Apparently it isn’t enough for Suroosh Alvi to lord over the highly influential youth media empire he co-founded, he also feels compelled to hurl himself into harm’s way as a foreign correspondent in some of the most dangerous hot spots on the planet.
If I were worth millions, I might be inclined to take up baccarat, but apparently Alvi doesn’t feel that way. In his documentary series VICE News: Terror, Alvi has chosen to investigate some of the most formidable sources of terror in the world, traveling and filming in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
Before undertaking this series, Alvi had already gained his credentials as a documentary filmmaker in this region, having co-directed the “rockumentary” Heavy Metal in Baghdad in 2007 as well as making a piece on the gun markets of Pakistan.
In the fourth installment of VICE News: Terror, Alvi traveled to Nigeria in order to investigate the rise of Boko Haram and the military’s protracted efforts to contain it. Frustrated by the strict restrictions on journalists in the country, Alvi manages to conduct in-depth interviews with a female suicide bomb survivor as well as members of Boko Haram itself.
Boko Haram is arguably the leading source of terror in the world today. It killed more people in 2015 than even the Islamic State, with which it recently became affiliated. With help from France and the United States, the Nigerian army has managed to inflict some setbacks on Boko Haram, but the suicide bombing in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri this past weekend is a sure sign that its opponents cannot declare victory just yet. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to eliminate terrorist activities in the country, and has on multiple occasions announced the group’s demise. Boko Haram became a household name in early 2014 when it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok.
The episodes have been coming out on selected Tuesdays throughout October and November; the fourth installment, about Boko Haram in Nigeria, dropped this Tuesday, and the final episode, which examines the brutal tactics used by Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan, is due to premiere on November 15.
Alvi’s parents were both born in Pakistan, and Canadian Alvi has been visiting extended family members for his entire life, so the concluding installment of VICE News: Terror has special significance for him. In it, he takes up the murderous activities of Tehrik-i-Taliban, which has done so much to destabilize the country. In the documentary, Alvi interviews two survivors of the the Imamia Masjid bombing in Peshawar that took place several weeks after the school massacre, and also joins a dangerous raid searching for members of Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) in Karachi. In December of 2014, Tehrik-i-Taliban killed 141 people, including 132 schoolchildren, at the the Army Public School in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.