,000 prisoners are held without trial in government jails on suspicion of having fought for Gaddafi, while countless others are detained by freelance militias out of sight and in primitive conditions, it added. No one was immediately available for comment from the Libyan government. "Torture and ill-treatment in Libya is an on-going and widespread concern in many detention centres," said the report from the U.N.'s top human rights office (UNHCHR) and the world body's Support Mission (UNSMIL) in the country. UNSMIL had recorded 27 cases of death in detention, almost certainly caused by torture, since Gaddafi was captured and killed, it said. Eleven of these were this year and all in prisons controlled by militias, it added.

Al Jazeera: UN finds widespread torture in Libya jails