I.
70 MILES NORTH OF AL-FASHIR, SUDAN
9 DECEMBER 2013
1116 HOURS

The only two books that the Janjaweed leader Taanish Jaabir owned were an old, ragged copy of the Quran and an older, more ragged copy of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 translated into Arabic.

Taanish Jaabir was the head of a local force of Janjaweed fighters in the western Sudanese province of Darfur. As many of you know, Darfur is the location of a war between the government-backed Arab militias called Janjaweed and various black rebel groups in Darfur. The two main rebel groups are the Sudanese Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement.

The Darfur conflict is complicated situation, and to explain it here in such a short piece of a story would not do the horror of it justice. The author will however, give a summary of the conflict to the best of his knowledge.

Darfur is home to three main tribes, the Fur, Zaghawa, and the Massaleit. They are agricultural tribes generally living in poverty. These tribes are black Africans, as opposed to the Bedouin Arabs who live near the banks of the Nile River. However, all parties involved in the Darfur genocide, victims and perpetrators, are Muslim.

Darfur was conquered by the British in 1916, but most of the money, resources, and investment went into the Nile River regions to the east of Sudan. This led to hostile feelings between the blacks and the Arabs, as the Arabs got most of the money, and thus most of the development, whereas the blacks got little money and thus little development.

This trend continued until 1956, when Sudan gained independence from Britain. Sudan then had a series of civil wars.

The First Sudanese Civil War lasted from 1955 to 1972. It was fought between the Muslim north and the mostly Christian and animist south. Islamist governments took over Khartoum, but most seemed unable to deal with the massive ethnic tensions that broke out after the war began. In 1969, a colonel named Gaafar Nimeiry staged a coup and became the leader of Sudan. After it became evident that both sides could not fight the war because of their own respective instability and internal animosities, they signed a ceasefire in 1972. In the end, half a million were dead.

But tensions remained high. In 1983, Gaafar Nimeiry began a campaign to turn Sudan into a Muslim state, despite the Christians and animists in the south. Nimeiry suspended the rule of law, and began administrating lashings and amputations for theft and other minor offenses. Coup after coup followed, and Nimeiry was ousted from power in 1985 during a trip to the United States. He lived in exile in Egypt until 1999.

A colonel named Omar al-Bashir took over in 1989. al-Bashir was a strict Islamist, and instituted Sharia, or Islamic law. He fixed the punishments for many crimes at amputation or death. Slavery became common as northern Muslims raided the southern areas and took prisoners.

American attitudes toward Sudan changed when the Sudanese government supported Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, and again when Sudan took in Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network, although bin Laden was expelled in 1996 and moved to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where he would later reach global infamy with the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001.

Making the problems worse in Sudan were environmental effects. Famines and droughts struck the nation in the early 1990s, causing many to starve to death. The famine got worse in 1998, and it has been estimated that 70,000 died from the famines alone.

In 2003, the next stage in the war began. In that year, the aforementioned rebel groups accused the Sudanese government of oppressing blacks and anyone who wasn’t Arabic.

On February 26, 2003, an attack was launched on the city of Golo. Rebels attacked police stations, military convoys, and various other government areas. One month later, rebels took the town of Tine. al-Bashir threatened to send the army after the rebel groups.

One month after that, the two rebel groups stormed a military base in another town called al-Fashir and killed 75 soldiers. It was now open war.

The campaign against the black Africans quickly went from soldier vs. soldier to all-out massacres against anyone who wasn’t an Arab. As time went on, the Janjaweed grew more brutal and cruel. They forced poor black farmers out of their homes. They massacred men, women, and children. They burned huts, killed livestock, and committed unspeakable atrocities against women and girls. As of the writing of this, the Janjaweed have killed around 200,000 to 400,000 people and created over two and a half million refugees.

While Sudan faced international condemnation for the genocide, no nation on Earth has stepped up to do anything about it. However, a deranged President in America in December 2013 would soon try to put an end to the nightmare, once and for all.

One of the local heads of the Janjaweed was the aforementioned Taanish Jaabir. Taanish’s life had been an eventful one.

Taanish was born on January 18, 1970 in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. His father Mustafa was a government official. In 1971, when the First Sudanese Civil War was raging, Mustafa became a Marxist. After a coup that took a Communist political faction out of power, Mustafa was assassinated. Taanish’s mother left the country two months before the end of the war in March 1972, fearing that she would be targeted next by the Sudanese anti-Marxist forces.

Taanish’s mother managed to get a work permit in France, and Taanish lived in Paris. He went to school, where he was teased and harassed by the other boys for his quietness and devotion to Islam. He had no real interest in learning math or science. He made poor grades and was suspended three times for fighting with the other boys.

As time went on, Taanish read more about Islam and paid attention to the radical Islamist movement going on in Iran. The 1979 Revolution came and Taanish decided to fight for Islam.

The Second Sudanese Civil War broke out in 1983. Taanish, now only 13, went back to Sudan to fight despite pleas from his mother. Gaafar Nimeiry welcomed Taanish into the army. There he fought the black rebels in the south of Sudan. He was the head of an army unit, and was responsible for many atrocities against the southern Sudanese.

When Osama bin Laden came to Sudan, Taanish was the first to greet him. By the early 1990s, Taanish was a full-blown Islamic fundamentalist. He had declared a jihad on the west, and became friends with bin Laden. When bin Laden was expelled from Sudan, Taanish followed him to Afghanistan.

But in 1999, Taanish was forced to leave Afghanistan when a Taliban leader revealed that Taanish had had an affair with a top cleric’s wife. Taanish fled back to Sudan, and the wife was stoned to death.

Back in Sudan, Taanish became a Janjaweed head, and took over a unit. His mother died in Paris in 2002, destroying any reason Taanish had to go back to the West. In 2003, he was assigned to the northern part of Darfur to destroy and loot the Darfurian strongholds.

The Jeep idled quietly as Taanish looked toward the black village of Jubo. Taanish commanded 551 men. Jubo was a village of about 200. Taanish’s second-in-command was a young man named Mujeeb Ma’moon. Mujeeb had lived in Sudan all his life, and unlike Taanish, had never left the country. He served happily under Taanish, and now Taanish planned to storm Jubo. The Janjaweed unit had hundreds of AK-47s, several dozen hand grenades, and one flamethrower. Mujeeb came back up from his scouting trip.

“What did you see?” Taanish asked.

“It’s a small, desolate village. A few hundred people, not a single gun among them. This should not be too hard.” Mujeeb said.

“Good. Tell the men we are to attack at noon.”

Mujeeb ran off, and Taanish squinted from the hot sun, and watched the people below, completely unaware of the nightmare that would soon unfold.