title: Linda Fiorentino

text: Fiorentino gained attention for her lead roles in the erotic thriller "Jade" (1995), the science-fiction action comedy film "Men in Black" (1997) and the fantasy comedy "Dogma" (1999). For her performance in the 1994 film "The Last Seduction", she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actress of the Year, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: One of either seven or eight children in an Italian-American family, Fiorentino was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was raised in South Philadelphia and later moved with her family to the Turnersville section of Washington Township in nearby South Jersey.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: In 1976, Fiorentino graduated from Washington Township High School in Sewell, New Jersey. She began performing in plays at Rosemont College in suburban Philadelphia, from which she graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. She trained at the Circle in the Square Theater School in Manhattan while working as a bartender at the nightclub Kamikaze, where Bruce Willis also worked.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: Fiorentino got her first professional role in 1985 when she starred in "Vision Quest" as "Carla". Film critic Roger Ebert said of the newcomer, "Without having met the actress, it's impossible for me to speculate on how much of Carla is original work and how much is Fiorentino's personality. What comes across, though, is a woman who is enigmatic without being egotistical, detached without being cold, self-reliant without being suspicious. She has a way of talking - kind of deliberately objective - that makes you listen to everything she says." In a 1994 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, Fiorentino said she chose to stop acting for a period of time after Warner Bros. executive Mark Canton told her during the filming of "Vision Quest", "you have a great ass, but I think your jeans need to be tighter." She said she returned to acting later to pay off mounting credit card debt.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: In 1985 she starred in the espionage comedy film "Gotcha!" which was filmed in Los Angeles, California; Paris, France; and Berlin, Germany. Her co-star, Anthony Edwards, later directed her in "Charlie's Ghost Story".


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: After having taken various roles she next received accolades for her performance in director John Dahl's 1994 neo noir film "The Last Seduction", playing the murderous "femme fatale", Bridget. Her performance won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actress of the Year, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She followed this as the "femme fatale" in the 1995 erotic thriller "Jade", a critical and box-office failure. She later worked again with Dahl on his film "Unforgettable" (1996).


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: Fiorentino played the female lead in the highly successful "Men in Black" in 1997, then appeared in the direct-to-video "Body Count" in 1998. In 1999, she starred in "Dogma" as an abortion clinic employee tasked with saving the world. Fiorentino did not get along with director Kevin Smith, which garnered negative press for her.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: After a co-starring role with Paul Newman in the 2000 heist film "Where the Money Is", and a lead role as the titular character in the 2002 film "Liberty Stands Still", Fiorentino's career slowed to a halt. She was in talks to star in a series being prepared by Tom Fontana, but ultimately did not take the project. Fiorentino was attached to a Georgia O'Keeffe biographical drama called "Till the End of Time", but the project stalled when Fiorentino had a falling out with German producer Karel Dirka.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: In 2007, Fiorentino optioned the rights to a screenplay about Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, with plans to produce and to possibly star in and direct, but the project was dropped. During this period, she was reported to be developing two documentaries, neither of which moved forward.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: Her final screen role to date was a supporting character in "Once More with Feeling", released direct to video in 2009.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: Fiorentino married film director and writer John Byrum (who had previously worked with her on the unfinished movie "The War at Home", loosely based on the life of model and actress Edie Sedgwick, which was filmed in 1988) on June 23, 1992. The couple divorced in 1993, after a year of marriage, for reasons not known.


title: Linda Fiorentino

text: In 2009, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Mark T. Rossini pleaded guilty to illegally accessing FBI computers during the prosecution of Los Angeles private investigator Anthony Pellicano. Law enforcement officials said Fiorentino previously had a relationship with Pellicano and wanted to assist his defense. According to prosecutors, Fiorentino was then dating Rossini, and told him she was researching a screenplay based on the case. He conducted searches of government computers for information related to the Pellicano case and passed the results to Fiorentino, who then handed the files over to Pellicano's lawyers in a failed effort to help Pellicano avoid a 15-year prison sentence.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Solaris (, tr. "Solyaris") is a 1972 Soviet science fiction drama film based on Stanisław Lem's 1961 novel of the same title. The film was co-written and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, and stars Donatas Banionis and Natalya Bondarchuk. The electronic music score was performed by Eduard Artemyev and features a composition by J.S. Bach as its main theme. The plot centers on a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris, where a scientific mission has stalled because the skeleton crew of three scientists have fallen into emotional crises. Psychologist Kris Kelvin (Banionis) travels to the station to evaluate the situation, only to encounter the same mysterious phenomena as the others.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: "Solaris" won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. It received critical acclaim, and is often cited as one of the greatest science fiction films in the history of cinema. The film was Tarkovsky's attempt to bring a new emotional depth to science fiction films; he viewed most western works in the genre as shallow due to their focus on technological invention. Some of the ideas Tarkovsky expresses in this film are further developed in his film "Stalker" (1979).


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Psychologist Kris Kelvin is being sent on an interstellar journey to evaluate whether a decades-old space station, positioned over the oceanic planet Solaris, should continue to study it. He spends his last day on Earth with his elderly father and retired pilot Burton. Years earlier Burton had been part of an exploratory team at Solaris but was recalled when he described strange happenings, including seeing a four-meter-tall child on the surface of the water on the planet. These were dismissed as hallucinations by a panel of scientists and military, but now that the remaining crew members are making similarly strange reports, Kris' skills are needed.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Upon his arrival at Solaris Station, a scientific research station, none of the three remaining scientists greet Kelvin, and he finds the space station in strange disarray. He soon learns that his friend among the scientists, Dr. Gibarian, has killed himself. The two surviving crewmen—Snaut and Sartorius—are erratic. Kelvin also catches fleeting glimpses of others aboard the station who were not part of the original crew. He also finds that Gibarian left him a rambling, cryptic farewell video message, warning him about the strange things happening at the station.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: After a fitful sleep, Kelvin is shocked to find Hari, his wife who died ten years earlier, sitting in his sleeping quarters. She is unaware of how she got there. Terrified by her presence, Kelvin launches the replica of his wife into outer space. Snaut explains that the "visitors" or "guests" began appearing after the scientists conducted radiation experiments, directing X-rays at the swirling surface of the planet, in a desperate attempt to understand its nature.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: That evening, Hari reappears in Kelvin's quarters. This time he calmly accepts her and they fall asleep together in an embrace. Hari panics when Kelvin briefly leaves her alone in the room, and injures herself attempting to escape. But before Kelvin can give first aid, her injuries spontaneously heal before his eyes. Sartorius and Snaut explain to Kelvin that Solaris created Hari from his memories of her. The Hari present among them, though not human, thinks and feels as though she were. Sartorius theorizes that the visitors, also called "guests", are composed of "neutrino systems" rather than atoms, but that it might still be possible to destroy them through use of a device known as "the annihilator". Later, Snaut proposes beaming Kelvin's brainwave patterns at Solaris in hopes that it will understand them and stop the disturbing apparitions.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: In time, Hari becomes more human and independent and is able to exist away from Kelvin's presence without panic. She learns from Sartorius that the original Hari had committed suicide ten years earlier. Sartorius, Snaut, Kelvin and Hari gather together for a birthday party, which evolves into a philosophical argument, during which Sartorius reminds Hari that she is not real. Distressed, Hari kills herself again by drinking liquid oxygen, only to painfully resurrect after a few minutes. On the surface of Solaris, the ocean begins to swirl faster into a funnel.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Kelvin falls ill and goes to sleep. He dreams of his mother as a young woman, washing away dirt or scabs from his arm. When he awakens, Hari is gone; Snaut reads her farewell note, in which she explains how she petitioned the two scientists to destroy her. Snaut then tells Kelvin that since they have broadcast Kelvin's brainwaves into Solaris, the visitors have stopped appearing and islands have started forming on the planet's surface. Kelvin debates whether to return to Earth or remain on the station.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Kelvin appears to be back on Earth at the family home seen at the beginning of the film. He sinks to his knees and embraces his father. The camera slowly cranes away to reveal that they are not back on Earth but actually on an island on the surface of Solaris's ocean.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: In 1968 the director Andrei Tarkovsky had several motives for cinematically adapting Stanisław Lem's science fiction novel "Solaris" (1961). First, he admired Lem's work. Second, he needed work and money, because his previous film, "Andrei Rublev" (1966), had gone unreleased, and his screenplay "A White, White Day" had been rejected (in 1975 it was realised as "The Mirror"). A film of a novel by Lem, a popular and critically respected writer in the USSR, was a logical commercial and artistic choice. Another inspiration was Tarkovsky's desire to bring emotional depth to the science-fiction genre, which he regarded as shallow due to its attention to technological invention; in a 1970 interview, he singled out Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "" as "phoney on many points" and "a lifeless schema with only pretensions to truth".


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Tarkovsky and Lem collaborated and remained in communication about the adaptation. With Fridrikh Gorenshtein, Tarkovsky co-wrote the first screenplay in the summer of 1969; two-thirds of it occurred on Earth. The Mosfilm committee disliked it, and Lem became furious over the drastic alteration of his novel. The final screenplay yielded the shooting script, which has less action on Earth and deletes Kelvin's marriage to his second wife, Maria, from the story. In the novel Lem describes science's inadequacy in allowing humans to communicate with an alien life form, because certain forms, at least, of sentient extra-terrestrial life may operate well outside of human experience and understanding. In the movie, Tarkovsky concentrates on Kelvin's feelings for his wife, Hari, and the impact of outer space exploration on the human condition. Dr. Gibarian's monologue (from the novel's sixth chapter) is the highlight of the final library scene, wherein Snaut says: "We don't need other worlds. We need mirrors". Unlike the novel, which begins with Kelvin's spaceflight and takes place entirely on Solaris, the film shows Kelvin's visit to his parents' house in the country before leaving Earth. The contrast establishes the worlds in which he lives – a vibrant Earth versus an austere, closed-in space station orbiting Solaris – demonstrating and questioning space exploration's impact on the human psyche.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: The set design of "Solaris" features paintings by the Old Masters. The interior of the space station is decorated with full reproductions of the 1565 painting cycle of "The Months" ("The Hunters in the Snow", "The Gloomy Day", "The Hay Harvest", "The Harvesters", and "The Return of the Herd"), by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and details of "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and "The Hunters in the Snow" (1565). The scene of Kelvin kneeling before his father and the father embracing him alludes to "The Return of the Prodigal Son" (1669) by Rembrandt. The references and allusions are Tarkovsky's efforts to give the young art of cinema historical perspective, to evoke the viewer's feeling that cinema is a mature art.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: The film references Tarkovsky's 1966 film "Andrei Rublev" by having an icon by Andrei Rublev being placed in Kelvin's room. It is the second of a series of three films referencing Rublev, the last being Tarkovsky's next film, "The Mirror", which was made in 1975 and which references "Andrei Rublev" by having a poster of the film hung on a wall.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Tarkovsky initially wanted his ex-wife, Irma Raush, to play Hari, but after meeting actress Bibi Andersson in June 1970, he decided that she was better for the role. Wishing to work with Tarkovsky, Andersson agreed to be paid in roubles. Nevertheless, Natalya Bondarchuk was ultimately cast as Hari. Tarkovsky had met her when they were students at the State Institute of Cinematography. It was she who had introduced the novel "Solaris" to him. Tarkovsky auditioned her in 1970, but decided she was too young for the part. He instead recommended her to director Larisa Shepitko, who cast her in "You and I". Half a year later, Tarkovsky screened that film and was so pleasantly surprised by her performance that he decided to cast Bondarchuk as Hari after all.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Tarkovsky cast Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis as Kelvin, the Estonian actor Jüri Järvet as Snaut, the Russian actor Anatoly Solonitsyn as Sartorius, the Ukrainian actor Nikolai Grinko as Kelvin's father, and Olga Barnet as Kelvin's mother. The director had already worked with Solonitsyn, who had played Andrei Rublev, and with Grinko, who appeared in "Andrei Rublev" and "Ivan's Childhood" (1962). Tarkovsky thought Solonitsyn and Grinko would need extra directorial assistance. After filming was almost completed, Tarkovsky rated actors and performances thus: Bondarchuk, Järvet, Solonitsyn, Banionis, Dvorzhetsky, and Grinko; he also wrote in his diary that "Natalya B. has outshone everybody".


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: In the summer of 1970 the State Committee for Cinematography (Goskino SSSR) authorized the production of "Solaris", with a length of , equivalent to a two-hour-twenty-minute running time. The exteriors were photographed at Zvenigorod, near Moscow; the interiors were photographed at the Mosfilm studios. The scenes of space pilot Berton driving through a city were photographed in September and October 1971 at Akasaka and Iikura in Tokyo. The original plan was to film futuristic structures at the World Expo '70, but the trip was delayed. The shooting began in March 1971 with cinematographer Vadim Yusov, who also photographed Tarkovsky's previous films. They quarreled so much on this film that they never worked together again. Eastman Kodak color film was used in the color scenes. Not widely available in the Soviet Union, it had to be specially procured for the production. The first version of "Solaris" was completed in December 1971.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: The Solaris ocean was created with acetone, aluminium powder, and dyes. Mikhail Romadin designed the space station as lived-in, beat-up and decrepit rather than shiny, neat and futuristic. The designer and director consulted with scientist and aerospace engineer Lupichev, who lent them a 1960s-era mainframe computer for set decoration. For some of the sequences, Romadin designed a mirror room that enabled Yusov to hide within a mirrored sphere so as to be invisible in the finished film. Akira Kurosawa, who was visiting the Mosfilm studios just then, expressed admiration for the space station design.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: In January 1972 the State Committee for Cinematography requested editorial changes before releasing "Solaris". These included a more realistic film with a clearer image of the future and deletion of allusions to God and Christianity. Tarkovsky successfully resisted such major changes, and after a few minor edits "Solaris" was approved for release in March 1972.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: The soundtrack of "Solaris" features Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale prelude for organ "Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ", BWV 639, played by , and an electronic score by Eduard Artemyev. The prelude is the central musical theme. Tarkovsky initially wanted the film to be devoid of music and asked Artemyev to orchestrate ambient sounds as the score. The latter proposed subtly introducing orchestral music. In counterpoint to classical music as Earth's theme, is fluid electronic music as the theme for the planet Solaris. The character of Hari has her own subtheme, a cantus firmus based on Bach's music featuring Artemyev's music atop it; it is heard at Hari's death and at the story's end.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: "Solaris" premiered at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. In the USSR, the film premiered in the "Mir" film theater in Moscow on February 5, 1973. Tarkovsky did not consider the "Mir" cinema the best projection venue. Despite the film's narrow release in only five film theaters in the USSR, the film sold 10.5 million tickets. Unlike the vast majority of commercial and ideological films in the 1970s, "Solaris" was screened in the USSR in limited runs for 15 years without any breaks, giving it cult status. In the Eastern Bloc and in the West, "Solaris" premiered later. In the United States, a version of "Solaris" that was truncated by 30 minutes premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on October 6, 1976.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Although Lem worked with Tarkovsky and Friedrich Gorenstein in developing the screenplay, Lem maintained he "never really liked Tarkovsky's version" of his novel. Tarkovsky wanted a film based on the novel but artistically independent of it, while Lem opposed any divergence of the screenplay from the novel. Lem went as far as to say that Tarkovsky made "Crime and Punishment" rather than "Solaris", omitting epistemological and cognitive aspects of his book. But Lem also said in an interview that he had only seen part of the finale, much later, after Tarkovsky's death. Tarkovsky claimed that Lem did not fully appreciate cinema and expected the film to merely illustrate the novel without creating an original cinematic piece. Tarkovsky's film is about the inner lives of its scientists. Lem's novel is about the conflicts of man's condition in nature and the nature of man in the universe. For Tarkovsky, Lem's exposition of that existential conflict was the starting point for depicting the characters' inner lives.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: In the autobiographical documentary "Voyage in Time" (1983), Tarkovsky says he viewed "Solaris" as an artistic failure because it did not transcend genre as he believed his film "Stalker" (1979) did, due to the required technological dialogue and special effects. M. Galina in the 1997 article "Identifying Fears" called this film "one of the biggest events in the Soviet science fiction cinema" and one of the few that do not seem anachronistic nowadays.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: A list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" compiled by "Empire" magazine in 2010 ranked Tarkovsky's "Solaris" at No. 68. In 2002, Steven Soderbergh wrote and directed an American adaptation of "Solaris", which starred George Clooney.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Salman Rushdie has called "Solaris" "a sci-fi masterpiece", adding, "This exploration of the unreliability of reality and the power of the human unconscious, this great examination of the limits of rationalism and the perverse power of even the most ill-fated love, needs to be seen as widely as possible before it's transformed by Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron into what they ludicrously threaten will be "" meets "Last Tango in Paris". What, sex in space with floating butter? Tarkovsky must be turning over in his grave."


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Film critic Roger Ebert reviewed the 1976 release for "The Chicago Sun-Times", giving the film three out of four stars and writing, ""Solaris" isn't a fast-moving action picture; it's a thoughtful, deep, sensitive movie that uses the freedom of science fiction to examine human nature. It starts slow, but once you get involved, it grows on you.' He added "Solaris" to his "Great Movies" list in 2003, saying he had initially "balked" at its length and pacing but later came to admire Tarkovsky's goals. "No director makes greater demands on our patience. Yet his admirers are passionate and they have reason for their feelings: Tarkovsky consciously tried to create art that was great and deep. He held to a romantic view of the individual able to transform reality through his own spiritual and philosophical strength." Ebert later compared the 2011 film "Another Earth" to "Solaris", writing that "Another Earth" "is as thought-provoking, in a less profound way, as Tarkovsky's "Solaris", another film about a sort of parallel Earth".


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: In an example of life imitating art, Natalya Bondarchuk (Hari) revealed in a 2010 interview that she fell in love with Tarkovsky during the filming of "Solaris" and, after their relationship ended, became suicidal. She claims that her decision was partly influenced by her role.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: Adam Curtis's 2015 documentary film "Bitter Lake" includes scenes from this film. The metaphor is that just as the planet influences the cosmonauts who try to influence the planet, there have been cross influences among Afghanistan and its Soviet, American and British invaders.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: The film was selected for screening as part of the Cannes Classics section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: The film also has a "Certified Fresh" rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 64 reviews with an average rating of 8.5 out of 10, with the consensus reading: ""Solaris" is a haunting, meditative film that uses sci-fi to raise complex questions about humanity and existence." It also has a score of 90 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 8 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". In 2018 the film ranked 57th on the BBC's list of the 100 greatest foreign-language films, as voted on by 209 film critics from 43 countries.


title: Solaris (1972 film)

text: On May 24, 2011, The Criterion Collection released "Solaris" on Blu-ray Disc. The most noticeable difference from the previous 2002 Criterion DVD release was that the blue and white tinted monochrome scenes from the film were restored.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: Hamad International Airport (, "") is an international airport in the State of Qatar, and the home of Qatar’s flag carrier airline, Qatar Airways. Located east of its capital, Doha, it replaced the nearby Doha International Airport as Qatar's principal airport. Formerly known as "New Doha International Airport" (NDIA), Hamad International Airport was originally scheduled to open in 2008, but after a series of costly delays, the airport finally opened on 30 April 2014 with a ceremonial Qatar Airways flight landing from nearby Doha International. Qatar Airways and all other carriers formally relocated to the new airport on 27 May 2014. The airport is named after the previous Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Hamad International Airport became the first Middle Eastern airport to be awarded the Skytrax's World Best Airport for 2021 in the 2021 World Airport Awards, ending the 7-year dominance of Singapore's Changi Airport. Qatar’s Hamad International Airport has been named the World’s Best Airport for the second year running. The announcement took place at the Skytrax 2022 World Airport Awards, held at Passenger Terminal EXPO in Paris, France.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: The planning started in 2003 while the construction began in 2005. The site of the airport (terminal and runway) lies east of the older Doha International Airport. It is spread over an area of , and was set to initially serve airlines that will not utilize lounge access.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: Hamad International Airport was designed to cater for a projected ongoing increase in the volume of traffic. The airport has an initial annual capacity of 29 million passengers, three times the current volume. Upon completion, it will be able to handle 50 million passengers per year, although some estimates suggest the airport could handle up to 93 million per year, making it the second largest airport in the region after Dubai. It is also expected to handle 320,000 aircraft movements and 2 million tonnes of cargo annually. The check-in and retail areas are expected to be 12 times larger than those at the current airport. The airport will be two-thirds the size of Doha city. The airport has an oasis theme. Many of the buildings have a water motif, with wave-styled roofs and desert plants growing in recycled water. The airport is built over , half of which is on reclaimed land.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: The Steering Committee awarded the contract for the development of the airport to Bechtel. The contract includes the design, construction management and project management of the facilities. The terminal and concourses were designed by the architecture firm HOK. Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract for Phase I and II were undertaken by Turkish TAV Construction and Japanese Taisei Corporation.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: Cargo operations began from 1 December 2013, with an inaugural flight by Qatar Airways Cargo arriving from Europe. The original soft launch on 2 April 2013 was cancelled just a few hours prior, and was postponed indefinitely due to unsatisfactory safety related issues that needed further reviewing taking nine months to address. Hamad International Airport was then set to begin passenger operations in January 2014, with a soft opening.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: Qatar Airways threatened a $600 million lawsuit against the joint venture contractor Lindner Depa Interiors for delaying the opening of the airport by failing to complete its lounges on time; LDI stated that it was delayed due to inadequate site access. Qatar Airways later blamed Bechtel for the opening delay in April 2013, citing failures to meet regulatory requirements.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: Hamad International Airport finally began passenger operations on 30 April 2014, with ten initial airlines operating. Qatar Airways and remaining airlines started operations to Hamad Airport on 27 May 2014 at 09:00 (Qatar time).


title: Hamad International Airport

text: An expansion plan announced in September 2015 called for an extension of the check-in area, an expansion of concourses D and E into a 1.3 km long concourse, a new passenger amenity area in the D/E complex with lounges, shops and restaurants. As part of this expansion plan, the Doha Metro was extended to the airport with the opening of the red line airport branch in December 2019.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: In 2016, the airport was named the 50th busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic, serving 37,283,987 passengers, a 20.2% increase from 2015.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: In 2019, the airport witnessed a 12.4% increase in annual passenger traffic. More than 38.8 million passengers arrived at the airport in 2019, up from 34.5 million in 2018.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: On 2 October 2020 a newborn female baby was found abandoned in a bin. In response to this the authorities ordered females of childbearing age from 10 different planes to disembark and undergo a forced vaginal examination. The Qatari Prime Minister issued an apology and ordered an investigation.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: The Australian government "registered its strong disapproval and outrage" at the treatment of Australian women who were subjected to compulsory intimate medical examinations at Doha airport. On 30 October 2020, report by The Guardian stated the apology of Qatari government saying “sincerest apology for what some female travelers went through as a result of the measures” adding “While the aim of the urgently decided search was to prevent the perpetrators of the horrible crime from escaping, the state of Qatar regrets any distress or infringement on the personal freedoms of any traveler caused by this action.” Shortly thereafter the Qatari government cancelled a subsidy for the Australian lamb industry. As of the beginning of 2021 none of the women who were searched have been contacted by the Qatari authorities.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: Concourses D and E are due to be extended with a possible Concourse F although plans are still to be finalised. Terminal 1 features First (called Al Safwa First Class Lounge) and Business Class (called Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge) lounges which were opened by Qatar Airways CEO, Akbar Al Baker on 20 June 2014.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: The most prominent figure inside the airport is a giant bronze statue of a teddy bear with its head in a lamp. The untitled sculpture, often known as "Lamp Bear", is one of three creations by Swiss artist Urs Fischer and is on display at the grand foyer of the airport's duty-free shopping hall. Standing at seven meters tall and weighing approximately 18-20 tons, the statue was previously displayed at the Seagram Building's plaza in New York City before being purchased by a member of the Qatari royal family at a Christie's auction for US$6.8 million.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: In 2018 the airport added a new sculpture in their terminal, called "Small Lie" by American artist Kaws which was a donation from Qatar Museums.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: There were plans to expand the terminal in order to accommodate the increased passengers numbers of the FIFA 2022 World Cup, and to keep up with Qatar Airway's continued passenger growth. The airport handled 34.5 million passengers in 2018 and this is expected to rise to 53 million by 2020. A new central building located between the existing Concourse's D & E will feature a tropical garden with a tall water feature, similar to that found at Singapore Changi airport's Jewel complex. The project will also add of retail and F&B space, and an expanded transfer area. A new Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge will occupy the mezzanine level, and covering it will be the world's largest airport lounge. In addition concourses D & E will be lengthened to accommodate nine additional wide-body aircraft stands.


title: Hamad International Airport

text: The airport has two parallel runways, located from each other, which are designed for simultaneous take-offs and landings. The first is and is considered to be the longest runway in Western Asia, and also one of the longest runways in the world. The second runway is .


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (HSM; , , ), more commonly known as al-Shabaab, is an Islamic fundamentalist Salafi jihadist group which is based in Somalia and active elsewhere in East Africa. It is actively involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War. Even though its membership incorporates Somali nationalist elements, al-Shabaab's central aims are Salafi jihadist. Allegiant to the militant pan-Islamist organization al-Qaeda since 2012, it has also been suspected of forging ties with Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Formed in the mid-2000s as part of the Islamic Courts Union, al-Shabaab came to prominence during the 2006–2009 Somalia War, during which it presented itself as a vehicle for the waging of armed resistance against the Ethiopian occupation. In subsequent years, it became a dominant force in south and central Somalia, defending large swathes of territory by fighting against the African Union Mission to Somalia and the Federal Government of Somalia, as well as the latter's transitional predecessor. The group has also frequently clashed with the Somali Sufi militia Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a as well as with the Islamic State in Somalia. Al-Shabaab gained international prominence due to its recruitment of foreign fighters, including fighters who are from Western countries. Countries which include the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates, have all designated it as a terrorist organization, and the United States has militarily intervened in order to fight against the group.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Between 2011 and 2013, a coalition which mostly consisted of East African forces, led by the Somali government, wrested a significant amount of territory from al-Shabaab, including the capital city, Mogadishu. During the same period, the group was plagued by internal conflicts over its leadership and ideological direction, which intensified when, in February 2012, al-Shabaab's leadership pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. It suffered further military losses in 2014, as a result of Operation Indian Ocean, and the killing of its emir, Ahmed Abdi Godane, in an American drone strike, as well as the killing of other leaders. For several years thereafter, al-Shabaab retreated from the major cities, but it remained influential in many rural areas, and it prioritized guerrilla and terror attacks over territorial acquisitions. It is responsible for many high-fatality attacks, including the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, the October 2017 Mogadishu bombings, the December 2019 Mogadishu bombing, and the October 2022 Mogadishu bombings. In addition to being active in Somalia, it is also active in other East African countries, especially in Kenya, and occasionally, it is also active in Ethiopia. Attendant to its recent resurgence, it was estimated to have increased its combat strength to between 7,000 and 12,000 fighters in February 2022.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Al-Shabaab is also known as Ash-Shabaab, Hizb al-Shabaab ("Party of the Youth") and as the Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations (PRM) (). The term "al-Shabaab" means "the youth" in Arabic.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Although it is unclear when al-Shabaab was formed, it is understood to have originated as a wing of the Islamic Courts Union, an umbrella group which provided "de facto" governance in much of Somalia until the country was invaded by Ethiopia in December 2006. In 2007–8, al-Shabaab established itself as an independent actor, gaining prominence as a vehicle of armed resistance to Ethiopian occupation in the War in Somalia. Many of its early leaders and members previously belonged not only to the Islamic Courts Union but also to the older al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, a group founded on the tenets of Salafism and opposition to clannism. Many early al-Shabaab leaders had also been trained as muhajideen in Afghanistan or Iraq.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: According to the International Crisis Group, Salafism has been the core unifying principle of al-Shabaab, although this principle is not interpreted uniformly by the group's members and leaders. In particular, al-Shabaab officially and generally advocates a form of Salafi jihadism with transnational aims, linking Somali nationalist and local grievances to the plight of Muslims worldwide. Through this lens, incursions into Somalia by Ethiopia – and later by Kenya, the United States, and others – are viewed as continuous with non-Muslim acts of aggression in other Muslim-majority countries. However, this globalist framework is not universal within the group, an ideological fault-line which has sometimes fostered factionalism and internal conflict. Much of al-Shabaab's Somali support base is fiercely nationalist, and sees as its primary goal the establishment of a stable Islamic state inside Somalia, or, more ambitiously, inside so-called Greater Somalia, uniting the ethnic Somali populations of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti. Other domestic supporters are concerned primarily with clan-related and local objectives, and are therefore prone to infighting and shifting alliances.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: However, these ideological differences can accommodate broad opposition within the group to common adversaries – notably opposition to external intervention in Somalia, often publicly expressed in quasi-Qutbist terms; and opposition to the internationally recognised Somali government, which, lacking a basis in religious (Sharia) law, is seen to lack legitimacy. Al-Shabaab hardliners broadly adhere to a Takfiri interpretation of the principle of "al-wala' wal-bara'" (), insofar as it prescribes dissociation from non-Muslims and those perceived as apostates. The group has persecuted Somalia's small Christian minority; and, having desecrated a Sufi mosque and graves on the basis that Sufism is incompatible with Sharia, has clashed with the Sufi militias of Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a. In addition, its statements have expressed anti-Zionist sentiment, and the group claimed that its 2019 DusitD2 complex attack was retaliation against the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In 2017, observers estimated that al-Shabaab comprised between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters. In 2018, the Council of Foreign Relations and United States military revised this figure downwards, estimating 3,000 to 6,000 and 4,000 to 6,000 respectively. Reflecting an apparent al-Shabaab resurgence, the United States Africa Command estimated 5,000 to 10,000 fighters two years later, in 2020. Most recently, an expert report submitted to the United Nations (UN) Security Council in early February 2022 estimated that al-Shabaab's fighting force had grown to between 7,000 and 12,000 fighters. The group is led by a shura council of senior leaders, appointed and assigned portfolios by the emir, and operates several internal security organs, including an intelligence agency, Amniyat, and a police force, Jeysh Al-Hisbah.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Especially in its early years, al-Shabaab was sometimes characterised by Somali opponents as dominated by the Hawiye clan, which is one of the largest clans in Somalia. Hawiye remain influential in the group, and, according to a 2018 analysis by the Somali Hiraal Institute, five of the ten members of the executive shura council were Hawiye, as were about 94 of the top 220 officials. However, al-Shabaab is attached to an ethos of anti-clannism, and has therefore tried to appeal to minority groups and to ensure ethnic and clan diversity among its leadership. It incorporates a relatively large contingent of foreign fighters . Rank-and-file members, though sometimes recruited by force, are also attracted by the regular pay that al-Shabaab offers and by its political propaganda. In the past, many young al-Shabaab recruits were drawn from marginalised southern clans, such as the Jareer. Many are children.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In February 2012, Fu'ad Qalaf Shongole, an al-Shabaab officer with responsibility for "awareness raising", encouraged a Somali gathering to send their unmarried daughters to fight jihad with al-Shabaab, which until then had used only male fighters. However, according to International Crisis Group, women rarely participate directly in military decision-making or operations, though they do play important roles in recruitment, intelligence, and explosives smuggling.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Al-Shabaab rose to prominence as a relatively well-organised militia, garnering popular support from Somalis sympathetic to their opposition to the Ethiopian invasion: though the invasion had fractured the Islamic Courts Union, it galvanised nationalism on which al-Shabaab capitalised, especially for recruitment purposes. In the military arena, al-Shabaab suffered key losses during offensives by the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), which was established in 2007, but during this phase "put down the roots of an enduring insurgency", establishing networks and territorial bases concentrated in rural south-central Somalia.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Having made important territorial gains from mid-2008, al-Shabaab increasingly focused its attention on opposition to the Somali Transitional Federal Government, as the Ethiopian-led war segued into the next phase of the protracted Somali Civil War. By 2009–10, al-Shabaab controlled most of central and southern Somalia (south of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland), and it had formed administrative structures to govern territories under its control. It had particular success building relationships with local leaders in order to build cross-clan coalitions, combining its principled anti-clannism with a "pragmatic clannism": a willingness to manipulate clan networks and exploit inter-clan politics.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In subsequent years, however, al-Shabaab's strong position was significantly weakened, as – in the context of a famine in the region and, simultaneously, a military offensive against the group – the group experienced territorial and strategic setbacks in the military arena; an internal struggle over the group's direction and leadership; and, in response to both, a wave of high-profile defections.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: The group's military fortunes turned with the failure of the August 2010 Ramadan offensive – the inauguration of the Battle of Mogadishu – which resulted in heavy al-Shabaab losses. By August 2011, al-Shabaab had announced a "strategic withdrawal" from Mogadishu, although, from outlying districts, it continued to exert influence in the city and to launch deadly guerrilla attacks against AMISOM and the TFG. In October and November 2011, Kenya and Ethiopia – partnering with local militias – launched offensives against al-Shabaab strongholds: Kenya's Operation Linda Nchi on the southern front, while Ethiopia approached from the west. The group lost territory to both armies, notably losing Baidoa to Ethiopia in February 2012 and losing the port city (and revenue hub) of Kismayo to Kenya in October 2012. Military pressures on the group were sustained into 2013.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Some al-Shabaab members viewed the 2010 Ramadan offensive as disastrously ill-conceived, and subsequent territorial losses galvanised internal opposition to the leadership of Ahmed Abdi Godane, who was publicly named the group's emir in December 2007. As a severe drought afflicted the region, critics, generally associated with the leadership of Hassan Dahir Aweys and Mukhtar Robow, opposed al-Shabaab's response to the resulting famine, particularly its obstruction of foreign humanitarian aid to populations in its territories . More broadly, they argued that the group's authoritarian style of governance, and use of violence, were causing the group to lose public support. Some suggested that these leadership missteps were the result of Godane's lack of clan roots, which they said led him to undervalue the lives both of civilians and of al-Shabaab fighters.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: These criticisms became intertwined with a broader and pre-existing dispute over the increasingly globalist flavour of al-Shabaab's ideology – Godane was among the faction which viewed Somalia as only one battleground of global jihad. Godane's announcement in February 2012 of a merger with al-Qaeda thus also met opposition. Other senior al-Shabaab members met at a conference in Baidabo, and outlined a policy programme which diverged from Godane's: they rejected Godane's proposal to change the group's name to al-Qaeda in East Africa, and resolved to focus on domestic issues rather than global jihad. They also resolved to establish a national shura of Islamic clerics, independent of al-Qaeda control. Godane's rival Aweys declared publicly that, "Al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda are merely a small part of the larger Islamic group and al-Qaeda's ideology should not be viewed as the sole, righteous path for Islam."


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In 2013, these internal rifts led to internecine violence as Godane effected what was virtually a purge of his critics. Among those killed were Ibrahim al-Afghani and three other senior commanders, executed in June; and Omar Shafik Hammami, killed in September. Journalist Simon Tisdall viewed the September 2013 Westgate shopping mall shooting in Nairobi, Kenya as a reflection of the internal power struggle, with Godane's hardline globalist faction seeking to exert its authority.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: From mid-to-late 2011, and into 2012, al-Shabaab faced an increasing number of defections. It was not the first such wave of defections: in particular, in late 2009, after the Ethiopian departure from Somalia, several leaders had defected to the Somali government, citing complaints about al-Shabaab's use of suicide attacks and executions; its "false interpretations of Islam"; and its use of extortion and attitude towards foreign humanitarian aid. Such defections were viewed as strategically important to al-Shabaab's adversaries, not only for their propaganda use but because former militants could provide intelligence about al-Shabaab's combat strategy. However, according to AMISOM and the Somali government, the volume of defections in the period around 2012 was unprecedented, and indicated that al-Shabaab's cohesion and authority were deteriorating: in June 2012, the government said that around 500 al-Shabaab militants had already defected to it, and that more were doing so every day. Al-Shabaab brutalities, which alienated local populations, were again cited as central in motivating defections. On September 5 and September 22, 2012, two large contingents of al-Shabaab fighters – around 200 each time – surrendered to the government coalition in Afmadow and Garsale respectively. Another wave of defections and desertions followed Godane's 2013 purges – Aweys, for example, fled the group in mid-2013.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Following its territorial losses, al-Shabaab reverted to the tactics of asymmetric warfare, launching guerrilla attacks on AMISOM and government positions and territories. Southern commander Aweys had announced this new strategy in a media interview shortly after the withdrawal from Mogadishu in August 2011. Al-Shabaab increasingly avoided direct military combat and large battles, in favour of "dictat[ing] the conflict's pace by undertaking smaller ambushes at locations of its own choosing". It also developed a strategy of maintaining a "semi-territorial presence" in key regions and parts of key cities: while it no longer had exclusive and military authority over substantial territory, it retained a sporadic presence, and therefore significant influence, in many places.Nonetheless, by 2016, al-Shabaab was viewed as significantly weakened by the military campaign against it, with earlier losses compounded in 2014–15 by Operation Indian Ocean, a joint endeavour by AMISOM, the Somali government, and the United States. The Somali government claimed in October 2014 that over 700 al-Shabaab militants had surrendered since September, when it had extended an amnesty offer to them. Reports of further senior defections continued into 2015. Moreover, an American drone strike killed Godane on September 1, 2014; he was succeeded as al-Shabaab leader by Ahmad Umar Abu Ubaidah, who took office the same week. Other senior members were killed in armed clashes or by American drone strikes in 2014 and 2015. According to some reports, since Godane's death, the group has placed less weight on global jihad than on local grievances.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In October 2017, more than 500 people were killed by a suicide truck bombing in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab did not claim responsibility for the attack but was suspected of involvement. In December 2019, another suicide truck bomb marked the beginning of a series of al-Shabaab attacks on the capital city, which continued into 2022. Al-Shabaab also targeted American military personnel in an attack on a Kenyan base in January 2020, and in July 2022 launched an unusually bold, though short-lived, incursion into Ethiopian territory. By 2020, the group's strategy of semi-territorialism allowed it operate freely in much of rural Somalia, with its primary base in the Jubba River Valley, although air strikes against its leaders continued; and it has recently won military successes against the government. It had also expanded its operations in Puntland, prompting a military offensive by Puntland forces in 2021. As of July 2022, al-Shabaab is generally considered to be "resurgent", a situation partly enabled by a reduction in the number of American air strikes, and possibly motivated by competition with Islamic State in Somalia, which has been conducting its own expansionary campaign.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In August 2022, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared "total war" against Al Shabaab during a televised address after the group carried out a deadly hotel attack in Mogadishu and also announced that the Somalia military had regained territory from al Shabaab in the central Galmudug state and Southwest state. Al By September 2022 Somali and ATMIS offensive operations against al-Shabaab, with U.S. support, would escalate to the highest point in five years. The operation, which is considered a combined Somali-ATMIS offensive, began in August 2022 and, with assistance from U.S. airstrikes, has been focused on disrupting al-Shabaab activity in Somalia's central Hiraan region. Other Al Shabaab-controlled areas in southern Somalia have been targeted by the Somalia military as well. On 20 September 2022, as the military operation progressed, a statement was released by the Somali Ministry of Information which revealed that President Sheikh would not offer any other option than surrender for al-Shabaab members.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Although al-Shabaab has disseminated its propaganda by various media, the bulk of its engagement with Somalis in rural areas is either face-to-face or by radio broadcast. Face-to-face, the group holds seminars on Islamic jurisprudence and community meetings on such matters such as grain and livestock distribution. It operates its own radio station, Radio Andalus, mainly operated using relay stations and other equipment seized from private radio stations, including the BBC. Presenters broadcast in Somali, Arabic, Swahili and English. In April 2010, al-Shabaab banned BBC and Voice of America broadcasts on Somali radio, objecting to what they alleged was Christian propaganda. Also in 2010, and prior to its expulsion from Mogadishu the following year, al-Shabaab launched a television news channel, Al-Kataib News. The group has also been known to conduct military parades in its territories, as a show of force.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Al-Shabaab began creating propaganda films early in its campaign against Ethiopian forces, produced by its dedicated media wing, al-Kataib Media Foundation. Since 2009, al-Shabaab's films have become noticeably more "professional", both in their production quality and in their messaging, reportedly with direct support from al-Qaeda's al-Sabab Media Foundation. The early films were distributed primarily, and widely, online, and were primarily used as tools for recruitment, particularly among foreign jihadists. More recent films show al-Shabaab distributing humanitarian aid and participating in other community or religious activities – though others are much more gruesome, displaying the corpses of beheaded members alleged to have been spies. Propaganda films are also occasionally used to attempt to mobilise jihadi activity abroad: in October 2013, one film encouraged British jihadists to follow the example set by Lee Rigby's killers, while a February 2015 film called (without effect) for attacks on shopping malls in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada, and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Al-Shabaab was an early adopter among African insurgents of the Internet, which it uses to distribute its propaganda videos and for various other propaganda functions. Especially in its early years, it used online chatrooms and discussion forums, encouraging foreign fighters and even military commanders to post updates and field public questions about the state of the jihad. Particularly prominent was American-born Omar Shafik Hammami, also known as Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, who for many years kept a video blog about his life in al-Shabaab and who, from 2009, also created and posted raps about jihad. Al-Shabaab also had an official website, which carried official statements and news – including sundry edicts and threats – and religious guidance. Since the site was closed in 2009, it has distributed its press releases and videos using other sympathetic websites, or, more commonly, using social media networks.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Indeed, although al-Shabaab spokesmen occasionally grant interviews to "carefully selected" local and foreign journalists, social media networks have provided an important channel for interaction with the press, as well as for disseminating information and building support. Al-Shabaab has used Facebook, particularly to communicate with the Somali diaspora; and it has made prolific and innovative use of Twitter since late 2011, although its first accounts were active as early as 2009. Online engagement with al-Shabaab surged during Operation Linda Nchi, the Kenyan offensive of 2011–12, when al-Shabaab used Twitter, under the handle @HSMPress, to urge Somalis to take up arms against the Kenyan forces and to portray its own military losses as tactical retreats. In an extreme example of the latter in late 2011, al-Shabaab photos purportedly showed several dozen AMISOM casualties – but, according to an African Union spokesperson, in fact showed al-Shabaab's own casualties dressed in their adversaries' uniforms. What received most attention, however, were tweets al-Shabaab posted mocking the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and sparring with Major Emmanuel Chirchir, then the KDF's official spokesman. Responding to Chirchir's claim that Kismayo had been captured by the KDF, al-Shabaab tweeted that the KDF "boys are a grotesque parody of an army! [Al-Shabaab] can outpace ur world-class runners by far. Indeed, they 'Run like a Kenyan'". Showing uncharacteristic levity, al-Shabaab also suggested by Tweet that it meet a UN official for "a caramel macchiato".


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Most of al-Shabaab's Tweets are in English, suggesting that they are intended for a foreign audience. In 2011, officials in the United States, where Twitter is based, said they were considering having the account closed, but had legal and free speech concerns. Chirchir himself tweeted that such a move would be counterproductive, as "al-Shabaab needs to be engaged positively, and Twitter is the only avenue." Nonetheless, in January 2013, Twitter suspended al-Shabaab's English-language account. Observers guessed that the suspension was a response to the account having issued death threats against Kenyan hostages and against French spy Denis Allex, followed in the latter case by confirmation that the execution had taken place. A new English-language account, opened in February 2013, was closed in September, for unspecified reasons. This suspension also followed an apparent violation of Twitter's rules: al-Shabaab had recently used the account to claim responsibility for an unsuccessful ambush of a convoy carrying Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and to warn that, "next time, you won't be as lucky".


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Al-Shabaab relaunched its English-language Twitter account once again on September 11, 2013. Two weeks later, the group gained notoriety for live-tweeting the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack, "justifying the attack, creating fictional threats, providing news on hostages and mocking the police and military response". The account, which then had 15,000 or more followers, was retweeted several million times before it was shut down by Twitter. And after @HSMPress was deleted, the live updates continued from other, new accounts: over the course of the attack, which lasted several days, at least eight different al-Shabaab-affiliated Twitter accounts were active. Al-Shabaab had opened a new Twitter account by December that year, with an official telling Al Jazeera that, "The aim is to vigorously challenge defamatory reports in the media by presenting an accurate portrayal of the current state of Jihad in Somalia and countering Western, state-sponsored propaganda machines". It has since tweeted, from various accounts, during other attacks; Facebook, too, has had difficulty expeditiously removing graphic al-Shabaab content when it appears on newly created accounts.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In territories it holds, al-Shabaab typically maintains "limited but effective" administrative control over resident populations, providing services – such as dispute resolution through Sharia-based courts – which are sometimes compared favourably to those offered in government-held territories. Al-Shabaab claimed some credit for Somalia's excellent crop yield in early 2010, saying that Somali grain production had flourished due to al-Shabaab's reduction of food imports, and that the policy had redistributed income to poor, rural Somali farmers. However, the group has also allegedly committed widespread human rights abuses against populations in its territories, including through a brutal interpretation and application of Islamic jurisprudence on hudud.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Despite routinely expelling, attacking, and harassing aid workers, al-Shabaab permits some agencies to work in areas under its control. At the height of its territorial control it implemented a system of aid agency regulation, taxation and surveillance. Where agencies are allowed to operate, this is often due to the desire of al-Shabaab to coopt and materially and politically benefit from the provision of aid and services. Senior aid agency representatives often strongly rejected claims that they talked with al-Shabaab, while aid workers working in al-Shabaab-controlled areas often reported they directly negotiated with the group out of necessity. Complaints made against the group include its attacks on aid workers. According to journalist Jon Lee Anderson:The number of people in Somalia who are dependent on international food aid has tripled since 2007, to an estimated 3.6 million. But there is no permanent foreign expatriate presence in southern Somalia, because the Shabaab has declared war on the UN and on Western non-governmental organizations. International relief supplies are flown or shipped into the country and distributed, wherever possible, through local relief workers. Insurgents routinely attack and murder them, too; forty-two have been killed in the past two years alone.In 2009, Godane imposed an al-Shabaab ban on the UN World Food Programme and Western agencies in Somalia. The ban was opposed by other senior members, including Robow and Aweys, but Godane overruled them.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In response to the 2011 Eastern Africa drought, which lasted until early 2012, al-Shabaab announced in July 2011 that it had withdrawn its restrictions on international humanitarian workers. The group also adapted its propaganda strategy to accommodate the changing circumstances. In some cases, group members employed humanitarian aid as a recruitment tool, using relief supplies as bribes and as an incentive to join the militants, whose numbers had decreased due to casualties and defections. Group members dismissed the UN declaration of famine in various regions as grossly exaggerated and banned various organizations from providing aid to those regions. In response, in August 2011, Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali announced the establishment of a new 300-man security force, which, assisted by AMISOM, was tasked with protecting aid convoys from al-Shabaab and with securing IDP camps while relief was being distributed. Although fighting disrupted aid delivery in some areas, humanitarian access to al-Shabaab-controlled areas improved, and a scaling up of relief operations in mid-November prompted the UN to downgrade the humanitarian situation in several regions from famine to emergency levels.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In July 2018, al-Shabaab announced a complete ban on single-use plastic bags within its territory in a broadcast in which it stated that they "pose a serious threat to the well-being of humans and animals alike", and in the same announcement, it also imposed a complete ban on the logging of several species of rare trees. Some have argued that, whilst these environmentally-conscious advances are welcome, they are overshadowed by the group's terrorist activities, whilst others have mocked the United States and other countries for taking less action on climate change than a terrorist group.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Al-Shabaab acknowledged the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic and announced the formation of a coronavirus prevention and treatment committee. In mid-June 2020, the group announced that it had set up a coronavirus treatment centre in Jilib, about south of the capital, Mogadishu.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Al-Shabaab is noteworthy in the region for its extensive recruitment of foreign fighters . These foreign recruits include members of the Somali diaspora or ethnic Somalis overseas; citizens of other East African countries; and citizens of countries further afield, including in the Middle East and the West. Non-Somali fighters have occasionally orchestrated high-profile al-Shabaab attacks, notably the 2010 Kampala bombings and 2019 DusitD2 complex attack in Nairobi. However, of greater importance to al-Shabaab are the combat experience and specialised skills of some, usually Arab, foreign fighters, which have been linked to al-Shabaab's increased sophistication in producing explosives, improved sniper capability, and increased propensity to use suicide attacks. Foreign fighters may also have access to networks which improve al-Shabaab's capacity to recruit and operate in the region, and have made useful contributions to al-Shabaab's propaganda campaign: early Western recruits helped produce al-Shabaab's first English-language propaganda, and, thanks to its East African membership, Swahili remains the second most common language in al-Shabaab publications. Foreign fighters also have symbolic importance for al-Shabaab propaganda: al-Shabaab has intentionally played up the diversity of its recruits as a paean to its pan-Islamism – that is, to demonstrate that it transcends clannism and nationalism, embodying a united transnational ummah.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Foreign recruitment peaked in the period between 2011 and 2013, which was also the period in which the phenomenon received the most attention. The 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia attracted foreign volunteers to al-Shabaab's cause, and, as of 2010, al-Shabaab included an estimated 200–300 foreign fighters, not including a further 1,000 ethnic Somalis from the diaspora. In subsequent years, al-Shabaab recruitment became a concern for the governments of both the United Kingdom and the United States. At a security conference in London in 2010, the former head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, said that "a significant number of U.K. residents" were training with al-Shabaab; the precise number of British recruits was estimated at between 50 and 100 persons. There was also evidence that the group had received funding from Somali residents in Britain. Between 2012 and 2013, several British citizens faced control orders or even criminal charges related to association with al-Shabaab.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Sweden, Denmark, Canada, and the U.S. similarly encountered evidence of citizens' affiliation with al-Shabaab. In the U.S., the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee heard as early as 2009 – from Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center – that American and other foreign fighters were being recruited and trained by al-Shabaab. In 2011, the House Committee on Homeland Security reported that more than 40 Muslim Americans and 20 Canadians had fought with al-Shabaab, and that at least 15 of those volunteers had been killed in Somalia. Later that year, a U.S. military official told the "New York Times" that about 30 U.S. citizens were al-Shabaab fighters. This was a resumption of an earlier trend of al-Shabaab recruitment among Americans, which previously had peaked in 2007–8. Also in 2011, two Somali Americans in Minnesota were convicted of illegally financing al-Shabaab. By mid-2013, observers believed that recruitment of U.S. citizens had subsided.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In general, foreign activity in al-Shabaab has decreased, first, and perhaps most importantly, because the Syrian civil war became the focal point for foreign jihadist recruitment networks. Other factors, however, are more specific to al-Shabaab. One factor was the group's internal struggle of 2011–13: as tensions between Somali and non-Somali members increased, Godane scapegoated the foreigners as the cause of the group's disunity and, during his 2013 purge, executed various foreign recruits . In addition to serving as a disincentive to foreign fighters, this shift reduced the influence of the group's remaining foreign leaders. Moreover, whereas the ascendancy of Godane and his faction had partly internationalized al-Shabaab, in subsequent years, al-Shabaab became (re-)"domesticated": as it made territorial gains, its attention was increasingly consumed by local governance and the management of clan dynamics, activities in which foreign fighters – frequently mistrusted by local populations – lacked utility and influence. As the conflict, and al-Shabaab's priorities, became more localized and clan-based, they also held less appeal for foreign fighters themselves. Foreign fighters also attracted the counterterrorism efforts of foreign countries, and were sometimes suspected of disloyalty and spying by their Somali peers.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: As of 2020, estimates of the number of foreign recruits still active in al-Shabaab ranged from 450 to 2,000. Most of those recruits are from East Africa – primarily Kenya, but also Tanzania and Uganda, all countries in which al-Shabaab recruitment networks are well entrenched. The flow of recruits from Arab countries and the West has diminished substantially since 2014, except for in the case of Yemen. Moreover, few foreign fighters hold strategically important roles in the group. Many are among the rank-and-file of the military wing. Those in leadership positions tend to have prominent, but strategically marginal or mid-level, roles – for example, in managing the group's public relations or external relations, or in supervising and training other foreign recruits. (Godane's nationalist critics, however, argue that earlier, under his leadership, foreign fighters did in fact gain significant influence over the group.) Since 2013, al-Shabaab has also established two external military units, on Godane's initiative: one, in Ethiopia, has struggled, but the other, in the Great Lakes region, has carried out several attacks in Kenya.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Between 2010 and 2012, Hizbul Islam, a smaller group of Somali militants, was merged with al-Shabaab: after suffering military defeats against al-Shabaab in southern towns, Hizbul Islam was officially absorbed by its former rival in December 2010. However, on September 24, 2012, Hizbul Islam announced that it would split from al-Shabaab, claiming the union had only ever been nominal and that the factions' political philosophies had differed irreconcilably. Hizbul Islam said that it welcomed "negotiations with all groups for the interest of Somalia", and added that al-Shabaab had been considerably "weakened" in recent years.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Before 2012, al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab had what academic Daniel Byman calls an "on-again, off-again" relationship, though both groups praised each other online in 2008. During this early period, al-Shabaab occasionally harboured al-Qaeda leaders in Somalia, in exchange for their technical assistance. In September 2009, in a video entitled "At Your Service Osama", al-Shabaab publicly declared allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden – but this reflected an "unrequited courtship", largely ignored by al-Qaeda. However, after bin Laden's death and replacement by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Shabaab became an official al-Qaeda affiliate in February 2012. In a fifteen-minute video message released on February 9, al-Shabaab leader Godane pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and al-Zawahiri on behalf of al-Shabaab. Al-Zawahiri confirmed the alliance, which he said would "please the believers and disturb the disbelievers" and "support the jihadi unity against the Zio-Crusader campaign and their assistants amongst the treacherous agent rulers." The announcement was met with internal opposition among some factions of al-Shabaab .


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: By late 2012, the groups cooperated closely in various arenas, especially indoctrination and training, both in basic infantry skills and in advanced explosives and assassination – after the merger, a corps of al-Qaeda-trained militants moved to Somalia to train members of al-Shabaab. However, al-Shabaab remained "largely independent". Similarly, although al-Shabaab has publicly exploited the al-Qaeda "brand", echoing al-Qaeda ideology in its recruitment videos, it is unclear whether the alliance has affected al-Shabaab's behaviour and aims on the ground. A 2021 statistical analysis suggests that it has not significantly affected al-Shabaab's military strategy. While an al-Shabaab commander has claimed that the group will bring jihad first to East Africa "and afterward, with God's will, to America", an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that the group is far more interested in establishing a fundamentalist government inside Somalia than in carrying out attacks in the West.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In June 2012, General Carter Ham of the U.S. Army said that al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the Nigeria-based Boko Haram were attempting to coordinate their activities, including in funding, training, and explosives. In 2011, Boko Haram's first suicide bomb attack had been preceded by a public statement warning that "our jihadists have arrived in Nigeria from Somalia where they received real training on warfare from our brethren who made that country ungovernable", which analysts understood as an allusion to cooperation with al-Shabaab. However, in the view of some observers, most consequential are al-Shabaab's links to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP is based in Yemen, which has longstanding ties to Somalia, and analyst Katherine Zimmerman told the U.S. Congress that AQAP "almost certainly provided the equipment or the expertise" for al-Shabaab's 2016 laptop bomb.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In early 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) published online the first of a series of videos aimed at al-Shabaab, calling on the group to switch allegiances from al-Qaeda to ISIL and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. These public appeals had reportedly been preceded by informal ISIL attempts to establish a relationship with al-Shabaab. Yet al-Shabaab publicly ignored the overtures. By September 2015, it had issued an internal memo, directed at pro-ISIL elements in its ranks, reaffirming the group's allegiance to al-Qaeda and banning any discussion about ISIL. The group also detained several fighters who had voiced support for ISIL.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In October 2015, senior al-Shabaab commander Abdul Qadir Mumin and approximately 20 of his followers in Puntland pledged allegiance to ISIL, establishing what became Islamic State in Somalia (ISIS). Further defections in al-Shabaab ranks occurred in the border region between Somalia and northern Kenya, leading the head of al-Shabaab in the Lower Shabelle region, Abu Abdalla, to announce that all pro-ISIL members should leave the group or be killed. The groups clashed violently on several occasions, most fiercely during 2015, and al-Shabaab's internal security service continued to arrest, and sometimes execute, suspected ISIS supporters within al-Shabaab's ranks.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Violent conflict between the groups was reinvigorated in 2018 by ISIS provocation, and, in December, al-Shabaab's spokesman announced an offensive – code-named Operation Disease Eradication – against ISIS. The same week, al-Shabaab's general command released an 18-page treatise rebuking ISIS's ideology and listing crimes it had committed under the Quran.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In 2020, the Hiraal Institute estimated that al-Shabaab collected at least $15 million in revenue every month, implying revenue on a similar scale to the government's; and the UN estimates that the group's military budget was approximately $21 million in 2019. In the period after 2014, al-Shabaab established its own Ministry of Finance, and it has cultivated various revenue streams, among which it switches as its military position or political circumstances change.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: During its early years, al-Shabaab received substantial external support in donations from the Somali diaspora or interested international jihadists, enabled by the weakness of the Somalian government's financial regulation framework and the ubiquitous use of the hawala system for receipt of remittances. Although al-Shabaab initially appeared a promising alternative to the Islamic Courts Union, its popularity with diaspora donors declined after the Ethiopian withdrawal and as the group gained a reputation for brutality. Concurrently, however, al-Shabaab increased its ties to other jihadist groups, especially al-Qaeda, which have extensive capacity to generate income in the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa. For example, years before al-Shabaab became an official al-Qaeda affiliate, bin Laden publicly called on Muslims to send money to al-Shabaab. However, over the past decade, the counterterrorism efforts of foreign governments have obstructed international funding sources.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: According to authorities, the Somali state of Puntland is a key transit point for weapons shipments into Somalia from foreign countries – particularly frequent shipments of small arms and ammunition from Yemen, typically transported across the Gulf of Aden in skiffs, and occasionally larger shipments from the Makran coast of Iran. Puntland authorities have also seized Yemeni explosives shipments, which they suspect are the result of cooperation between al-Shabaab and Yemen-based AQAP.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In December 2009, adopting Resolution 1907, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea, accusing the country of arming and financing militia groups, including al-Shabaab, in southern Somalia's conflict zones. Reports in 2010 and 2011 by a UN International Monitoring Group alleged continuing Eritrean support to Somali rebels – including, in the latter year, about $80,000 in monthly financial support and two air deliveries of weapons – but the Eritrean government emphatically denied the accusations, describing them as "concocted, baseless and unfounded". The International Crisis Group added some credence to Eritrea's denials, suggesting that historical Eritrean support to Somali miilitants had been aimed at undermining Ethiopia during its 2006–9 invasion, and that Hizbul Islam was more likely a recipient than al-Shabaab.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: On July 5, 2012, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on Eritrea's intelligence chief and a high-ranking military officer, who allegedly facilitated support to al-Shabaab. However, later that year, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea reported that it had found no evidence of direct Eritrean support to al-Shabaab in the preceding year. Between then and 2017, successive annual reports of the Monitoring Group found no evidence for Eritrean involvement, while noting that Eritrea had not provided full access to investigators; nonetheless, the UN Security Council did not enact the group's recommendation to lift its sanctions on Eritrea until November 2018.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: As al-Shabaab expanded its territorial control, it was able to augment its internal funding through illicit markets and local populations. The smuggling of charcoal has been an important source of income for the group since it first gained control of Somali port cities, especially Kismayo. Calculating that al-Shabaab was earning between $15 million and $50 million annually from illegal trade, the UN banned Somali charcoal imports. The group also profits from involvement in – or taxation of – the smuggling and sale of ivory, sugar, and, reportedly, heroin; and it has been implicated in illegal mining and minerals exports in East Africa. There is some evidence that al-Shabaab has profited from piracy. In 2011, the head of the UN's counter-piracy division, Colonel John Steed, warned that there was circumstantial evidence that al-Shabaab increasingly sought to cooperate with pirate gangs and other criminal organizations. Further reports suggested that Al-Shabaab members had extorted pirates, demanding protection money equivalent to 20% of the pirates' ransom proceeds, but did not provide evidence that al-Shabaab was itself involved in piracy.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Also in the 2008–11 period, al-Shabaab established a sophisticated taxation system, framed as a form of zakat, in line with sharia, but often resembling extortion. Al-Shabaab taxes may apply to clans, traders, corporations, farmers, or livestock herders – in fact, livestock are sometimes stolen outright by al-Shabaab militants, with the theft framed as a kind of pre-emptive in-kind taxation. Humanitarian aid agencies are also taxed or extorted, in exchange for permission to operate inside certain territories ; and al-Shabaab has been known to execute kidnappings for ransom. In recent years, facing territorial losses in urban areas, al-Shabaab has had less recourse to previous revenue streams – notably the charcoal trade, through Kismayo, and the remittance economy – and therefore has relied more heavily on extracting zakat. The development of its security and intelligence services has allowed it to expand its tax base by imposing taxes even in areas outside its territorial control: according to the Hiraal Institute, more than half of al-Shabaab's revenue in 2019–20 came from Mogadishu, whose major companies are taxed at 2.5% of their annual profits. Indeed, a commander in the Somali army confessed to paying tax to al-Shabaab despite being at war with it. The group has been known to punish non-payment severely, including by blockading villages under threat of starvation.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: Either directly or indirectly through black markets, al-Shabaab has access to arms intended for the Somali government. In 2018 and 2019, expert reports to the UN Security Council found that government military equipment enters the black market, where some of it is sold to al-Shabaab militants. In some cases, senior government officials orchestrate large-scale diversions of government arms and ammunition; in others, low-ranking members of the security forces sell their weapons for subsistence. An earlier report in 2014 had alleged that government officials were actively involved in the direct supply of governments arms to al-Shabaab. The group has also been known to infiltrate government institutions, as became clear when regional government employees carried out al-Shabaab's 24 July 2019 Mogadishu bombing, which killed Mogadishu Mayor Abdirahmean Omar Osman.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: In 2012, with the support of the Somali government, the United States began issuing bounties for al-Shabaab members under its Rewards for Justice Program. On June 7, the U.S. Department of State offered a total of $33 million in bounties for information leading to the capture of any of seven senior commanders, including $7 million for Godane, then the group's emir, and $5 million for Robow, then his deputy. In response, al-Shabaab's Fu'ad Qalaf issued a mock bounty of his own, promising ten camels to anyone possessing information on U.S. President Barack Obama, and a further, less valuable, reward of ten cocks and ten hens for information on Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State. On an official state visit to Mogadishu, top U.S. envoy Johnnie Carson dismissed the counter-offer as "absurd". He also announced that the U.S. would impose sanctions, including visa and travel bans and asset freezes, on anyone attempting to thwart the ongoing political transition in Somalia.


title: Al-Shabaab (militant group)

text: On March 21, 2013, the U.S. Department of State offered $5 million apiece for information on two American senior al-Shabaab commanders, Omar Shafik Hammami and Jehad Serwan Mostafa. On March 15, 2014, it issued three further bounties, including one on Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir, who it said coordinated al-Shabaab's recruitment activities in Kenya. On September 27, 2014, after Godane's death, the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency announced its own bounty, offering $2 million for information leading to the arrest of the new emir, Umar, and a separate $1 million reward for information leading to his killing. Several further Somali bounties were issued on April 10, 2015, with rewards ranging between $100,000 and $250,000. In a separate programme, on April 3, 2015, the Kenyan government offered KSh. 20 million ($215,000) for information leading to the arrest of Mohamed Mohamud, a commander of al-Shabaab's operations in Kenya.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Cocteau Twins was a Scottish rock band active from 1979 to 1997. They were formed in Grangemouth by Robin Guthrie (guitars, drum machine) and Will Heggie (bass), adding Elizabeth Fraser (vocals) in 1981 and replacing Heggie with multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde in 1983. The group earned critical praise for their ethereal, effects-laden sound and the soprano vocals of Fraser, whose lyrics often eschew any recognisable language. They pioneered the 1980s alternative rock subgenre of dream pop.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: After signing with the British record label 4AD in 1982, they released their debut album "Garlands" later that year. The addition of Raymonde in 1983 solidified their final lineup, which produced their biggest hit in the UK, "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops", peaking at No. 29 on the UK Singles Chart. In 1988, Cocteau Twins signed with Capitol Records in the United States, distributing their fifth album, "Blue Bell Knoll", through a major label in the country. After the 1990 release of their most critically acclaimed album, "Heaven or Las Vegas", the band left 4AD for Fontana Records, where they released their final two albums.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: After nearly 20 years together, the band disbanded in 1997 in part due to issues stemming from the disintegration of Fraser and Guthrie's romantic relationship. In 2005, the band announced that they would reunite to headline Coachella and embark on a world tour but the reunion was cancelled a month later after Fraser refused to perform on stage with Guthrie. In a 2021 interview, Raymonde confirmed that Cocteau Twins "will never reform".


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Guthrie and Heggie, both from Grangemouth, Scotland, formed the band in 1979. At a local disco called The Hotel International in 1981, they met the 17-year-old Fraser when Guthrie was DJing, and she became the group's vocalist.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Prior to releasing their debut album, the band recorded a four track session for John Peel in June 1982, including "Wax and Wane" and "Garlands". Their debut LP "Garlands", released by 4AD in July 1982, was an instant success, peaking at number 2 in the indie albums chart in the UK. "NME"s Don Watson compared the style of the band to gothic rock bands such as Gene Loves Jezebel and Xmal Deutschland, while "Spin" magazine's Sue Cummings compared it retrospectively to Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus. "Sounds" also linked them to Joy Division. In 1983, the band released a second EP, "Peppermint Pig".


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Cocteau Twins' sound on their first three recordings relied on the combination of Heggie's rhythmic basslines, Guthrie's minimalist guitar melodies, and Fraser's voice. The band's next full-length LP record, "Head over Heels", relied solely on the latter two, following Heggie's amicable departure after the tour that followed the release of "Peppermint Pig" (he would later join Lowlife). This led to the characteristic Cocteau Twins sound: Fraser's voice, by turns ethereal and operatic, combined with increasingly effects-heavy guitar playing by Guthrie (who has often said that he is far more interested in the way the guitar is recorded than in the actual notes being played, though he later admitted that his reliance on effects and layering was initially due to his own technical limitations).


title: Cocteau Twins

text: In 1983 the band participated in 4AD's This Mortal Coil project, which spawned a cover version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" (performed by Guthrie and Fraser). Despite appearing under the This Mortal Coil name, the cover has subsequently become one of the best-known Cocteau Twins tracks. During the TMC sessions, Guthrie and Fraser became acquainted with another project contributor, multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde (formerly a member of Drowning Craze), who joined Cocteau Twins later that year.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: With Raymonde, the band released a series of critically acclaimed albums and EPs that explored their new style. These included "The Spangle Maker" (1984), "Treasure" (1984), "Aikea-Guinea" (1985), "Tiny Dynamine" (1985), "Echoes in a Shallow Bay" (1985), and "Love's Easy Tears" (1986). Raymonde, who was called in to work on the second album by This Mortal Coil, did not participate in the recording of the fourth Cocteau Twins LP, "Victorialand" (1986), a predominantly acoustic record which featured only Guthrie and Fraser. Raymonde returned to the group for "The Moon and the Melodies" (1986), a collaboration with ambient composer Harold Budd, which was not released under the Cocteau Twins name.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: In 1985 4AD signed an agreement with Relativity Records for distribution of Cocteau Twins releases in the US and other territories. To commemorate the event, the compilation "The Pink Opaque" (1985) was released as a way of introducing the new, broader audience to the band's back catalogue.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: While remaining a 4AD band internationally, Cocteau Twins finally signed a major-label contract with Capitol Records in 1988 for distribution in the United States, and released their fifth album, "Blue Bell Knoll", in September of that year. "Carolyn's Fingers" became the band's biggest hit in the U.S., peaking at No. 2 on "Billboard"'s Alternative Songs chart.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: The group released "Heaven or Las Vegas" in late 1990. The most commercially successful of their many recordings, the album rose to the higher reaches of the UK Albums Chart immediately after its release. Despite the success of the record and the subsequent concert tours, not everything was well with the band. They parted ways with 4AD following "Heaven or Las Vegas" partly because of conflicts with the label's founder Ivo Watts-Russell, and were close to breaking up over internal problems due in large part to Guthrie's substance abuse.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: While on their international tour supporting "Heaven or Las Vegas", the group signed a new recording contract with Mercury Records subsidiary Fontana for the UK and elsewhere, while retaining their US relationship with Capitol. In 1991, 4AD and Capitol released a box set that compiled the band's EPs from 1982 to 1990, and also included a bonus disc of rare and previously unreleased material.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Fraser and Guthrie ended their 13-year relationship in 1993, and by this time had a young child, Lucy Belle, born in 1989. The band's seventh LP, "Four-Calendar Café", their first since Fraser and Guthrie's separation, was released in late 1993. The band explained that "Four-Calendar Café" was a response to the turmoil that had engulfed them in the intervening years, with Guthrie entering rehab and quitting alcohol and drugs, and Fraser undergoing psychotherapy.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: 1995 saw the release of two new EPs: "Twinlights" and "Otherness". Some of the tracks on "Twinlights" and "Otherness" were versions of songs from the band's eighth album, "Milk & Kisses" (1996). The record saw the return of more heavily layered guitars, and Fraser began once again to obscure her lyrics, though not entirely. Two singles were taken from the album: "Tishbite" and "Violaine"; both exist in two CD versions, with different B-sides included on each. The band, augmented by an extra guitarist and a drummer, toured extensively to support the album, their last for Mercury/Fontana. A new song, "Touch Upon Touch", which debuted during the live shows and was recorded later in 1996 was also one of the two songs written and arranged by Fraser, Guthrie and Raymonde for Chinese pop singer Faye Wong for her Mandarin album "Fuzao" released in June 1996, the other being "Tranquil Eye" from "Violaine" released in October 1996.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: In 1997, while recording what was to have been their ninth LP, the trio disbanded over irreconcilable differences in part related to the breakup of Guthrie and Fraser. While a number of songs were partially recorded and possibly completed, the band has stated that they will likely never be finished or released in any form.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: In 1999 Bella Union, the record label founded by Guthrie and Raymonde, released a double-CD Cocteau Twins compilation entitled "BBC Sessions". The collection is a complete record of the band's appearances on UK radio programs from 1982 to 1996, with rare and unreleased material included. In 2000, 4AD released "Stars and Topsoil", a compilation of selected songs picked by the band members that had been released during their years with 4AD; all recordings had been digitally remastered by Guthrie. Finally, in 2003, 4AD followed "Stars and Topsoil" with the release of digitally remastered versions of the first six Cocteau Twins LPs.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: On 31 January 2005, Cocteau Twins announced that they would be reforming to perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on 30 April 2005, and later indicated that additional tour dates would be added. However on 16 March, the reunion was cancelled after Fraser announced that she would not take part. In a 2009 interview, Fraser said she could not go through the pain of sharing the stage with her former lover Guthrie, the issue behind the band's 1997 breakup. Raymonde revealed that the band had also booked a 55-date world tour, which would have paid him £1.5 million. Later in 2005, 4AD released a worldwide limited edition of 10,000 compilation box set titled "Lullabies to Violaine", a 4-disc set that details every single and EP released from 1982 to 1996. This was shortly followed up by two 2-disc sets of the same names, known as Volume 1 and Volume 2.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Since March 2007, the band has started podcasts of exclusive material. On 6 October 2008, Cocteau Twins were awarded the Q Awards Inspiration Award, which they accepted in a rare collective live appearance.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: In 2022, Fraser, Guthrie and Raymonde were awarded with the Visionary Award by The Ivors Academy. Fraser and Guthrie attended the award ceremony in London in May 2022 in a rare public appearance since the band's disbandment in 1997.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: The former members of Cocteau Twins have remained active musically in the years since the band's demise. In addition to forming Bella Union, Guthrie and Raymonde have produced releases from new bands signed to that label.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Raymonde released the solo album "Blame Someone Else" as the first release on Bella Union. He also co-produced the posthumous album by Billy Mackenzie from the Associates, then went on to produce several Domino Records artists like James Yorkston, Archie Bronson Outfit (whom he later managed) and Clearlake. More recently he has produced the UK band the Duke Spirit, London-based duo Helene, former Golden Virgins frontman Lucas Renney and has mixed the Mercury Prize nominated album "The End of History" by Fionn Regan. In his role running Bella Union, he has discovered such artists as Laura Veirs, Fleet Foxes, Midlake, Lift to Experience, the Low Anthem, I Break Horses, the Czars and John Grant. The label is renowned for its long-term relationships with its artists, such as Beach House who have released all four of their albums with Bella Union, as have Dirty Three, Midlake etc. Raymonde picked up the Independent Record Company of the Year award at the Music Week Awards (as voted by UK independent retailers) in 2010, 2012 and 2014.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Guthrie has released six solo albums – "Imperial", "Continental", "Carousel", "Emeralds", "Fortune", and "Pearldiving"– and eight EPs. He toured extensively with his band Violet Indiana, which included ex-Cocteau Twins guitarist Mitsuo Tate in the line-up. He has also scored the music for three movies — Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin" (in collaboration with Harold Budd), Dany Saadia's "3:19 Nada Es Casualidad" (a Mexican/Spanish production), and again with Gregg Araki and Harold Budd on the score and the soundtrack of "White Bird in a Blizzard". He reunited with Budd to collaborate on two companion albums, "Before the Day Breaks" and "After the Night Falls", and the albums "Bordeaux", "Winter Garden" (a collaboration that included Italian electronica artist Eraldo Bernocchi), and "Another Flower", which was released after Budd's passing in 2020. In 2006, Guthrie produced three songs on Mahogany's "Connectivity". He also produced and played guitar on Apollo Heights debut album, "White Music for Black People".


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Fraser provided guest vocals on the Future Sound of London's single "Lifeforms" (1993), vocals for three songs on Massive Attack's "Mezzanine" in 1998 (as well as touring with them several times), and for other musical projects and groups. Notably, she wrote the lyrics and sang the vocals for "Teardrop" by Massive Attack which was released as a single in 1998 and reached number 10 in the UK singles chart It has been speculated that she has been working on a solo album, though details of this are as yet unavailable. Fraser provided the vocals for "Lament for Gandalf" in "". In 2000 she sang with Peter Gabriel on "Ovo (The Millennium Show)". In 2005, she worked with Breton musician Yann Tiersen on two songs for his album "Les retrouvailles". In 2009, she released the single "Moses" on Rough Trade.


title: Cocteau Twins

text: Cocteau Twins' early recordings were classified in the gothic rock and post-punk genres. The band's influences at the time they formed included The Birthday Party (drummer Phill Calvert encouraged the group to sign to 4AD), Sex Pistols, Kate Bush and Siouxsie and the Banshees (Fraser had Siouxsie tattoos on her arms for several years). The band was named after the early Simple Minds song "The Cocteau Twins" (later rewritten as "No Cure"). As the band's sound developed, their subsequent music was classified as dream pop and ethereal wave. Cocteau Twins' music influenced numerous artists in different genres, including Deftones, the Weeknd, Napalm Death, John Grant, Prince, Sigur Rós and Massive Attack.


title: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

text: Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth largest city in Florida. Along with Miami and Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale is one of the three principal cities that comprise the Miami metropolitan area, which had a population of 6,166,488 in 2019.