Such A Year!, 2015 In Review

2015, not exactly a year worth remembering in my book!

January
Twelve Are Killed in Terrorist Attack at Newspaper in Paris (Jan. 7): Two masked gunmen storm the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly magazine, in Paris, and kill 12 people, including the paper's top editor, Stephane Charbonnier, several cartoonists, and two police officers.

Boko Haram Launches Deadly Assault on Baga (Jan. 8): Boko Haram takes over Baga, Nigeria, the only major town in Borno state to resist being taken over by the group. News reports say the militants burned the city to the ground and massacred hundreds, if not thousands, of citizens, making it one of the most deadly assaults by Boko Haram.

February
Denmark Sees Worst Terrorist Attack in Thirty Years (Feb. 14): Two people are killed in two attacks. In the first attack, Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein fires into a cafe where Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks is speaking. Vilks, who is on a list of Al-Qaeda targets for his Prophet Muhammad caricature, is unharmed in the attack. One man is killed, and three police officers are wounded.

March
The Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Mosque Attacks as Violence Escalates in Yemen
Troops loyal to Yemen's President Hadi and those allied with the Houthis and former president Saleh, Hadi's rival, battle for control of the international airport in the southern port city of Aden. After pitched battles, Hadi's forces retake the airport and seize a Special Security Force base, which is controlled by Saleh. Hadi's presidential compound is hit by warplanes believed to be under the command of either Saleh or the Houthis. The Houthis retreat and call for talks and an end to the fighting. (Mar. 20): Two coordinated attacks on Zaydi Shiite mosques in Sana kill about 140 civilians during prayers. Sana Province, an affiliate of the Islamic State, says it is responsible for the attacks. The attacks highlight the deteriorating security conditions in Yemen, a terrorist training ground. The U.S. has counter-terrorism advisers based in Yemen, and after the attacks it withdraws 125 members of the Special Operations unit. (Mar. 22): The Houthis take control of Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city. They start sending weapons and troops to Taiz, signaling plans to continue the fight against Hadi and his forces. Taiz is about 120 miles from Aden. (Mar. 26): In an attempt to stop the Houthi advance, Saudi Arabia launches an offensive on Houthi targets in Yemen. More than 100 Saudi jets are involved in the airstrikes that cripple the Houthi's air force. (Mar. 30): A Saudi-led airstrike hits a camp for displaced civilians, killing as many as 40 people. Iran backs the Houthis, and the involvement of Saudi Arabia runs the risk of inflaming tension or creating a broader conflict in the Middle East.

April
I opt for an early foot rebuild operation.

Somalian Militants Continue to Target Non-Muslims: Shabab militants attack Garissa University College in northeast Kenya. In a daylong siege, the militants separate Muslims and non-Muslims, sparing Muslims. The non-Muslims are taken hostage and more than 140 are killed. Security officials free the surviving hostages and kill the four gunmen. In a statement, Shabab says the attack was a planned "operation against the infidels."

Nigerian Army Frees Boko Haram Hostages: Forces in Nigeria advance into the Sambisa Forest and begin freeing the women and children who have been held as hostages by Boko Haram. (Apr. 28): Almost 300 hostages are freed. (Apr. 29): A firefight between the Nigerian army and Boko Haram kills over 400 Boko Haram rebels. One woman is killed and eight others injured. (Apr. 28): The Nigerian military destroys 13 Boko Haram camps and frees more women and children. By the end of April, close to 700 hostages are rescued.

 A magnitude-7.8 earthquake strikes central Nepal, near the capital, Katmandu, killing nearly 4,000 people, injuring tens of thousands, and damaging or destroying thousands of structures, including the treasured Dharahara Tower and the temple complex Bhaktapur Durbar Square. It causes avalanches on Mt. Everest, which kills at least 17 people. The earthquake is felt throughout the country and affects others in Asia. Continuous aftershocks complicate rescue efforts and further traumatize a nation stunned by catastrophic loss.

May
My new foot works wonderfully!  The titanium internals even allow me to wiggle my toes!  But, my ankle snaps in half!  So rebuild on ankle and in a titanium brace.

Ireland Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage in Historic Vote: Ireland becomes the first country to legalize same-sex marriage in a national referendum. Turnout for the vote is 60.5%. Of those who vote, 62.1% choose in favor of changing the country's constitution to allow same-sex marriage. The vote comes 22 years after Ireland decriminalized homosexuality. The referendum's result shows how quickly the historically conservative country is changing. Of the outcome, Prime Minister Enda Kenny says, "With today's vote we have disclosed who we are: a generous, compassionate, bold and joyful people."

June
Seifeddine Rezgui, opens fire at the Port El Kantaoui resort, killing 38 tourists. It is the second attack on tourists in Tunisia in three months. In March, at attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis killed 22 people. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for both attacks.

July
Not much in the world news.

I am broken physically, mentally and spiritually by a series of operations, high fevers and disease.  Ultimately, whatever remained of me no longer mattered.

August
During the summer of 2015, the Balkans route replaces the Mediterranean as the most traveled path by migrants. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees projects that 3,000 people a day will attempt to cross the Balkans to reach Western Europe in the coming months. The German government estimates that 800,000 migrants will seek asylum there by the end of 2015, coming from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan to escape war and conflict. Europeans react to the immigration crisis in different ways. To shut off migrants, a fence is being built in Hungary along the border it shares with Serbia. More than 200 attacks on migrants have happened in Germany this year, including two fires set to asylum seeker shelters in August. The bodies of 71 migrants are found near Vienna. In Rome, migrants are evacuated by police after a protest against them turned violent. Macedonia declares a temporary state of emergency while dealing with the increasing number of migrants passing through on their way to Western Europe.

ISIS militants destroy several important antiquities, including the Temple of Baalshamin, one of the most majestic and well-preserved structures in Palmyra, and a 5th-century Roman Catholic monastery. Militants also behead Khaled Asaad, the 81-year-old former director of antiquities at Palmyra. The militants reportedly torture him for information about unexcavated treasures in the city.

September
I begin physical therapy with my new foot and ankle!  All is well.

The immigration crisis in Europe intensifies throughout September. Migrants continue to flee war and conflict in Afghanistan, Syria, and regions of Northern Africa, pouring into the Balkans at a rate of about 3,000 a day. They hope to end up in Western Europe, but many of those nations only offer refuge to a small number of migrants. The impasse creates a crisis in Hungary, where thousands of migrants are stuck at Budapest's Keleti train station as they wait for officials to decide their fate. Hungary responds to the influx by building 109-foot razor-wire fence along the Serbian border and passing laws allowing the arrest of migrants who attempt to cross into Hungary from Serbia illegally. (Sept. 14): European Union officials meet to decide on how to respond to the crisis. However, no agreement is made. Officials cannot agree on a proposal by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a plan that would give an additional 120,000 refugees asylum within the European Union countries.

The Taliban seizes control over Kunduz, a northern Afghanistan city. It is the first major city that the Taliban has captured in over a decade. Afghan officials respond by saying that a counterattack is coming. (Sept. 29): Afghan forces launch their counterattack to retake Kunduz.

An 8.3 magnitude earthquake hits Chile, killing at least five people and causing one million people to evacuate. It is the largest earthquake the country has seen in years.

October
Revenge of that horrible summer infection returns and costs me a foot and part of a leg.

Two separate explosions kill nearly 100 people during a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey's capital. Hundreds more are wounded in what is the deadliest attack in Turkey in years. The two explosions happen 50 meters from each other and are almost simultaneous, happening just seconds apart near Ankara's main train station. No one immediately claims responsibility for the bombings. However, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that there are "strong signs" that suicide bombers have been behind the attack. The attacks come at what is already a tense time in Turkey, which has taken in more refugees than any other country from its war-torn neighbor Syria. Plus, the renewed fight with the Kurdish rebels in recent months has killed hundreds. After the explosions, protesters take to Ankara's streets to express their outrage over the bombings.

 During the first two weeks of Oct. 2015, 32 Palestinians and seven Israelis are killed in what was the biggest spike in violence the area has seen in recent years. The violence breaks out in part over what the Palestinians see as increased encroachment by Israelis on the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site important to both Muslims and Jews. However, the violence quickly spreads beyond Jerusalem.

Hurricane Patricia becomes the most powerful tropical cyclone ever measured in the Western Hemisphere when its winds reach an unprecedented 200 mph. Beginning as a tropical cyclone in the eastern Pacific, Patricia rapidly intensifies into a Category 5 hurricane and also breaks the record for the lowest pressure (880 millibars) of any hurricane in history.

 A 7.5 magnitude earthquake strikes South Asia. At least 364 people are killed. More than 2,000 are injured. Thousands of buildings and homes are destroyed. Many of the hardest hit areas are in remote, mountainous areas, which are difficult for rescue teams to reach. The earthquake's epicenter is just north of Alaqahdari-ye Kiran wa Munjan, Afghanistan. The majority of the deaths and injuries are in Pakistan.

Airbus A321-200, an 18-year-old Russian passenger plane, crashes just 20 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. All 224 people on board are killed. Investigators exploring the debris say that the plane's fuselage disintegrated in the air while flying over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The cause of the disintegration is not immediately known. However, The Sinai Province of the Islamic State, an ISIS offshoot, claims responsibility for bombing the plane. 

November
ISIS launches three coordinated attacks in Paris, killing 129 people and wounding hundreds. Eighty-nine people die in an assault at a concert hall, the Bataclan, where an American rock band, the ironically-titled Eagles of Death Metal, is performing at the time. Dozens of others are killed in attacks on restaurants and a soccer stadium where France is playing a match against Germany. Seven of the eight terrorists die during the attacks. French authorities are still looking for the last remaining attacker. The attacks are the worst violence in France since World War II. French president François Hollande calls the attack "an act of war," and retaliates with airstrikes on Raqqa, Syria, ISIS's self-declared capital. (Nov. 16): The United States joins France in the airstrikes, sending warplanes to Syria. (Nov. 17): Hours after Russia acknowledges that a terrorist bomb brought down the Russian passenger plane on Oct. 31, President Vladimir Putin agrees to join with France in the fight against ISIS. Putin orders a Russian missile cruiser to go to Syria and cooperate with French troops "as with allies." (Nov. 18): Police conduct a raid in a northern suburb of Paris. During the raid, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian terrorist suspected of planning the Paris attacks, is killed. At least one other person dies in the raid. Investigators have found evidence that Abaaoud, an ISIS fighter, has been involved in at least four foiled terrorist plots in France this year, including the train attack in August.

Islamic extremists storm into the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali's capital. At least 170 people are taken hostage. The militants are armed with grenades and guns. U.S. and French special operation forces work quickly with Malian troops and take back the hotel floor by floor. At least 27 people are killed, including two of the attackers. An extremist group led by Moktar Belmoktar, a former al-Qaeda commander, claims responsibility for the attack.

December
Fourteen people are killed and more than 20 wounded when two people open fire at a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center, a service facility for people with disabilities and special needs in San Bernardino, California. The suspects, husband and wife Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, are killed in a shootout with police after the rampage.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at in the doorway of a Shiite mosque at the end of prayer in Baghdad. Eleven people were killed with twenty wounded, all civilians. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

Three female suicide bombers attacked markets in different areas of the island Loulou Fou on the Chadian side of Lake Chad, 27 were killer plus the 3 bombers.

Several suicide bombers penetrated the security of a Kandahar Airfield, barricading themselves into an old school building that now contains shops and battled with Afghan soldiers for few hours. The Afghan defence ministry said 50 civilians and members of the security forces had been killed, along with 11 Taliban. A further 35 people were injured, it said. Taliban claimed responsibility.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at in the doorway of a Shiite mosque at the end of prayer in Baghdad. Eleven people were killed with twenty wounded, all civilians. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

Three truck bombs killed up to 60 people and injured more than 80 in the town of Tell Tamer in Syria's northeastern Al Hasakah province. The blasts struck near a Kurdish militia forces field hospital and in the crowded Souk Al Jumla market square, where the majority of the fatalities occurred.

Militants detonated a car bomb near an hospital in central Homs, Syria killing sixteen civilians and wounding another 54. ISIL has claimed responsibility.

Nigerian Boko Haram Islamists, at least some using machetes, attacked residents of the villages of Warwara, Mangari, and Bura-Shika, according to a civilian helping the Nigerian military in its fight against Boko Haram. Thirty were killed, an additional twenty were wounded, and the villages were set on fire, as reported by the vigilante.

A bombing occurred at a clothes bazaar in Pakistan’s Parachinar area in the Kurram Valley. It was not clear whether the bombing was a suicide attack or a remotely controlled detonation. The blast killed 23 people and another 30 were injured.

Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in restaurants in the Kurdish controlled northeastern Syrian town Kamishli, targeting the town's Kurdish and Assyrian Christian populations: 16 killed and 35 injured.

In all, there were over 345 separate terrorist attacks worldwide in 2015!  Yeah, not a year to write home about!