Margot Kiser on Muck Rack

Margot Kiser

Dubai
As seen in: The Daily Beast, LinkedIn, MSN, MSN Canada, MSN South Africa, MSN UK, Newsweek, Al Jazeera English, Yahoo, Vocativ, RealClear Defense and
Covers:  Political violence, terrorism, geopolitics, human rights, maritime piracy, wildlife conservation mainly in East Africa and Somalia
reposts ≠ endorsements @thedailybeast @thetimes @NEWSWEEK @ajenglish
Back to Margot Kiser’s profile

Margot Kiser’s Journalist Portfolio

View as a grid

Big Game: U.S. Soldiers' Secret Hunt for Jihadists in a Kenyan Forest

Big Game: U.S. Soldiers' Secret Hunt for Jihadists in a Kenyan Forest

The Daily Beast — A short, bloody raid by U.S. Special Operations Forces on an al Qaeda base in Yemen in the second week of Donald Trump's presidency was a fleeting reminder to the world that Americans are engaged in secret and not-so-secret wars around the globe.
Who shared?

Sad About Cecil? These African Animals Are Slaughtered by the Thousands

Sad About Cecil? These African Animals Are Slaughtered by the Thousands

Daily Beast — JUBA, South Sudan - A hopeful myth persists in this region that "wildlife refugees"-fauna in flight from war-ravaged habitats-will return one day when the conflict is over. Would that it were so. But in South Sudan, no end of the conflict appears in sight, and amid vast human suffering, nature is being ravaged as well. The great icons of the wild-the elephants, the rhinos, the leopards and lions (so beloved of trophy hunting dentists and the heedless offspring of the outrageously rich) are gone or going fast. Conservationists say the "charismatic megafauna" are nearly wiped out here.
Who shared?

How Obama Glossed Over Africa's Troubles

How Obama Glossed Over Africa's Troubles

Daily Beast — NAIROBI - In what may give the term "birther" new meaning, it's rumored that in Kogelo, President Barack Hussein Obama's father's hometown on the shore of Lake Victoria, boy babies born over the weekend were named "Air Force One" and "POTUS." All part of the long kwaheri, Swahili for "good-bye," as Obama leaves Africa. In Kenya, when he walked onstage at the Kasarani stadium to deliver his final speech, the crowd of 5,000 cheered the president as if he were a rock star. As the helicopter known as Marine One delivered the president to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for his departure to Ethiopia, photos appeared on Facebook of grown Kenyan men in tears.
Who shared?

Obama Lands to Controversy in Kenya

Obama Lands to Controversy in Kenya

Daily Beast — NAIROBI - Air Force One landed in Nairobi this evening, bringing Barack Obama back to his father's homeland. This will be Obama's fourth visit to Kenya, but his first as President of the United States. He made his last as a senator in 2006. Rumors have been swirling about POTUS's schedule, his lodgings, and the "real agenda" of his three-day stay. "We fear Obama is coming to teach our children to be gay," the owner of a beauty salon in a Christian town on the coast told me. In reaction to the U.S.
Who shared?

Christians Warned, Then Killed in Kenyan University Massacre

Christians Warned, Then Killed in Kenyan University Massacre

thebea.st — Around 5:30 Thursday morning, when Hassan Osman, a 35-year-old newlywed and an employee with Kenya's Ministry of Health in Garissa, was in the mosque praying, he heard the sharp report of rapid gunfire rip through the still morning air. The noise came from the direction of nearby Garissa University College. There, gunmen had forced their way into the campus, shooting guards standing sentry at the main entrance and opening fire indiscriminately. Osman ran out of the mosque to see 30 or 40 students fleeing from dorms, some clearly rousted out of bed, he reported, and running naked.
Who shared?

Christians Warned, Then Killed in Kenyan University Massacre

Christians Warned, Then Killed in Kenyan University Massacre

thebea.st — Around 5:30 Thursday morning, when Hassan Osman, a 35-year-old newlywed and an employee with Kenya's Ministry of Health in Garissa, was in the mosque praying, he heard the sharp report of rapid gunfire rip through the still morning air. The noise came from the direction of nearby Garissa University College. There, gunmen had forced their way into the campus, shooting guards standing sentry at the main entrance and opening fire indiscriminately. Osman ran out of the mosque to see 30 or 40 students fleeing from dorms, some clearly rousted out of bed, he reported, and running naked.
Who shared?

Al-Shabab's Anti-Christian Slaughter

Al-Shabab's Anti-Christian Slaughter

Daily Beast — Just after midnight on December 2, about 20 gunmen from the Somali militant group Al-Shabab rousted awake miners sleeping in a tented camp at a quarry near the border town of Mandera. According to witnesses, the attackers separated the Muslims from the non-Muslims. Those unable to recite a passage from the Quran were made to lie face down and shot at close range, and at least two were reportedly beheaded. The quarry raid came 10 days after Al-Shabab attackers killed 48 passengers on a bus in the same town, and a day after gunmen opened fire and hurled grenades into a bar frequented by non-Muslims in a neighboring district, killing one and injuring 12.
Who shared?

Kenya tourism tanks amid increasing violence - Al Jazeera English

Kenya tourism tanks amid increasing violence - Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera — Attacks on tourists have contributed to a steep decline in tourism in Kenya. Mombasa, Kenya - In July, a Russian visitor was shot dead near Fort Jesus, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Mombasa's Old Town. Police ruled the killing a robbery. Three weeks later, assailants shot a German tourist at point-blank range, while she and her Ugandan travel companion were visiting Old Town's open market. The woman died instantly. Her friend sustained a bullet wound in the leg and survived. Last September, the attack on Nairobi's upmarket Westgate Mall killed more than 70 and injured scores.
Who shared?

Militants 'Executed Non-Muslims' at Kenyan Word Cup Watch Party

Militants 'Executed Non-Muslims' at Kenyan Word Cup Watch Party

Daily Beast — A brutal attack on a crowd of World Cup watchers at a hotel in northern Kenya has reportedly left at least 48 people dead. One of the survivors told the Daily Beast that the assailants were killing non-Muslims execution-style. Kenyan government officials claimed the attack could be the work of al-Shabab, an Islamist terror group that killed more than 60 people during an attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi last year. Mohammed Shariff, who was among the viewers at the Breeze View hotel in the coastal town of Mpekatoni, said the gunmen were asking people whether they were Islamic before opening fire.
Who shared?

Death Squads in Kenya's Shadow War on Shabaab Sympathizers

Death Squads in Kenya's Shadow War on Shabaab Sympathizers

Daily Beast — MOMBASA, Kenya-"The state wants to kill me," the 53-year-old jihadist Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, better known as "Makaburi," told me in late February. He said he was sure that one day he'd be gunned down by "unknown assailants" on a street in Mombasa. That's how so many controversial Islamic leaders have died in Kenya in recent months, he said. And then, earlier this week, the prophecy came true. On Tuesday, "unknown assailants" gunned down Makaburi as he was leaving a courthouse outside Mombasa. Makaburi was waiting by the side of the road along with four other preachers when a vehicle pulled up and sprayed them with bullets.
Who shared?

Burundi's Black Market Skull Trade

Burundi's Black Market Skull Trade

Daily Beast — BUJUMBURA, Burundi - In evenings when the hippo emerges from the depths of Lake Tanganyika to graze its grassy shores, members of Bujumbura's expat community gather at the various waterholes that ring the lake. At the Italian-owned Kiboko bar in "Buja," everyone-from the local media and Dutch soldiers to Catholic nuns-stops in to knock back cold Skols, the local brew, and gaze at the resource-rich Intombwe Mountains across the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Unlike its famous neighbor Rwanda, the tiny landlocked country of Burundi is difficult to locate on a map.
Who shared?

Questions remain a month after Westgate

Questions remain a month after Westgate

www.aljazeera.com — Nairobi, Kenya - Since its invasion of Somalia in 2011, the al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab has vowed to leave Kenya's capital looking like Mogadishu, its streets running with "rivers of blood". Last month's Westgate attack leaving at least 67 dead and 175 wounded has prompted most Nairobians to take these threats seriously. For four days the front lines of the war between al-Shabab and Kenyan forces played out on Kenyan soil and cut right through the centre of the capital's premier shopping venue. The mall itself looked like a war zone. The entrance to its biggest store, the Nakumatt supermarket, is now a gaping charcoal-black hole into which most hostages ran.
Who shared?

Slaughter in Nairobi: Bloody Siege in Shopping Mall Kills Dozens

Slaughter in Nairobi: Bloody Siege in Shopping Mall Kills Dozens

Daily Beast — Sadia Ahmed, a young presenter with a popular Kenyan radio station, was covering an Indian food cook-off on the rooftop parking lot of Nairobi's upscale American-style Westgate Mall on Saturday when gunmen appeared suddenly and began firing into the crowd. On weekends, the parking lot doubles as a sort of fairground and playground for kids. Many of them were in the line of fire, and some, at least, are among the dead and injured in a siege that is still underway, and developing into a hostage standoff, more than 24 hours later. The Kenyan government has reported 59 people dead and 175 injured so far.
Who shared?

A Long Walk Home: Somali Pirate Hostage Publishes Her Memoir

A Long Walk Home: Somali Pirate Hostage Publishes Her Memoir

Daily Beast — My Daily Beast review of "A Long Walk Home": Judith Tebbut's memoir as pirate hostage in Somalia.
Who shared?

Inside The Zanzibar Acid Attack

Inside The Zanzibar Acid Attack

Daily Beast — STONE TOWN, Zanzibar-Men in long white kanzus (robes) glide through ancient alleyways like dhows slicing through the Indian Ocean. A vendor of coffee and sweets offers a free Arabic espresso. The cellphone tone of a black burka-clad Arab teller rings with the theme to Sex & the City. Tourists-many of them back packers-and locals seem hardly to notice one another, and maintain a respectful distance. In Zanzibar, as in most idyllic, exotic tourist destinations, it's difficult to imagine anything bad ever happening. Western tourists still wander Stone Town, the ancient spice island's cultural capital, despite the ugly incident last week that nearly disfigured two young beautiful foreign visitors for life.
Who shared?

How Somali pirates and terrorists made bank off two Western hostages - Vocativ

How Somali pirates and terrorists made bank off two Western hostages - Vocativ

www.vocativ.com — Nearly two years after Somali pirates kidnapped them, two Spanish foreign aid workers suddenly reappeared at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu last month and got onboard a small plane headed back to Madrid. An undisclosed ransom was paid for their release, and though it's still unclear exactly who received the money, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, announced the return of Montserrat Serra, 42, and Blanca Thiebaut, 32, at a press conference last month, saying the women are in "relatively good health."
Who shared?

Margot Kiser's Journalist Portfolio on Muck Rack

Margot Kiser's Journalist Portfolio on Muck Rack

muckrack.com — I cover resource conflict, human rights, security matters and geopolitics in East Africa and Somalia.
Who shared?

U.S., Danish Aid Workers Seized in Somalia: New Details

U.S., Danish Aid Workers Seized in Somalia: New Details

Daily Beast — After they finished their workshop on land-mine hazard reduction early Tuesday afternoon, the aid workers hurried to catch a flight to Nairobi, out of war-torn Somalia. For safety's sake, the groupa 32-year-old American woman, a 60-year-old Danish man, and a Somali man of undisclosed age-was riding in a three-vehicle convoy, accompanied by a team of bodyguards. All the same, they didn't want darkness to catch them on the notoriously unsecured road to the airport that serves the disputed city of Galkayo. They never made it. Later that afternoon, their nongovernmental organization, the Danish Demining Group, announced that the workers had been kidnapped.
Who shared?

Navy SEALs' Daring Hostage Rescue May Signal More Somalia Land Raids by U.S.

Navy SEALs' Daring Hostage Rescue May Signal More Somalia Land Raids by U.S.

Daily Beast — A U.S. Navy SEALs unit, of the same special category that killed Osama bin Laden, has rescued an American and a Dane from pirates who captured them three months ago in Somalia. The Danish Refugee Council said the two were flown to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, where doctors said they are in reasonably good health. The American remains in hospital for observation, but both plan to reunite soon with their families. In a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday the 25 th (early evening Tuesday, U.S.
Who shared?

Somalia's Hostage: Judith Tebbutt Is Home-But How Free?

Somalia's Hostage: Judith Tebbutt Is Home-But How Free?

Daily Beast — With her recent release from captivity, Judith Tebbutt may soon be able to close a grim chapter of her life. Her ordeal began just past midnight on Sept. 11, 2011. That's when six gunmen abducted the 56-year-old British social worker from the luxury grass hut where she and her husband were staying at Kenya's Kiwayu Safari Village, 25 miles from the Somali border. She would spend the next six and a half months as a prisoner in a pirates' den near the Somali coastal town of Haradheere. After two weeks her captors let her speak by phone to her son, Oliver.
Who shared?

We Were Tortured in Kenya's Mau Mau-Era Detention Centers

We Were Tortured in Kenya's Mau Mau-Era Detention Centers

Newsweek — Waiting for justice more than 50 years-and counting, Margot Kiser reports from Kenya. The first thing Wambugu Wa Nyingi wants his visitors to see-even before he shows them the torture scars from his years in colonial-era Kenya's detention centers-is the lush landscape. The rolling hills on all sides, veined with rows of coffee plants as far as the eye can see, bespeak prosperity. But at 84, Wa Nyingi has only this little acre of ground where his house stands, with its rusty corrugated-iron roof and a few derelict-looking outbuildings made of scrap lumber. This whole swath of Kenya's countryside once belonged to Wa Nyingi's Kikuyu ancestors.
Who shared?

The Economics of Extinction: Africa's Elephants and Rhinos in Danger

The Economics of Extinction: Africa's Elephants and Rhinos in Danger

Newsweek — How long before Africa's rhinos and elephants are wiped out in the wild? You wouldn't think a room as big as a warehouse could feel this airless- not even a maximum-security warehouse, like this one. At the same time, the place seems odorless. Which also seems strange, with so much evidence of death shelved in wire-mesh bins and stacked up like firewood on all sides. But the overwhelming impression is utter soundlessness, except for the tread of armed paramilitary escorts' boots. Few other outsiders have ever seen the inside of the Tanzanian government's notoriously secretive Ivory Room.
Who shared?

The Economics of Extinction: Africa's Elephants and Rhinos in Danger

The Economics of Extinction: Africa's Elephants and Rhinos in Danger

Daily Beast — How long before Africa's rhinos and elephants are wiped out in the wild?
Who shared?

Lamu Port - Progress or Preservation

Lamu Port - Progress or Preservation

m.thinkafricapress.com —
Who shared?
Show More

Actions

Share this page

Is this you?

As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile

Get in touch with Margot

Contact Margot, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.

Learn more about Muck Rack
 •  Privacy  •  Terms  •  Security and Legal  •   •   •   • 

© 2026 Muck Rack

SOC 2® Certified