Thread: Mali Tuaregs and Islamist rebels to merge and create new state

Mali Tuaregs and Islamist rebels to merge and create new state | World news | guardian.co.uk

Alghabass Ag Intalla, one of the leaders of Ansar Dine, which is fighting to create an Islamic state, confirmed that his movement was joining with the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, a secular rebel group led by Tuareg separatists.

Will be intresting to see how the rest of the world responds

Ordinarily, I support independence movements. However, I don't support this one.

Originally Posted by Red_Dave

-- Will be intresting to see how the rest of the world responds

The worry is that the rebels have links to al-Qaida. Nobody will pay much attention to the Islamists destroying ancient monuments and world heritage artifacts (worrying mirror to what happened in Afghanistan when similar activities occured) but when al-Q starts operations from the area then there will be some world reaction.

I think when the infusion of French military support (direct or indirect) combined with AU reinforcements comes to bear the rebels will crumple. Though I've increasingly come to believe that direct French involvement will be required, and if the foreign ministers comments are any indicator may be likely.

Seems that the Economic Community of West African States, has agreed to intervene, backed (depressingly enough) by France.

Mali agrees to ECOWAS military deployment plan - MALI - FRANCE 24

This seems a monumentally stupid move to me for two reasons

[1] Mali has recently undergone a military coup that certainly didn't help the decision of the Tuaregs to secede (though the conflict predates the coup by a long way) by adopting a solution that makes no attempt to restore a legitimate (ideally democratic) government that could have dealt with the solution in a more even handed manner, perhaps reaching a diplomatic solution. This risks a repeat of what happened in Somalia, where the government had nothing to legitimize it other then a hated foreign military presence which led to its collapse.

[2] By forgoing a diplomatic solution which could have at best provided an opportunity to prize the Tuaregs and the Islamists apart and at the very least curtailed the extent of their extremism, military intervention will drive the two closer together, while providing a P.R boost for the Islamists who appear far more just while France appears to be slipping back into Gendarme of Africa mode.

Ultimately this has disturbing parallels with the conduct of the United States during the Cold War where politicians like Jacob Arbenz where ousted from power for siding with Soviet Union despite the fact that they simply did so because no one else would help then (especially not the United State's). It would be wise to think about the injustices that lead people to side with the bogeyman du jour rather then simply perpetuating and intensifying them.

1. Better in the light.
2. Hopefully one will not slaughter the other in the streets.
3. Compromises made should be interesting.

Doesn't look good in the North.
Spiegel, one of my favorite sites.
Bravo to the courageous Mr Mben.

A Trip Through Hell: Daily Life in Islamist-Controlled North Mali - SPIEGEL ONLINE
By Paul Hyacinthe Mben
10/29/2012

For months, an Islamist regime has been Terrorizing northern Mali.
Hundreds of thousands have already Fled the region, and those who have stayed behind are experiencing new forms of Cruelty with each passing day.
A SPIEGEL reporter documents a two-week journey through a region Europe fears will become the next Somalia.



Northern Mali is virtually inaccessible to journalists at present. Sharia law has been in effect there since last spring, when fundamentalists took control of a large part of the country, which had been considered a model nation Until then. The fundamentalists stone adulturers, amputate limbs and squelch all opposition.
They have destroyed tombs in Timbuktu that were recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Despite the risks, Paul Hyacinthe Mben, 39, a SPIEGEL employee and journalist in the capital Bamako, which is not yet under Islamist control, ventured into northern Mali.
Before the trip, he spent weeks negotiating with Islamist leaders for safe passage. In return, he was forced to accept certain conditions.
During his almost three-week stay in the north, he had to conform to the Islamists' dress code, as well as submit to a number of searches and interrogations.
But he never revealed to the Islamists where he was staying overnight, and he never stayed in the same place for more than a day. He lived in constant fear of being kidnapped. He had hardly returned to Bamako before learning that seven armed men had been following him in the north, with the aim of taking him captive.

A checkpoint set up by the Islamist police on the road to Gao marks the beginning of the region controlled by the new rulers of northern Mali.
Adolescents wielding Kalashnikovs stand at the barrier with their legs apart. The oldest one keeps repeating the same instructions through a megaphone: "No cigarettes, no CDs, no radios, no cameras, no jewelry," an endless loop of prohibitions, a list of everything that's haram, or impure, with which this journey to the north begins.
The men stand guard in the name of the Prophet Muhammad.
[..........]

Originally Posted by mbig

Doesn't look good in the North.

ha, I was just coming here to post this. A really great article

This is a tragedy. Before this conflict Mali was not just another authoritarian African state. It had been practicing democracy fairly well for over twenty years, despite being one of the poorest countries on Earth. Now the country is falling apart. Officials don't want this to be another Somalia, but I fear that foreign officials will repeat many of the same mistakes. Somalia was showing improvement, starting in the late 1990's. Violence was subsiding and an equilibrium of power started to form. Islamists had a great deal of power, but there were moderate as well as extreme factions. Then the Ethiopia invaded and the World supported a corrupt, unelected, and impotent Transitional Federal Government. The campaign mostly managed to radicalize the Islamists, pushing many into the camp of the al-Qaeda-affilliated al-Shabaab, and the country was reduced to chaos. I'm worried that foreign leaders would be making a big mistake to give support to an unelected, military-led government with less legitimacy. Mali needs reunification, but it also needs democracy. At the very least, Bamako needs to address the concerns of the people in Mali's north. The Islamists are not particularly popular. The government needs to convince the people that it is better.

French military intervention in Mali began this week to repel extremists in the north from advancing south in a bid to turn the West African nation into a jihadist haven that could export terrorism into Europe.

The border region of Mali and Algeria is awash in Islamic fighters and legions of weapons and contraband traffickers. The untamed territory has increasingly alarmed Western officials who fear that al-Qaida and its affiliates will exploit the lawlessness. That concern prompted French military action, which now, however, may have widened the conflict and reinvigorated al-Qaida. Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb, which emerged from the remnants of Algeria’s 1990s civil war, is one of the country’s most proficient militant organizations. The group has spread to Mali and, along with its affiliates, including those connected to Belmokhtar, has vowed to strike European targets and stage operations across northern and western Africa. Their arsenals are believed to have strengthened by heavy weapons looted in Libya during the fall of Moammar Gadhafi. The chaos in Libya also sent new recruits streaming into Algeria and Mali, where last year they helped Tuareg rebels overrun the north of the country following a coup. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb has often funded is operations through millions of dollars in kidnapping ransoms......snip~

Americans among hostages taken in attack by al-Qaida-linked militants - News - Stripes