Kirk Lee Hammett is an American musician, lead guitarist and a contributing songwriter for the heavy metal band Metallica since 1983. Before joining Metallica he named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stone's list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2009, Hammett was ranked number 15 in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists. Hammett was born on November 18, 1962 in San Francisco, raised in the town of El Sobrante, California, he is the son of Dennis L. Hammett, his mother is of Filipino descent and his father was of English, German and Irish ancestry. He attended De Anza High School in California. While attending De Anza High School, he met Les Claypool of Primus, they remain close friends. Hammett has a well-known passion for horror movies. After spraining his arm in a fight with his sister at the age of five, Hammett's parents placed him in front of the television, it was during this time. After that, Hammett found himself drawn to his brother's Frankenstein figures, soon began spending his milk money on horror magazines.

For the better part of the next decade, Hammett dove deep into the horror scene. Hammett began showing an interest in music after listening to his brother Rick's extensive record collection, he began selling his horror magazines to buy music records, which led him to properly picking up the guitar at the age of fifteen. Hammett's first guitar was a "wholly unglamorous" Montgomery Ward catalog special, accompanied by a shoebox for an amp. After purchasing a 1978 Fender Stratocaster copy, Hammett attempted to customize his sound with various guitar parts, before buying a 1974 Gibson Flying V. Hammett took a job at Burger King as a youth, which he quit as soon as he had saved enough money to purchase a Marshall amplifier. Hammett's musical interests drew him into the fledgling thrash metal genre. In 1979, he formed the band Exodus at the age of sixteen, along with vocalist Paul Baloff, guitarist Gary Holt, bassist Geoff Andrews, drummer Tom Hunting. Hammett named Exodus after the Leon Uris novel of the same name, played on the band's 1982 Demo.

Exodus was an influential band in the Bay Area thrash movement. In May 1983, Metallica traveled to Rochester, New York to record its debut album, Metal Up Your Ass. Due to the lead guitarist's substance abuse and violent tendencies, he was fired from the band, would form the band Megadeth. Hammett received a phone call from Metallica the same afternoon. Though he had never left California before, Hammett gathered some money together and flew out to New York for an audition. According to James Hetfield: - "The first song we played was "Seek and Destroy", Kirk pulled off this solo, it was like... things are going to be alright!". All of this happened prior to the recording of Kill'Em All. At the time, Hammett was taking private lessons from guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani, he was still a member of Exodus at the time he was offered to join Metallica, although the offer may have come as a surprise to him, he was well acquainted with Metallica. While in Exodus, Hammett had shared the stage with Metallica on more than one occasion.

Hammett has written a number of riffs for Metallica since Ride the Lightning. One of his riffs was used on "Enter Sandman" - which went on to become one of Metallica's most popular songs, it was the first track and the first single on the band's self-titled album Metallica, was ranked 399th on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The bridge for "Creeping Death" was an Exodus riff that Hammett took with him to Metallica. In 1986, during the band's European leg of their tour to support Master of Puppets and bassist Cliff Burton had a dispute over sleeping arrangements on the band's tour bus; the outcome of the dispute was decided by a card draw, which Burton won by picking the Ace of Spades. Once the draw was completed, Burton looked at Hammett and said "I want your bunk", to which Hammett complied, saying that he might be able to sleep better in the front of the bus anyway. In the early hours of the following morning, Metallica's tour bus slid off the road and overturned in Sweden.

Burton was thrown through the window of the bus, which fell on top of Burton and subsequently killed him. Hammett has stated in an interview that he once thought that it could've been him, killed instead, since Burton was sleeping in what was considered to be Hammett's bunk. In Kirk's own words "You know to this day I just think, it could have been me or it couldn't have been me but... its never left me to this day." Between the end of touring the Black Album and the start of touring in promotion of Load, he studied at San Francisco State University, focusing on Film and Asian arts. Hammett went through a "blues period" around this time - which had some influence on Metallica's Load and Reload albums, he began listening to a lot of jazz music. Hammett described this period of his life as "great education", because he was able to discover where all of his own rock influences had gotten their own guitar licks; however though jazz music had a profound effect on his improvisation skills and solos, Hammett felt that he was delving too deep into the genre.

Since Death Magnetic, Hammett has gone back to being "primarily" a metal guitarist, but some of his experiences of jazz and bl

Mohammed Marwa, best known by his nickname Maitatsine, was a controversial preacher in Nigeria. Maitatsine is a Hausa word meaning "the one who damns" and refers to his curse-laden public speeches against the Nigerian state, his militant followers are known as the Yan Tatsine. He was from Marwa in northern Cameroon. After his education, he moved to Kano, Nigeria in about 1945, where he became known for his controversial preachings on the Qur'an. Maitatsine spoke against the use of radios, bicycles and the possession of more money than necessary; the British colonial authorities sent him into exile, but he returned to Kano shortly after independence. By 1972, he had a notable and militant following known as Yan Tatsine. In 1975, he was again arrested by Nigerian police for slander and public abuse of political authorities But in that period he began to receive acceptance from religious authorities after making hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca; as his following increased in the 1970s, so did the number of confrontations between his adherents and the police.

His preaching attracted a following of youths, unemployed migrants, those who felt that mainstream Muslim teachers were not doing enough for their communities. By December 1980, continued Yan Tatsine attacks on other religious figures and police forced the Nigerian army to become involved. Subsequent armed clashes led including Maitatsine himself. Maitatsine died shortly after sustaining injuries in the clashes either from his wounds or from a heart attack. According to a 2010 article published by the Sunday Trust magazine, the Nigerian military cremated Maitatsine's remains, which now rest in a bottle kept at a police laboratory in Kano. Despite Mohammed Marwa's death, Yan Tatsine riots continued into the early 1980s. In October 1982 riots erupted in Bulumkuttu, near Maidaguri, in Kaduna, to where many Yan Tatsine adherents had moved after 1980. Over 3,000 people died; some survivors of these altercations moved to Yola, in early 1984 more violent uprisings occurred in that city. In this round of rioting, Musa Makaniki, a close disciple of Maitatsine, emerged as a leader and Marwa's successor.

More than 1,000 people died in Yola and half of the city's 60,000 inhabitants were left homeless. Makaniki fled to his hometown of Gombe, where more Yan Tatsine riots occurred in April 1985. After the deaths of several hundred people Makaniki retreated to Cameroon, where he remained until 2004 when he was arrested in Nigeria; some analysts view the terrorist group Boko Haram as an extension of the Maitatsine riots. Boko Haram Religious violence in Nigeria Islam in Abdalla Uba Adamu: Art. "Mai Tatsine" in John L. Esposito: The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. 6 Bde. Oxford 2009. Bd. III, S. 459-462. BBC World Service - Witness: Maitatsine - original broadcast 27 December 2012 The 1982 Maitatsine uprisings in Nigeria: a note What We Can Learn From the Maitatsine History, by Demola T. Olarewaju - Jun 14, 2013 Radical Islam in the Lake Chad Basin, 1805-2009: From the Jihad to Boko Haram, Written by S. U. Fwatshak, MAITATSINE BLOODBATH. Saturday, December 28, 2013. Boko Haram: History and Revolt.

By Shehu Sani, Newsdiaryonline Wed Aug 3,2011

The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb. It separates the Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert, it stretches around 2,500 km through Morocco and Tunisia. The range's highest peak is Toubkal, in southwestern Morocco, with an elevation of 4,167 metres; the Atlas mountains are inhabited by Berber populations. The terms for ` mountain' are adras in some Berber languages; these terms are believed to be cognates of the toponym Atlas. The mountains are home to a number of animals and plants which are found within Africa but some of which can be found in Europe. Many of these species are endangered and a few are extinct; the basement rock of most of Africa was formed during the Precambrian supereon and is much older than the Atlas Mountains lying on the continent. The Atlas was formed during three subsequent phases of Earth's geology; the first tectonic deformation phase involves only the Anti-Atlas, formed in the Paleozoic Era as the result of continental collisions. North America and Africa were connected millions of years ago.

The Anti-Atlas Mountains are believed to have been formed as part of Alleghenian orogeny. These mountains were formed when Africa and America collided, were once a chain rivaling today's Himalayas. Today, the remains of this chain can be seen in the Fall Line region in the Eastern United States; some remnants can be found in the formed Appalachians in North America. A second phase took place during the Mesozoic Era, it consisted of a widespread extension of the Earth's crust that rifted and separated the continents mentioned above. This extension was responsible for the formation of many thick intracontinental sedimentary basins including the present Atlas. Most of the rocks forming the surface of the present High Atlas were deposited under the ocean at that time. In the Paleogene and Neogene Periods, the mountain chains that today constitute the Atlas were uplifted, as the land masses of Europe and Africa collided at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula; such convergent tectonic boundaries occur where two plates slide towards each other forming a subduction zone, and/or a continental collision.

In the case of the Africa-Europe collision, it is clear that tectonic convergence is responsible for the formation of the High Atlas, as well as for the closure of the Strait of Gibraltar and the formation of the Alps and the Pyrenees. However, there is a lack of evidence for the nature of the subduction in the Atlas region, or for the thickening of the Earth's crust associated with continental collisions. In fact, one of the most striking features of the Atlas to geologists is the relative small amount of crustal thickening and tectonic shortening despite the important altitude of the mountain range. Recent studies suggest that deep processes rooted in the Earth's mantle may have contributed to the uplift of the High and Middle Atlas; the Atlas are rich in natural resources. There are deposits of iron ore, lead ore, silver, rock salt, marble, anthracite coal and natural gas among other resources; the range can be divided into four general regions: High Atlas and Middle Atlas. Tell Atlas. Aurès Mountains.

Saharan Atlas. The Anti-Atlas extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the southwest of Morocco toward the northeast to the heights of Ouarzazate and further east to the city of Tafilalt. In the south it borders the Sahara; the easternmost point of the anti-Atlas is the Jbel Saghro range and its northern boundary is flanked by sections of the High Atlas range. It includes the Djebel Siroua, a massif of volcanic origin with the highest summit of the range at 3,304 m; the Jebel Bani is a much lower range running along the southern side of the Anti Atlas. The High Atlas in central Morocco rises in the west at the Atlantic coast and stretches in an eastern direction to the Moroccan-Algerian border, it has several peaks over 4,000 m, including the highest summit in North Africa and further east Ighil m'Goun the second major summit of the range. At the Atlantic and to the southwest, the range drops abruptly and makes a transition to the coast and the Anti-Atlas range. To the north, in the direction of Marrakesh, the range descends less abruptly.

On the heights of Ouarzazate the massif is cut through by the Draa Valley. It is inhabited by Berber people, who live in small villages and cultivate the high plains of the Ourika Valley. Near Barrage Cavagnac there is a hydroelectric dam that has created the artificial lake Lalla Takerkoust; the lake serves as a source for fish for the local fishermen. The largest villages and towns of the area are Ouarzazate, Amizmiz, Tin Mal and Ijoukak; the Middle Atlas is in Morocco and is the northernmost of its main three Atlas ranges. The range lies north of High Atlas, separated by the Moulouya and Oum Er-Rbia rivers, south of the Rif mountains, separated by the Sebou River. To the west are the main coastal plains of Morocco with many of the major cities and, to the east, the high barren plateau that lies between the Saharan and Tell Atlas; the high point of the range is the jbel Bou Naceur. The Middle Atlas experiences more rain than the ranges to the south, making it an important water catchment for the coast