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SUMNER As a boy, Keenan Gienau loved his dad. He loved doing stuff with him. And they loved doing the same things. They were into the outdoors, cars and fishing. He also thought it was cool his dad was a soldier.

In 2014, during his senior year at Sumner-Fredericksburg High School, Keenan was asked to give a talk about his dad.

By the time Keenan, now 21, stepped to that podium to speak, his dad had been deceased nine years. Iowa Army National Guard 2nd Lt. R. Brian Gienau was killed in action in Iraq.

Dad left big shoes to fill. And now Keenan is about to fill them. He has enlisted in the U.S. Army.

To be honest, Ive been thinking about it my whole life, he said. He began more seriously considering it over the past year.

When I got out of high school, I at first didnt really want to do it because of what happened, he said. My family didnt want me to do it.

He attended Hawkeye Community College two years, but it really wasnt necessarily my thing.

He looked into job opportunities. I was still feeling adventurous and wanted to go out and do other stuff. So I started looking at different options and decided to join the Army.

When I was a lot younger and my dad was still around, I always wanted to join then because I saw my dad doing it. He let me try on his uniform, play with army guys (toy soldiers), all sorts of stuff like that.

He also got to hang out with his dad at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Hed take me out to let me look at the tanks that were sitting out there. Id get to climb in them. Pretty fun stuff.

He cherishes those days; it was just prior to his dads Iraq deployment.

But with what happened, I can see the bad side of things. I know the worst-case scenario as well, Keenan said.

Keenans father, 29, was killed Feb. 27, 2005, serving with the Iowa Guards 224th Engineer Battalion. The Humvee he was in hit an improvised explosive device. Another soldier, Spc. Seth Garceau of Oelwein, died later of injuries suffered in the same incident.

Keenan said his father, a Tripoli High School graduate, served in the U.S. Navy on the carrier USS Enterprise, then graduated from HCC, enrolled in University of Northern Iowa ROTC program and joined the Iowa Guard.

He felt the loss of his father more profoundly as the years passed.

When I was really young, 9 or 10, I didnt understand. From when I was 9 until I graduated, it was working with the acceptance and understanding what happened. The time it really set in was right at my graduation. They had a parents moment. I looked up in the stands. I think thats when it really set in that he wasnt there for big things in life such as seeing me graduate from high school, college. Or doing this right now.

But the memories endure. Great memories. Honestly, all good things, Keenan said. He was just a great father; very good mentor. Hed like to teach you more than he would scold you.

He helped drive my interest in what I like nowadays, Keenan added. He liked cars, guns and fishing outdoor stuff, kayaking, four-wheelers, all that stuff. And thats the same stuff I like.

I would say I still want to be like him, Keenan said.

His stepfather, Tim Meyer, an assistant wrestling coach at Sumner-Fredericksburg, interested him in wrestling. It helped him after his dad died.

It made me have more focus on that, kind of filled something there, gave me drive, Keenan said.

He had more than 100 career wins. His mother is Caren Meyer. He has two younger stepbrothers and a stepsister, all at home.

Keenan leaves July 11 for Fort Jackson, S.C. Hell be involved in repair and maintenance of CH-47 Chinook helicopters and aspires to be a flight crew member on missions. I like mechanics, so I believe Ill enjoy that side of it, he said. Well see where my career takes me.

Hes attuned to the international situation. I know whats going on in Syria and North Korea, he said, but Im not going to let that persuade me one way or the other.

Patriotism is a factor, Keenan said.

The military offers attractive training and job opportunities, but it really comes down to love for county. Youve got to have that. Thats what youre fighting for. Youre fighting for the soldier next to you. Youre fighting for everybody back home. And youre fighting for the flag. Thats the way I look at it.

He summoned up the courage to give a speech about his dad in high school something he repeated at HCC.

I dont like talking about personal stuff. Im not a huge fan of standing in front of people talking, he said. I dont mind talking about my dad. Because Im pretty proud of it.

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Son of fallen Iraq soldier follows dad into service - Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier

British soldiers in southern Iraq, 2003. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A visceral hostage drama set during the 2003 war on Iraq, this debut novel alternates between the perspective of 19-year-old Cassandra, a gay female recruit to the US army, and that of middle-aged Abu al-Hool, an Egyptian jihadi whose memories of fighting the Russians in Afghanistan and Chechnya make him an increasingly reluctant fundamentalist. As their stories collide, Van Reet (a Texan who himself served in Iraq) cant always prevent a certain staginess seeping in, courtesy of some excessively dutiful glosses of military jargon, while the pathos and dread of the scenario are ratcheted up by a narrative structure that keeps us one step ahead of the characters. Yet Spoils is undeniably engrossing all the same and smart, too, embedding in its structure a sharp appraisal of the conflict, as Van Reets panoptic toggling between rival groups of foreign invaders pointedly leaves no room for any Iraqi point of view.

Spoils by Brian Van Reet is published by Jonathan Cape (12.99). To order a copy for 9.74, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99.

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Spoils by Brian van Reet review engrossing Iraq war drama - The Guardian

New York Times

Timeline Shows Manchester Bomber's Family's Deep Ties to Libya New York Times Salman Abedi, who killed 22 people and wounded 116 more when he blew himself up outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester on Monday, was born in Britain to a family with deep ties to Libya. His father, Ramadan, had fled Libya in 1991 after ... How Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was radicalised by his links to LibyaThe Guardian Manchester bomber's brother was 'plotting attack on UN envoy in Libya'Telegraph.co.uk Younger brother of Manchester bomber 'plotted terror attack on UN envoy in Libya'The Independent Breitbart News -Center for Research on Globalization -The Guardian -BBC News all 2,022 news articles »

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Timeline Shows Manchester Bomber's Family's Deep Ties to Libya - New York Times

Benghazi - The Libya connection in the May 22 Manchester concert suicide bombing and Friday's attack on Christians in Egypt has shone a light on the threat posed by militant Islamic groups that have taken advantage of lawlessness in the troubled North African nation to put down roots, recruit fighters and export jihadists to cause death and carnage elsewhere.

Libya has been embroiled in violence since a 2011 uprising toppled and killed Moammar Gaddafi.

Vast and oil-rich, Libya currently has rival administrations, an army led by a Gaddafi-era general as well as powerful Islamist militias that compete for territory, resources and political leverage.

At the peak of its power in Libya, the Islamic State group controlled a 160km stretch of Libyan coastline and boasted between 2 000 and 5 000 fighters, many of them from Egypt and Tunisia.

It is that Libya that the alleged Manchester bomber, 22-year-old British citizen Salman Abedi, found when he and his family moved back from Britain after Gaddafi's ouster in 2011.

Monday's bombing left 22 dead, including an 8-year-old girl, and was claimed by ISIS. Abedi's brother Hashim has been taken into custody in Tripoli and, according to Libyan authorities, has confessed that he and Salman were ISIS members.

In Egypt, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi sent his fighter-jets to bomb militant positions in eastern Libya just hours after ISIS fighters shot dead 29 Christians on their way to a remote desert monastery.

The military said the attackers were trained in Libya.

Egypt also has long complained that weapons smuggled across the porous desert border with Libya have reached militants operating on its soil.

It also has claimed that militants who bombed three Christian churches since December received military training in ISIS bases in Libya.

The Genesis of Libya's Militancy:

Hundreds of Libyan youths answered the call to Jihad in the 1980s, traveling to Afghanistan to fight against the Russians. When they returned home after the war, Many of them wanted Islamic Sharia laws implemented in their country.

They formed underground cells to escape the regime's watchful eyes and unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Gaddafi.

After Gaddafi's fall, veteran jihadists, al-Qaeda sympathisers and Islamists of all shades formed militias that filled the post-Gaddafi power vacuum.

Libya's present woes are rooted in the failure of the very first transitional government to dismantle those militias and integrate them into a national army. Instead, they carved up Libya into fiefdoms.

Where are the militants now?

Darna:

The eastern Libyan city, where militant positions were targeted by Egyptian warplanes on Friday, has historically been a bastion of radical Islamic groups as well as highly respected Islamic scholars.

Extremists made the city their stronghold in the 1980s and 1990s, protected by the rugged terrain of the surrounding Green Mountain range.

It was the main source of Libyan jihadists for the insurgency in Iraq. Entire brigades of Darna natives are known to be fighting in Syria's civil war.

During the 2011 uprising, residents formed the "Abusaleem Martyrs" brigade to fight Gaddafi loyalists. It proved to be one of the most effective rebel outfits.

Its ranks soon later swelled and its fighters seized the city, setting up the Darna Mujahideen Shura Council to replace the local government.

The Islamic State group's Libyan affiliate had a robust presence in Darna, but the ISIS faction eventually fell out with the council and was driven out.

The ISIS fighters relocated to the coastal city of Sirte and Darna remains to this day under the control of the Mujahideen Shura Council.

Benghazi:

Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, was the first to fall under the influence of extremist Islamic militias. Many of those militias were formed to fight the Gaddafi regime in 2011 and were led by radicals, widely viewed as experienced and motivated.

Perhaps the most notorious of the Benghazi militias is Ansar Al-Sharia, blamed for the killings of hundreds of former Libyan soldiers and for the death of the US ambassador in 2012.

For more than two years, the so-called Libyan National Army led by General Khalifa Hifter has battled an alliance of Benghazi's militias. His forces have managed to secure most of the city, except for pockets of a seaside neighborhood, heavily fortified and surrounded by fields of land mines.

Sirte :

Sirte was where Gaddafi and his loyalists made a last stand in the 2011 civil war. The city, Gaddafi's hometown, was almost completely destroyed in the fighting.

Furious over the city's loyalty to Gaddafi, anti-government rebels punished the city's residents with extrajudicial killings and revenge attacks.

In 2013, Sirte fell under the control of Ansar Al- Sharia, which made alliances with local tribes and an uneasy truce with other militias and the small number of remaining army troops.

The group took over a sprawling former Gaddafi compound and boasted its own TV and radio station.

ISIS also slowly infiltrated the city as fighters from countries like Mali, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria moved in and later declared Sirte an ISIS emirate.

Last year, militiamen from Misrata and other localities in western Libya, acting with the support of a UN-backed government in Tripoli, waged a protracted and bloody campaign to drive ISIS militants from Sirte.

When fighting stalled, the government sought support from the United States, which responded with airstrikes that sped up the collapse of ISIS in the city.

ISIS was finally defeated in Sirte and the fighters who survived the carnage fled to the vast deserts to the south.

SEBRATHA:

Sebratha has earned a reputation as a small but tenacious stronghold of Islamic radicals, something that made it easier for ISIS militants to find a foothold there and spawned a lucrative business in human trafficking to Europe.

The city is the main ISIS gateway due to its location near the Tunisian border.

The jumble of various militias have helped ISIS keep a low profile in the city, but a 2016 US airstrike that killed about 40 of the group's operatives highlighted their presence in Sebratha.

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After UK, Egypt attacks, Libya seen as militants' haven - News24

TRIPOLI, Libya The young militia fighters carried in a comrade who was covered in blood and motionless. It was 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Al Mokhtar Clinic, and Libyas civil war had just reignited in this fractured capital.

Move on, clear the way, one fighter screamed. Hes dying.

Five hours earlier, on the eve of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, fierce clashes erupted between rival militias. They tore apart a two-month lull in the violence and upended the lives of countless Libyans in neighborhoods that turned into battle zones overnight.

The fighting also underscored the security and logistical challenges British investigators could face if they consider visiting Libya to pursue clues in the Manchester concert suicide bombing that killed 22 people this week. The bomber, Salman Abedi, was of Libyan origin, and his father and brother were arrested in Tripoli. Both are in the custody of a counterterrorism militia aligned with the Western-backed government.

Those challenges were evident during an hours-long drive Friday in a city fragmented as much by politics, ideology and geography as it is by violence and the thirst for power. In the southeastern enclaves, militias deployed tanks and used heavy artillery, leaving families trapped inside their homes and sending many civilians and fighters to hospitals with injuries. Authorities could not provide reliable casualty figures.

But in the northern neighborhoods, untouched by Fridays violence, Tripoli residents surreally socialized in cafes and water-skied in the Mediterranean Sea, even as the sound of explosions and gunfire thundered nearby. Huge plumes of black smoke from burning buildings rose over the city.

This has become normal for us, said Shukri Salim, 27, a Libyan Airlines employee, who was having coffee with friends in a cafe and watching a televised soccer match.

I knew it was Ramadan and the war is going to start, said his friend Ayoub Aldabaa, 27, an accountant, who was with him. Were so accustomed to this.

Last year, too, fighting engulfed the capital during Ramadan. That time, the clashes involved different militias.

It has been mostly like this since the 2011 populist uprising, part of the Arab Spring, that ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi and led to his killing. A constellation of tribal and regional militias emerged, seizing advantage of the power vacuum and abundance of weapons in a quest for power and wealth.

Today, militias have carved up the oil-producing country into fiefdoms, each aligned with one of three competing governments. And Tripoli, as expected, has been a major battleground with armed groups fighting for control of neighborhoods, even streets and buildings.

Fridays violence pitted militias aligned with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) against Islamist-leaning forces of the self-declared National Salvation government who are trying to reclaim territory lost in recent months, according to security officials.

A spokesman for the National Salvation government said a GNA-aligned militia erected a fake checkpoint to kidnap some of its fighters. So we decided to attack the GNA boys, said the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mahmud Zaghal.

But there has also been speculation for weeks that the National Salvation militias were planning a counterattack. A Facebook page created by its supporters carried a post on Thursday night announcing that it would launch assaults against rivals in southern Tripoli.

The clashes Friday mostly unfolded in the neighborhoods of Abu Salim, Salahedeen and Al Habda. Fighting also erupted in areas near the Rixos Hotel, which has been used by officials and lawmakers aligned with the GNA government.

Last October, their new legislative body was ousted from the buildings by the Salvation militias. In December, the area was the scene of heavy fighting over several days. Militias aligned with the GNA currently are in control of the complex and surrounding neighborhoods.

We will retake the Rixos, Zaghal vowed.

At the Al Mokhtar Clinic, the toll of the fighting was obvious. Doctors and nurses were inundated by the wounded. One man arrived with blood splattered on his legs.

My brother was injured, another man said as he waited outside. He was just standing in front of his house when the shells landed.

But the militia fighters were most visible at the clinic.

I want to get inside the room, one fighter screamed, as others held him back from accosting the doctors and nurses.

Other fighters, clad in black and clutching AK-47 rifles, stood outside.

At 1:53 p.m., screams filled the room. Some militia fighters cried, their faces now filled with anguish.

Their comrade had died on the operating table.

An hour later, Aldabaa and Salim were in the cafe. As they have done during previous clashes, they called friends and family around the city to make sure they were safe. They also checked Twitter and Facebook to see which neighborhoods had turned into no-go zones.

Salim had just spoken to a friend who was stuck in his home as fighters pummeled each other outside.

He and Aldabaa had both taken part in the revolution. Salim said he did not regret fighting against the Gaddafi regime, but regretted the people who came after the revolution.

Aldabaa blamed the Western countries for helping the rebellion that ousted Gaddafi, and now regrets that the revolution happened at all.

We were expecting to take the country in a better direction, he said. Unfortunately, we left it in a worse condition.

At 3:15 p.m. near the Rixos Hotel, militia fighters in pickup trucks waited for the next offensive. Graffiti on the wall of the complex read: Free Libya.

By 4:30 p.m., drivers were in lines at gas stations around the city, preparing for shortages that usually come after each clash.

And the people of Tripoli were certainly expecting more fighting.

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A day in Libya's capital, just as the civil war reignites - Washington Post