Boys

Since the Beach Boys are one of the handful of best rock groups in history and this is their home town, it is no wonder they received a series of standing ovations over the weekend at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Though the group played the Whisky a few nights last fall, the Saturday night concert was in a real sense a homecoming for the group that popularized Southern California girls, surfing and other teen-oriented activities during the 1960s.

Along with record producer Phil Spector, the Beach Boys were the most important and permanent force in rock music in the 1960s before the rise of the Beatles and the many other English groups. Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ leader, captured teen themes and moods better than anyone since Chuck Berry.

Though Brian watched it all from the wings Saturday (he has not been a regular member of the Beach Boys’ concert lineup for years now), the rest of the Beach Boys went through some of their early hits (such as “I Get Around” and “Good Vibrations”) and some of their more recent recordings for nearly two hours, enjoying it all apparently as much as the capacity audience.

Classic stories from the Los Angeles Times’ 143-year archive

Since then, only The Band, perhaps, has come close to the smooth use of harmony in rock. Similarly, the Beach Boys have an instrumental discipline that allows them to integrate the traditional rock unit (drums, bass, guitar) with piano and a five-piece brass section perfectly. The focus in the Beach Boys’ music is always crisp. The songs move forward with economy and direction. There is no flashy, self-defeating, self-indulgence in the music.

While the early songs continue to receive the greatest audience response (there were audience requests for “Surfin’ U.S.A.” all night), the Beach Boys have moved forward steadily since the mid-1960s when their “Pet Sounds” album became a mini-classic. The group’s current “Sunflower” album was named one of the year’s best by several rock reviewers.

But the group continues to have an identity crisis. The problem is that a large share of the rock audience continues to think of the Beach Boys in the past tense. Most of the post-”Pet Sounds” work has gone unheard. The group’s last top-10 record was in 1966.

In recent months, the Beach Boys (Dennis and Carl Wilson, Alan Jardine, Mike Love and Bruce Johnson) have begun an active campaign to upgrade its image. They recently toured Europe, have scheduled some key U.S. concerts (including New York’s Carnegie Hall on Wednesday) and plan some further promotion of the “Sunflower” album. If the rock community (which often tends to pay more attention to new acts and trends than to established talents) will give them a chance, the Beach Boys may make it to the top once again.

It should be pointed out, however, the Beach Boys were guilty of some sloppiness Saturday. They should stick to business between songs rather than slow down the pacing by unnecessary chatter. And, there’s no reason they should waste time allowing Bruce Johnson to sing Elton John’s “Your Song.” The group has too much at stake now not to make every moment on stage count.

WATCH Brian Wilson’s last ever performance after it was announced that the Beach Boys founder has died aged 82.

The legendary singer-songwriter – who was living with a degenerative disorder similar to dementia – last sang publicly in 2022.

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Performing at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, the icon belted out a range of historic tracks.

He performed the famous tune Surfin’ USA, Help Me Rhonda and California Girls.

Wilson appeared onstage as part of his 2022 US Summer Tour in July of that year.

Today, the music legend’s family announced the tragic news that he passed away.

In a post shared on Instagram on Wednesday, Wilson’s family wrote: “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away.

“We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving.

“We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy.”

Tributes are starting to roll in from fans and celebrities alike.

The Rolling Stones legend Ronnie has lead the tributes to the star and confirmed his world is “in mourning” following the passing of Brian and fellow musician, Sly Stone.

Celebrated as a spectacular songwriter, Wilson was responsible for initial successes including Surfin’ USA, Surfer Girl, and I Get Around.

Other famous tunes include All Summer Long, Don’t Worry Baby, and California Girls.

Born in Inglewood, California, Wilson formed the band – first called the Pendletones – as a teenager with his brothers Dennis and Carl.

He was the eldest and last surviving of the trio.

Brian played bass, Carl lead guitar and Dennis was on drums.

The Beach Boys rocketed to fame during the 1960s, going from local California band to national hitmakers – and international ambassadors of surf and sun.

A judge signed off on a conservatorship for Beach Boys legend Wilson just months after he was diagnosed with dementia in 2024.

He consented to the agreement and had no objections.

Wilson’s doctor said the musician suffered from a “major neurocognitive disorder” and needed help making healthcare decisions.

The judge’s decision to approve Wilson’s conservatorship came as the pop icon prepared to launch new music this year.

In 1970, the Beach Boys star started working on a country album with the band’s former manager Fred Vail on lead vocals.

The project was paused but was later picked up again by the two musicians.

The album had been due for release in 2025 and Wilson was due to be featured on guest vocals, according to Rolling Stone.

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WATCH Brian Wilson’s last ever performance after it was announced that the Beach Boys founder has died aged 82.

The legendary singer-songwriter – who was living with a degenerative disorder similar to dementia – last sang publicly in 2022.

6

6

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Performing at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, the icon belted out a range of historic tracks.

He performed the famous tune Surfin’ USA, Help Me Rhonda and California Girls.

Wilson appeared onstage as part of his 2022 US Summer Tour in July of that year.

Today, the music legend’s family announced the tragic news that he passed away.

In a post shared on Instagram on Wednesday, Wilson’s family wrote: “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away.

“We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving.

“We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy.”

Tributes are starting to roll in from fans and celebrities alike.

The Rolling Stones legend Ronnie has lead the tributes to the star and confirmed his world is “in mourning” following the passing of Brian and fellow musician, Sly Stone.

Celebrated as a spectacular songwriter, Wilson was responsible for initial successes including Surfin’ USA, Surfer Girl, and I Get Around.

Other famous tunes include All Summer Long, Don’t Worry Baby, and California Girls.

Born in Inglewood, California, Wilson formed the band – first called the Pendletones – as a teenager with his brothers Dennis and Carl.

He was the eldest and last surviving of the trio.

Brian played bass, Carl lead guitar and Dennis was on drums.

The Beach Boys rocketed to fame during the 1960s, going from local California band to national hitmakers – and international ambassadors of surf and sun.

A judge signed off on a conservatorship for Beach Boys legend Wilson just months after he was diagnosed with dementia in 2024.

He consented to the agreement and had no objections.

Wilson’s doctor said the musician suffered from a “major neurocognitive disorder” and needed help making healthcare decisions.

The judge’s decision to approve Wilson’s conservatorship came as the pop icon prepared to launch new music this year.

In 1970, the Beach Boys star started working on a country album with the band’s former manager Fred Vail on lead vocals.

The project was paused but was later picked up again by the two musicians.

The album had been due for release in 2025 and Wilson was due to be featured on guest vocals, according to Rolling Stone.

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June 6 (UPI) — Former Washington, D.C., Police Intelligence Chief Lt. Shane Lamond got 18 months in a federal prison Friday for obstructing an investigation by lying regarding contact he had with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

Lamond leaked information to Tarrio that he was being investigated and then lied about doing that, according to prosecutors.

Lamond was convicted of one count of obstructing justice and three counts of making false statements to federal law enforcement.

Judge Amy B. Jackson said Lamond showed no real contrition for his actions.

“The entire attitude throughout has been, ‘How dare they bring these charges!,” Jackson said.

Lamond attorney Mark Schamel urged Judge Jackson to not incarcerate Lamond. He told the judge he fundamentally disagrees with her about the facts in the case.

He said Lamond’s destroyed police career should be enough punishment.

The investigation into Lamond’s communication with Tarrio revealed hundreds of message exchanges that included encrypted Telegram messages.

Lamond contended they were intended to gather intelligence on extremist groups.

Tarrio was pardoned for his federal conviction by President Donald Trump, who also pardoned hundreds of other people convicted in connection with the violent pro-Trump attack on the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021.

Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, but Trump freed him with a presidential pardon.

Tarrio testified for Lamond and urged Trump to pardon the D.C. police officer.

When Lamond was convicted in December 2024, U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said in a statement, “As proven at trial, Lamond turned his job on its head-providing confidential information to a source, rather than getting information from him-lied about the conduct, and obstructed an investigation into the source.”

Hassan Audu is lost in the past.

Tricked into a Boko Haram camp in Niger State, North-central Nigeria, the 16-year-old is mired in the mud of his traumatic experience as a child soldier. He is a witness to the terror and tragedy devastating his hometown of Shiroro. He struggles to move towards a glimpse of the future. Audu’s nine-year-old brother, Ja’afar Hassan, was caught in Boko Haram’s vicious net in 2022, with families and friends thrown into agony that the terrorists had conscripted their beloved son. For years, no one could trace Ja’afar’s footpaths to the camp; his parents wallowed in pain, begging local authorities in the Mashekeri village of Shiroro to help retrieve their son.

When Ja’afar’s captors sauntered into the village in 2024 for their exploits, they encountered a weary Audu, exhausted from his desperate search for his younger brother. The terrorists took advantage of his desperation, asking him to follow them into the forest to retrieve his brother. He hopped on a motorbike, wedged among the terrorists, as the rider zigzagged his way toward the forest’s edge.

“They asked me to come see my brother. When I arrived, they locked me up in a mud cell,” Audu tells HumAngle. “We used three motorcycles, two people each, including the one I was on. They asked me to come with them and see my brother. Since I knew my brother was with them, I went along.”

The boy wears a sour face and a sober appearance, beaming softness and stone-heartedness simultaneously. One minute, his eyes catch tears during the interview in a secured location in the Hudawa area of Kaduna State in northwestern Nigeria, and the next minute, he carries a terrifying face, stirring up a panic-stricken atmosphere.

Concerned that he might go rogue if allowed to travel alone, Audu’s stepmother, Laraba, accompanied him from Zamfara to Kaduna to speak with HumAngle. Since returning from the terrorist den, his chances of going berserk have been high, according to the stepmother, who noted that the boy has lost his tenderness as a teenager, occasionally displaying wild behaviour and betraying a civil demeanour. Blame him, but also blame the men who lured him into the valley of violence, keeping him in the logistics unit of the camp where he witnessed how terrorists planned attacks, brutally punished offenders, and detained civilians for ransom. 

The terrorists fed him enough tuwo, a local Nigerian meal made from maize, and a hastily prepared tomato soup. He had wanted to return home the same night with his brother, but fed like a cat, Audu stayed, with the terrorists promising more sumptuous meals if he swallowed their rulings. He had more than three square meals that he couldn’t have at home. Back in Mashekeri, a single solid meal daily was a luxury. The boy found that luxury in multiple folds in the terrorist camp and stayed glued to it, quickly forgetting his initial mission to bring his brother back home.

“I never missed home. Whenever I mentioned home, they would say, ‘Some other time.’ Since then, the feeling of returning home faded,” Audu tells HumAngle.

He is one among dozens of children lured with food to embrace corrosive doctrine peddled by violent extremists. The food weaponisation strategy is deployed by a fragment of the Boko Haram terror group predominantly settling in the lush canopy of the Alawa Forest in the Shiroro area of Niger State. Caught up in the terrorist zone, children are vulnerable to hunger and displacement and are trained to become brutal terrorists.

They are recruited into different areas of terrorist operations. While Audu, for instance, was placed in the logistics unit, his younger brother was taught how to spot a target and pull the trigger. Teenage girls trapped in the camp are kept as wives, a euphemism for sex slaves. The women are also responsible for the food supply, preparing meals for the captives and commanders in the camp, and determining the food ration formula.

Fed to forget home

The terrorist group deliberately ravages specific areas, destroying crops and farming infrastructures, looting stores and houses, and destroying properties to make life difficult for locals.

After impoverishing and uprooting them from the agrarian areas, the terrorists, having access to the food supply, take advantage of the undernourished children, tricking them into their enclaves with promises of enough food and water. They also use this tactic to gain appeal among marginalised communities, seeking to win the hearts and minds of potential supporters by providing crucial services and distributing meals. 

HumAngle’s investigation, spanning months of identifying underage boys and girls tricked into the terrorists’ territory, interviews with their parents, and local sources, including farmers and vigilantes, reveals this strategy. We monitored some radicalised teenagers from the moment they were abducted to when they escaped from the terror camps to reunite with their families. Many of the victims’ parents asked HumAngle to hide the identity of their children for fear of reprisals and stigmatisation. Being a minor, we spoke to Ja’afar through his uncle, but Audu and two other teenagers with the same story spoke to us directly.

Several months after they tricked him into the camp, Ja’afar fell into a toxic love with guns and the deadly triggers they pulled. As a child, he was trained in the art of using a weapon to snuff life out of a human being and to get a human to do his bidding in seconds. When Audu witnessed his younger brother’s newly acquired prowess in spraying bullets, he fell flat for the escapade. 

“It was an admiration. I admired the way boys my age wielded weapons,” he says. He had thought only grown-up men like police officers could do so until he saw his mates displaying mastery in it and following terrorists to the battlefield as they fought security agents or rival terror groups. “I gradually got used to their lifestyle. I adapted. It felt good, and I liked it.”

This terrorist empire belongs to a man simply known as Mallam Sadiqu. Sadiqu is a Boko Haram commander and a protégé of Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of the extremist group. An adherent of the catch-them-young maxim, Sadiqu heavily invests in manipulating teens and young people. The empire’s underworld setting, known among terrorists as Markaz (centre), makes it easier for them to plan covert anti-state operations.

Interactive map/ Mansir Muhammed, HumAngle

Recruiting children as fighters didn’t start with Mallam Sadiqu’s terror camp — terrorists in West and Central Africa deployed child soldiers in their fights against authorities. A 2021 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report revealed that since at least 2016, the region has recorded more than 21,000 children used by non-state armed groups.

“Whether children in West and Central Africa are the direct targets or collateral victims, they are caught up in conflict and face violence and insecurity. The grave violations of their rights perpetrated by parties to the conflicts are unacceptable,” UNICEF says.

The global humanitarian organisation added in a 2022 report that over 8000 children had been recruited by insurgents since 2009, describing Boko Haram as the major recruiter of child soldiers in Nigeria. The sect forcibly recruits children to strengthen its fighting ranks, abducting many of them during raids on villages, schools, and camps. 

Boys are often trained as fighters, spies, or to carry ammunition, while girls are frequently subjected to sexual violence, forced marriages, and used as domestic servants. Some of the children are direct descendants of these fighters, with terrorists raising a deadly generation of criminals. Boko Haram is also notorious for using children as suicide bombers, with at least 117 kids, mostly girls, used in covert bombing operations between 2014 and 2017, according to UNICEF.

Interactive map/ Mansir Muhammed, HumAngle

Bewildered by the near-perfect coordination of the terrorist enclave, however, Audu’s naivety made him think it was a sovereign territory set up for religious purification and built to fight the secular state. The setting first set him off balance before offering an adrenaline of safety, power, and protection from what he thought was the government’s persecution. There were four rogue commandants, with only one supreme leader: Mallam Sadiqu, a dangerous man with a growing network of followers and foot soldiers.

The terrorist apprentice 

In April 2025, HumAngle travelled to several satellite communities in the Shiroro area of Niger State. Apart from battling deeply-rooted insurgents, we found that the communities suffer from apparent government absence, turning the local areas into ungoverned spaces. Many villages and townships lacked good roads, hospitals, and basic schools. The terrorists are taking advantage of the governance gap to brainwash children and teenagers into believing in their ideology. There is also the social welfare appeal.

“When I fell critically ill in the forest, a doctor came in to treat me. I was worried that I might not be able to get adequate treatment in the bush, but I was wrong. I got a treatment far better than what I would have gotten at home,” Audu says. Even now that he’s out of the den, he wonders why he got better medical attention in the camp, saying, “This was one of the attractive points.”

Audu was placed under the watchful eye of Muhammad Kabir, the commander in charge of logistics and operations. Considered a stranger, Audu wasn’t given a gun or taught how to use it. He had only seen his terrorist chaperone servicing guns upon returning from battlefields. Kabir also prepared the fighters for operations, especially when they had fierce face-offs with security agents and local hunters surveilling the forest areas.

Kabir moved from the Sambisa forest to the Allawa wilderness to join Mallam Sadiqu in Shiroro. In September 2021, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), released an internal memo confirming that scores of senior Boko Haram fighters were moving out of the Sambisa Forest to work in cahoots with Sadiqu, who was wielding rocket-propelled grenades and shuffling between Kaduna and Niger states at the time. The NSCDC advised security agents to scale up surveillance in the affected areas, according to the memo obtained by HumAngle. Kabir was among the terrorists the NSCDC was referring to, locals and security sources said, corroborating the internal memo.

Audu would later learn how to reload guns for the militants in the camp. He painstakingly watched his boss service various rifles, including the Russian Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK-47), the Gewehr 3 (G3), and Rocket-Propelled Grenade (RPGs). Kabir also prepared the fighters for war against the military and terrorist rivals. Under the operations unit was the group’s bomb manufacturer; he had produced scores of explosive devices used to waylay unarmed citizens and military men, tearing them apart and killing them instantly during face-offs. Audu referred to him as Baba Adamu.

“Baba Adamu had picked Ja’afar up in the village, luring him into the enclave and training him to operate guns and produce bombs,” Audu notes. “Baba Adamu himself learned bomb making from one man who later died during a gun battle with the military.”

Working with the operations unit, Audu’s duty included joining other child soldiers to work on Mallam Sadiqu’s illegally acquired farm fields. In many Shiroro villages, the group has violently evacuated local farmers, illegally occupying their lands to farm. When they needed more workforce on the farms, they abducted vulnerable civilians, forcing them to farm for them. Audu says he had joined other teenage terrorists to supervise civilians working on the farm. They planted beans, maize, and rice and harvested richly while the local farmers struggled to cultivate their fields over fears of being attacked.

Dozens of farming communities in Shiroro also signed a peace deal with the Sadiqu-led terror camp, paying millions before accessing their farm fields. In 2021, a journalist documented how 65 agrarian communities paid over ₦20 million to access their farm lands and live peacefully in the villages. In the same fashion as terrorists in northwestern Nigeria, Sadiqu partners with communities and, in some cases, collects levies to allow people to farm freely.

“We would travel through villages in the Alawa town to work on Mallam Sadiqu’s fields, which are close to people’s homes. Sometimes, we would spend days on the farms, planting and harvesting. We planted maize and rice most of the time. It was a big field,” Audu adds. “Almost all those who can ride motorcycles in the camp used to labour there. Almost all of us used to go there to work. We used to buy boiled cassava from the townspeople. But when the people fled, we harvested the cassava from the farms. We would boil and eat them while on the farms.”

Shadow justice

One man, Mallam Shaffi, was the spiritual commandant of the gang, usually regarded as the amirul da’wah. He led daily prayers and preached on Fridays, encouraging the children to neglect modern ways for their anti-Western governance path. Every morning, he admonished the combatants to fight for God’s cause, manipulating verses from scripture to convince his disciples that Western ways would only lead them to hell. Anyone antagonistic to their violent operations and extremist tendencies is an enemy and must be taken out of the way, Audu says.

Although Sadiqu presided over the general affairs of the camp, Mallam Shaffi served as the Amirul Khadi (chief judge). This role gave him oversight that ensured discipline and strict adherence to their extremist doctrine within their sphere of control. He was consulted before judgments were made on offenders. In this clime, misdemeanours could attract capital punishments; petty thieves caught with their hands in the cookie jar were first jailed before their hands got cut off.

When Sani, Mallam Shaffi’s younger brother, was found guilty of petty theft, he was not spared. “His hands were cut off instantly; they passed a judgment,” Audu recalls. It was his first time witnessing such a gory scene, wondering why a man would lose his hands “just because he stole”. But something even more shocking unfolded before his eyes months after he arrived at the forest: six combatants were killed on the camp’s wild execution ground.

“They killed them for imposing a tax on the Gbagyi locals and seizing their farm produce,” Audu tells HumAngle. “The fighters executed are Jabir Dogo, Usmna, ⁠Attahir, ⁠Abdullahi, ⁠Elele, and Abu. They killed them about a month ago.”

The black market justice system turns like a vicious circle: if the rules favour you today, they might be used against you tomorrow. 

One morning, Ja’afar woke up locked in a cell, with his hands and legs tightly bound. He was accused of stealing petrol and bullets from the logistics store. Ja’afar’s case seemed different from other thefts recorded in the past. While others stole from civilians on the other side, he stole from the terrorists — that was considered a grave offence, raising tension that the punishment might be more than cutting off his hands, like they did for Sani.

Audu’s worry suddenly grew cancerous; he was there to rescue his brother, and now he had been fed so much that he even forgot about going home. The detention of his younger brother tensed his worry; the probability that the young lad would be killed was high. He had committed treason, according to their laws, and the most severe punishment for such an offence was brutal death. 

Rumours mounted that Mallam Shaffi had ordered that Ja’afar’s throat should be slit. That rumour flared up Audu’s fear. He had lately been nursing the thoughts of escaping the forests due to increased aerial attacks from the military. That trepidation was aggravated when the military perpetuated surveillance of their camp almost every day, killing the combatants frequently.

“Teenagers far younger than me and my sibling had been killed in that forest, either by the terrorists or the military,” Audu says, enveloped in his sweat. Months after leaving the camp, the boy still lives in fear, displaying paranoia towards every positive event around him and showing violent tendencies at any provocation.

Lost in the lush

As he forged escape routes for himself and his brother, Audu says he thought about scores of girls also trapped in the terrorists’ camp. Girls from satellite communities in Shiroro were tricked into the underworld after they were promised better living conditions. One girl, Zainab Mainasara, suddenly disappeared after terrorists raided her community in 2021, kidnapping a considerable number of girls. Since then, Zainab’s parents have done everything to retrieve their daughter from the hands of the terrorists. Later, they learned she had settled with them, marrying one of them.

When Audu came to the forest, he met Zainab. He had learned about her from the lips of villagers, especially how the terrorists attempted to pay her bride price to her father in the Kurebe area of Shiroro. HumAngle spoke to her father, Ali Mainasara, somewhere on the shore of the town, where he is currently burying his head. He left the Kurebe community in shame after villagers accused him of marrying off his 17-year-old daughter in exchange for farming freedom.

Ali denied the allegation during an interview with HumAngle, saying he wanted to give his daughter the formal education he lacked. “But the terrorists took her away from me one afternoon, with guns and weapons in their hands,” he says, amid sobs. “If she were with me, she would probably have finished schooling or legitimately married.” 

Zainab’s mother, Fatima Mainasara, left the community for a neighbouring village. The incident that took their daughter away from them also shattered their homes, as Fatima seemed to have swallowed the flying rumour that Zainab’s father sold her out to terrorists. “Since the incident, her mother has been quite distressed and experiences anxiety daily. She has been diagnosed with chronic hypertension. The reality is that we are suffering deeply. I am urging the government to assist in securing my daughter’s release so that she can be safely reunited with her family,” Mainasara cries out.

Audu knows where to find Zainab, but cannot take anyone there. While in captivity, he realised Zainab was forcefully married to his chaperone in the forest, Muhammad Kabir. Now with two kids from the ‘unholy’ marriage with the terrorists, Audu recalls that Zainab and many other girls were in charge of cooking and sharing food in the camp. Knowing each other from Shiroro, they had met on many occasions and exchanged greetings, but they’d never had a chance to discuss anything. It was forbidden to be seen discussing with the fighters’ wives in the camp.

“Zainab’s first child was named Adam. I don’t know the second boy’s name,” Audu notes. “Adam could be around two or three years old. The boy can walk and talk. The second boy is an infant.”

Mainasara’s worries double up at the mention of his daughter’s sudden disappearance into the woods. He fears Zainab might have been brainwashed into the realm of extremism, as news emerging from the terrorist camp revealed she had been fully immersed in the life outside her home. Her mother, once chubby, has become emaciated due to the anguish of her daughter’s disappearance. The grief has taken a toll on her health, but Zainab’s captors won’t let her go.

Scores of girls in Kurebe are in Zainab’s shoes: they were indoctrinated by terrorists a few years back, and now they can’t look back. One such girl is Rumasau Husaini, who was just 11 years old when she was abducted in 2022. Her father, Haruna Husaini, is still desperately searching for her. He once offered to pay a ransom for his daughter’s release, but it failed.

“When we reached out to the terrorists, we asked them to return her, but they told us it was impossible since she had already been brought into the forest,” Husaini recounts. “They mentioned discussing her dowry, but I refused to entertain that. All I want is my daughter back.”

Other girls caught in the trap of the terrorist group include Mary, Azeemah, and Khadijah — all from the Kurebe village of the Shiroro town. While Zainab was betrothed to Muhammad Kabir, Mary was forced to marry Ismail, another terrorist, and Azeema was given to Mallam Shafii.

As the grip of Boko Haram grew stronger in Shiroro, casting a shadow over the community, girls and boys became an endangered species. Mallam Sadiqu took over the leadership of several ungoverned communities neighbouring the Alawa Forest. One evening in 2021, he announced in his local mosque, with his voice echoing through the modest building: all girls must be married off or risk being forcefully betrothed to terrorists.

“Any female child that is up to 12 years old should be married off,” Sadiqu was quoted to have announced, instilling fear among the parents who listened. Unable to bear the thought of their daughters being taken by terrorists, many families chose to flee, relocating their girls to safer locations or sending them to displacement camps in more garrison areas.

When Sadiqu finally took absolute control of the political and economic lives of the locals, he propagated his extremist beliefs, wielding threats like weapons and eliminating anyone daring to defy him. He banned schools, stripping formal education away from children and forcing them into menial jobs and denying them a brighter future.

The tragedy deepened so much that the Nigerian military declared Kurebe a terrorist zone. In April 2022, six out-of-school girls were sent to fetch water from the nearby Kurebe stream. In a cruel twist of fate, they were mistaken for armed terrorists by the Nigerian military. An air raid ensued, killing the unprotected children who had already been traumatised by the circumstances forced upon them.

As the dust settled, it became clear that Boko Haram’s reign of terror was far from over. With schooling activities ground to a halt in the community, the terrorists began abducting the very children they had denied an education. The girls were taken as brides, and the boys were forcibly recruited into their radical ideologies, whisked away to secret camps hidden deep within the forests of Alawa.

“Up till now, some of our boys and girls are still missing,” laments Yusuf Saidu, the district head of Kurebe. He looked disturbed as he spoke of the lost boys and girls missing from their homes and families. “They marry the girls and sometimes even come to pay dowries to their parents.”

As military surveillance abounded in the Alawa Forest, Mallam Sadiqu built fortresses around himself to dodge attacks. Then, fear grew like wildfire in the terrorist camp, especially among children and teenagers trapped in the camp. Audu realised his younger brother could be killed if he folded his arms — either by military airstrikes or through the terrorists’ shadow justice system, which recently found him guilty of stealing. 

One night, while everyone slept, he crept into the cell where Ja’far was caged and untied him. Discreetly, the two brothers walked out of the camp, trudging through the woods to find a way out. After days of sojourning in the forested expanse, they finally reunited with some relatives in the Shiroro area. Knowing they were not safe anywhere in the town, their relatives moved them to a community in northwestern Nigeria.

Back to square one

For Ja’afar, it was a free ride out of the lion’s den. And for Audu, the journey had only just begun. Their lives never remained the same; even after escaping from the radical world, they struggled to adapt to a regimented civilian lifestyle under their guardians. A few months after reuniting with families, Ja’afar exhibited attitudes suggesting he could no longer live in a civilian community. He would threaten his mates with death or charge at them at any slight provocation. His family has handed him over to the military in Kaduna State, hoping for a deradicalisation and psychological reform process so he can be safely reintegrated into society.

Audu, who appears calmer, was moved to Zamfara State to stay with a family member and is under tight monitoring. The family feared the proximity of the original town to Shiroro could later prompt the teens to return to the terrorists. Months after they returned, the boys seemed to be back to square one. Audu, for instance, is not enrolled in a school and struggles to have three square meals as adequately provided to them in the terror camp.

The situation remains dire back in Shiroro: locals caught up in war zones can hardly feed themselves properly, as food insecurity bites harder. Unfortunately, food insecurity is a reality for many Nigerians, yet those in power tend to downplay the issue. The United Nations predicted last year that by 2030, over 80 million Nigerians might face a severe food crisis. In many villages and displacement camps HumAngle visited while gathering this report, hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity dominate the land, with hundreds of locals uprooted by the insurgency relying on animal feed due to an extreme food shortage. 

HumAngle spoke to Dapit Joseph, a child psychologist at the Federal University Kashere, Gombe State, to further understand the implications of children being recruited in this manner.

“You know, food is a physiological need; it’s the foundation of human motivation and the first in the hierarchy of needs. People need food to survive, and in the quest to get it, they can do anything to survive. When people are hungry, especially children, that hunger can be weaponised to lure them into terrorism,” he asserts.

Joseph noted that we can neither blame the children nor the parents in this situation, because “when you’re caught up in a devastating war-torn area, you lose a lot of things, you become traumatised, and all you do is struggle to survive. It’s a very terrible condition that comes with a lot of psychological effects.”

The psychologist thinks the government needs to prioritise rehabilitating and providing social support for the children. Social support, he says, includes providing the basic needs these families require to survive and educating the parents on how to take care of these vulnerable children in society.

“Religious bodies have a role to play. You know, we attach serious meaning to religion in this part of the world,” he advised. “So if religious bodies can go, talk to these people, give them hope, and tell them that it won’t remain like this forever, it would help.”

For a region big on farming and fighting insecurity, it remains unclear what the Niger State authorities are doing to avert Boko Haram’s weaponisation of food shortages to recruit children. However, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Niger State Homeland Security, Aminu Aliyu, recently told local journalists that the government and security agents were aware of the situation, failing to reveal steps to put the situation under control.

Laraba, Audu’s stepmother, worries about what might happen to him and his younger brother. She says she ponders every day, with no clarity, how to ensure these children do not derail again. Her heart pounds whenever she sets her eyes on Audu every morning because she’s clueless about providing a permanent succour to the brothers.

Audu’s parents are stuck in Shiroro, living from hand to mouth, swept under the control of terrorists in the ungovernable Kurebe village. Now, looking after their children has become a burden for Laraba, who complained recently that Audu has refused to return to school after terrorists brainwashed him against Western education.

“He has now returned to Hudawa, and he shouts about wanting to get married, instead of going back to school, but we’ve warned him against that,” Laraba says. For a 16-year-old, the stepmother thinks marriage should not be the next chapter in Audu’s life, but the boy seems convinced otherwise.

Audu’s return to the town also bothers Laraba because the area, although in Kaduna, borders Shiroro, making it easy for the boy to return to terrorism if he finds no help. “We’re seeking help from all angles so that he can at least start a business even if he can’t return to school,” she says.

Ja’afar’s uncle has also expressed doubt over his fate. He says living with the military has not yielded desired results, noting that the boy does not seem to have been deradicalised months after he was taken to the army. As it stands, the future of both boys has been halted.

Asked if he was considering going back to the forest fringe if he gets the chance, Audu says he would not hesitate if another chance was given, “because I got enough food that I don’t have access to even at home.”

CIF BOYS VOLLEYBALL STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS

At Fresno City College

SATURDAY’S RESULTS

DIVISION I

Mira Costa d. Archbishop Mitty, 25-14, 25-16, 25-21

DIVISION II

Santa Ana Mater Dei d. Buchanan, 17-25, 25-23, 25-19, 25-20

DIVISION III

Sage Hill d. International, 25-19, 25-16, 25-23

DIVISION IV

Chula Vista Mater Dei d. Livingston, 25-18, 25-19, 20-25, 25-16

CLOVIS, Calif. — The stars close the show and Long Beach Poly’s 4×400-meter relay brought the crowd to its feet with a stunning performance in the final race of the CIF State Track & Field Finals, winning in 3 minutes 8.68 seconds for the second-fastest time ever in the state meet. The top four teams ran sub-3:10, making it the fastest four-lapper ever in the finals on depth.

The Jackrabbits just missed the state meet record of 3:08.42 set in 2010 by a Gardena Serra foursome anchored by Robert Woods, running the fourth-fastest time in California history.

Central East of Fresno was second in 3:09.23, Servite took third in 3:09.46 to clinch the team title with 33 points, L.A. Cathedral took fourth in 3:09.59 and Long Beach Wilson was fifth in 3:10.55.

Sprinters headlined Friday’s preliminaries but it was the distance runners who played leading roles Saturday at Buchanan High School.

Rylee Blade has made a habit of performing her best on the brightest stage and she ran her fastest girls’ 3,200-meter race ever (9:50.51) but had to settle for second when she was passed on the last turn by Hanne Thomsen of Santa Rosa Montgomery, who won in 9:48.98.

Corona Santiago senior Rylee Blade, left, hugs girls’ 3,200-meter champion Hanne Thomsen after a thrilling finish Saturday.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

“I knew this would be a kicking race and give [Thomsen] credit, she had a bit more at the end,” said Blade, the Corona Santiago standout who won the state title as a sophomore and was third last year.

In a shocking development, Stanford-bound senior Evan Noonan of Dana Hills, last year’s boys’ 3,200 champion, caught a stomach flu earlier in the afternoon and had to drop out of the race, distraught that he couldn’t defend his title. Woodcrest Christian’s Eyan Turk took advantage of the race favorite’s absence, winning in 8:51.62.

Thomsen was involved in another stretch duel in the girls’ 1,600 versus another Corona Santiago runner Braelyn Combe, who did not realize she won until times were posted on the scoreboard.

Santa Margarita’s Leo Francis wins the boys’ long jump with a leap of 25-00.75 at the CIF state track and field championships at Buchanan High School in Clovis, Calif., on Saturday.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

“We were shoulder to shoulder with 100 [meters] to go and pushed each other to the end,” said Combe, who won by five-hundredths of a second in a personal-best of 4:35.64, the second-fastest in the country this year and fifth fastest in state history. “I’ve never been that close to someone at the finish line. I closed my eyes and prayed and when I looked up at the board I burst into tears. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. I’m so happy. My family drove five hours up here to watch.”

Combe, a junior who took second in the 1,600 last year, credits her victory to training with Blade, whom she called “unbelievable.”

“It’s a blessing to have her on my team, she’s the best pacing partner,” said Combe, who capped off her day by anchoring the Sharks’ 4×800-meter relay, which ran 8:49.01 to establish a new state meet record. “It’s a real advantage for me.”

Long Beach Wilson senior Loren Webster wins her second straight CIF state girls’ long jump title with a personal-best leap of 21-00.25 at Buchanan High School in Clovis, Calif., on Saturday.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Looking like an Olympic gymnast, Loren Webster successfully defended her state title in girls’ long jump, achieving a personal-best of 21 feet, 0¼ inch. Transgender athlete AB Hernandez, who beat Webster at the Southern Section Masters Meet and posted the top qualifying mark Friday, finished 3½ inches behind in second.

“I’m glad I was able to win to honor my jump coach who has worked with me since my first year jumping as a sophomore,” the teary-eyed senior said of Carl Hampton, who died of cancer May 24, the day of the Masters Meet. “I PR’d by a couple of inches. I was injured most of the season but I knew what I was capable of and I knew today was the only day that mattered.”

Hernandez went on to win the triple jump and tied for first with Lelani Laruelle of Monte Vista and Jillene Wetteland of Long Beach Poly in the high jump at 5-07.

JJ Harel of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame cleared 6-09 to win the boys high jump after finishing second at the state meet last year.

“I knew I would win but honestly, I’m not happy,” said the Knights’ junior, whose personal-best was 7-0¼ last year. “I was on fire in the lower heights, getting over easily but once it got to seven feet I forgot my form.”

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1. Sherman Oaks Notre Dame’s Aja Johnson celebrates after finishing first in the girls’ shot put on Saturday. 2. Sherman Oaks Notre Dame’s JJ Harel won the boys’ high jump title Saturday. (Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Giving Harel a high-five after his win was Notre Dame senior Aja Johnson, who won the girls’ shot put for the second time in three years with a throw of 45-05¾.

“It’s not a PR or anything but at least I won it for my school. … I’m happy about that,” said Johnson, who is going to college at Louisville.

Oaks Christian’s girls repeated as 4×100 champions in 46.08, edging Long Beach Poly (46.18) for the second year in a row. Servite won the boys 4×100 relay in 40.27, one hundredth of a second faster than its preliminary time.

Concord De La Salle junior Jaden Jefferson won the boys’ 100 meters in 10.27, followed by Servite’s Benjamin Harris (10.31), Alemany’s Demare Dezeurn (10.39) and Rancho Cucamonga’s RJ Sermons (10.48). Temecula Valley’s Jack Stadlman won the 400 meters in 46.02 and took second in the 200 meters in 20.82. Sermons, who had to win a run-off Friday to gain the last qualifying spot, finished sixth in the 200 in 21.05.

Long Beach Wilson successfully defended its 4×400 girls relay title.

Servite won the boys state team title, while Clovis North finished second and Santa Margarita placed third.

Long Beach Wilson claimed the girls state team title, Long Beach Poly finished second and Santiago Corona finished third.

Long Beach Wilson junior Wyatt Obando, second right, edges Lucas Alberts of Jesuit to win the boys’ 800 meters Saturday.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee were childhood friends, altar boys raised in the Catholic pews and prosperous suburbs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

By the mid-1970s, Boyce was angry about the Vietnam War and Watergate. He was a liberal, a stoner and a lover of falcons. Lee, a doctor’s adopted son, was a cocaine and heroin pusher who was spiraling into addiction.

How they became spies for the Soviet Union is a story emblematic of 1970s Southern California, where the state’s massive Cold War aerospace industry collided with its youthful anti-establishment currents.

Everyone agrees it should never have been possible.

In the summer of 1974, Boyce, a bright but disaffected 21-year-old college dropout, got a job as a clerk at the TRW Defense and Space Systems complex in Redondo Beach. He won entree through the old-boys network: His father, who ran security for an aircraft contractor and was once an FBI agent, had called in a favor.

In this series, Christopher Goffard revisits old crimes in Los Angeles and beyond, from the famous to the forgotten, the consequential to the obscure, diving into archives and the memories of those who were there.

Boyce made $140 a week at the defense plant and held down a second job tending bar. TRW investigators had performed only a perfunctory background check. They skipped his peers, who might have revealed his links to the drug culture and to Lee, who already had multiple drug busts and a serious cocaine habit — the white powder that would inspire his nickname.

In “The Falcon and the Snowman,” Robert Lindsey’s account of the case, the author describes Boyce beginning the day by popping amphetamines and winding down after a shift puffing a joint in the TRW parking lot. Falconry was his biggest passion. “Flying a falcon in exactly the same way that men had done centuries before Christ transplanted Chris into their time,” Lindsey wrote.

Boyce impressed his bosses and was soon cleared to enter the steel-doored fortress called the “black vault,” a classified sanctum where he was exposed to sensitive CIA communications pertaining to America’s network of espionage satellites. The satellites eavesdropped on Russian missiles and defense installations. Among the goals was to thwart a surprise nuclear attack.

Reading CIA communiques, Boyce didn’t like what he saw. Among its other sins, he decided, the U.S. government was deceiving its Australian allies by hiding satellite intelligence it had promised to share and meddling in the country’s elections.

“I just was in total disagreement with the whole direction of Western society,” Boyce told The Times many years later. He attributed his espionage opportunity to “synchronicity,” explaining: “How many kids can get a summer job working in an encrypted communications vault?”

Soon he made his life’s “biggest, dumbest decision.” He told his buddy Lee they might sell government secrets to the Soviets. Lee talked his way into the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, where Russians fed him caviar and bought classified documents with the toast, “To peace.”

Lee’s KGB handlers devised protocols. When he wanted to meet, he would tape an X to lampposts at designated intersections around Mexico City.

For more than a year, thousands of classified documents flowed from the TRW complex to the Soviets, with Boyce sometimes smuggling them out in potted plants. In exchange, he and Lee received an estimated $70,000.

At parties, Lee showed off his miniature Minox camera and bragged that he was engaged in spycraft. In January 1977, desperate for money to finance a heroin deal, he flouted KGB instructions and appeared unannounced outside the Soviet Embassy. Mexican police thought he looked suspicious and arrested him.

He held an envelope with filmstrips documenting a U.S. satellite project called Pyramider. Under questioning, Lee revealed the name of his co-conspirator and childhood friend, who soon was also under arrest. Boyce had just returned from a hawk-trapping trip in the mountains.

The espionage trials of the two men presented special challenges for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. The Carter administration was ready to pull the plug on the case if it meant airing too many secrets, but a strategy was devised: Prosecutors would focus on the Pyramider documents, which involved a system that never actually got off the ground.

Joel Levine, one of the assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted Boyce and Lee, said only a fraction of what they sold to the Soviets ever came out at trial.

“I was told these other projects should not be revealed. It’s too costly to our government, and you can’t base a prosecution on them either in whole or in part,” Levine said in a recent interview. “You just gotta stay away from it.”

For federal prosecutors in L.A., hanging over the case was the memory of a recent humiliation: the collapse of the Pentagon Papers trial, as a result of the Nixon administration’s attempt to bribe the presiding judge with a job. It had caught prosecutors by surprise.

“We were afraid it would ruin our reputation forever if something like that were to happen,” Levine said. “So we made it very, very clear right from the get-go that if we smelled something like that was afoot, we would walk into court and have the case dismissed on our own.”

The defendants had sharply different motives. Lee was in it for the money, Richard Stilz, one of the prosecutors, said in a recent interview. But “Boyce was totally ideology. He wanted to damage the United States government,” Stilz said. “He just hated this country, period.”

The defendants got separate trials. A rift that had been growing between them deepened with their mutually hostile defenses. Lee’s defense: Boyce had led him to believe he was working for the CIA, feeding misinformation to the Russians. Jurors convicted Lee of espionage, nonetheless, and a judge gave him a life term.

Boyce’s defense: Lee had blackmailed him into espionage by threatening to expose a letter he had written, while stoned on hashish, alleging secret knowledge of CIA malfeasance. Jurors convicted Boyce as well, and a judge gave him 40 years.

In January 1980, at a federal prison in Lompoc, Boyce hid in a drainpipe and sprinted to freedom over a fence. He was on the run for 19 months. He robbed banks in the Pacific Northwest until federal agents caught him outside a burger joint in Washington state.

He was convicted of bank robbery and got 28 more years. In 1985, the same year a popular film adaptation of “The Falcon and the Snowman” was released, Boyce testified on Capitol Hill about the despair attending a life of espionage.

“There was no thrill,” he said. “There was only depression, and a hopeless enslavement to an inhuman, uncaring foreign bureaucracy…. No American who has gone to the KGB has not come to regret it.”

He spoke of how easily he had been allowed to access classified material at TRW. “Security was a joke,” he said, describing regular Bacardi-fueled parties in the black vault. “We used the code destruction blender for making banana daiquiris and mai tais.”

Cait Mills was working as a paralegal in San Diego when she read the Lindsey book and became fascinated by the case. She thought Lee had been unfairly maligned, and she spent the next two decades fighting to win him parole.

She got letters of support from the prosecutors and the sentencing judge attesting that Lee had made strides toward rehabilitation. He had taken classes in prison and become a dental technician. He won parole in 1998.

She turned her attention to freeing Boyce, with whom she fell in love. She wrote to the Russians and asked how much value there had been in the stolen TRW documents and received a fax claiming it was useless. He got out in 2002, and they married. They later divorced but remain close. Both live in central Oregon.

Stilz maintains the damage to America was “enormous.”

“In a murder case, you have one victim and a person dies,” Stilz said. “In an espionage case, the whole country is a victim. We were so far advanced over the Russians in spy satellite technology. They leveled the playing field. That’s probably the most important point.”

He gives no credence to the Russian government’s claim that it derived no value from the secret information. “Of course they’d say that,” Stilz said. “What do you think they’d say? ‘Oh yeah, it allowed us to catch up with the United States in terms of spying.’ They’re not gonna say that.”

Cait Mills Boyce said that Boyce and Lee, childhood best friends, no longer speak, and that the silence between them wounds Boyce.

“He said, ‘I love that man; I always loved him. He was my best friend.’ It hurt him so badly.”

She said Boyce, now in his 70s, lives a solitary life and immerses himself in the world of falconry. “His entire life, and I kid you not, is falconry,” she said. “He will die with a falcon on his arm.”

Part of what pushed him into the world of espionage, she thinks, was the challenge. “I think his uncommon smarts led him down a whimsical path that ended up being a disastrous path, not just for him but for everybody involved,” she said.

Stag Web describes the experience as an “ultra-high-end weekend exclusively for those with 10-digit bank balances” that is “inspired by Jeff Bezos’s upcoming nuptials”

Things have come a long way in the world of stag do planning.

A few decades ago a typical “last night of freedom” consisted of traipsing down to the local pub with your best friend from school, a cousin and a father-in-law or two for an evening of ale, crisps and perhaps a go on the fruity.

Those days are now a long way behind us, with a typical stag far more likely to jet off to Benidorm or Amsterdam.

For those who enjoy a bit of one-upmanship, one stag do company is taking things to the next level with a “bespoke service for the top 0.0001%: the Billionaire Stag Do”.

Stag Web describes the experience as an “ultra-high-end weekend exclusively for those with 10-digit bank balances” that is “inspired by Jeff Bezos’s upcoming nuptials”.

Do you have a stag do story to share? Email [email protected]

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“They only quote actual billionaires, though, so unless you have the money to prove you’re a real high roller, you won’t be able to enquire,” the firm jokes. Unfortunately, they won’t let on how much the package costs.

When the Mirror asked, Stag Web’s spokesperson said: “It’ll be a bespoke, build-from-scratch service so the sky’s the limit!” Judging from the list of possible options, it is not going to be cheap.

They include:

• A private jet to “fly the squad in from wherever the hell they currently live”.
• Helicopter transfers “between continents, countries, courses, and clubs”.
• Supercar convoy “through a sun-drenched city”.
• Private mega-yacht or “Bond villain-style clifftop villa with panoramic views”.
• Private chef “squad crafting midnight wagyu sliders and 4 am caviar toasties”.
• The works “which means hot tubs, infinity pools, cigar lounges, saunas, secret bars”.

Stag Web urges punters to “party like the 1%”, although it is hard to imagine exactly how that is possible if you don’t have a tech company or large private income.

Nonetheless, the happy-go-lucky firm is willing to arrange a “elicopter bar crawl across three countries in a single night, luxury golf experience on a private course with Champagne caddies, private island takeover for beach parties, shark diving, etc, personal comedy roast by a stand-up who’s actually been on TV and casino hire.”

If that isn’t enough to clear out your bank account, then you can hire a butler for each guest, a Champagne cannon for dramatic entrances andstag do goodie bags filled with Rolexes, “keys to your new penthouses, and other billionaire goodies”.

“We created the million-pound stag weekend 10 years ago, but that’s chump change to the billion-pound club,” said Jon Stainer, director at StagWeb.