The French have gone to war

[Junkenstein]

I was thinking in terms of American boots on the ground as that seems to be what it takes now to legitimize a war zone. French/UK intervention seems rather a prelude to the big guns and bombs.

Africa is still largely untapped and I suspect that when the US gets in there in earnest China and Russia will follow swiftly. Better to divide spoils than have no plunder at all.

[Cain]

No, the Americans are only going to act covertly, if at all.

Remember, the US let the French take the lead in Libya.  North Africa is a traditionally French zone of control, and the French still have people who know the region better than anyone in Europe or North America.  The US will provide diplomatic, economic and intelligence support, but I don't see them getting overtly involved.

This is Obama too, remember.  He prefers the US to act via proxies.

China have already been in Africa for a decade.  While Bush was off chasing terrorists, the Chinese moved in, invested and got rich.  Bush bought some goodwill, with his anti-AIDS campaign and funds, but Obama is looking at military basing, securing local alliances, working with regional outfits like ECOWAS etc etc.

[Junkenstein]

Thanks for the pointers, I'll try and keep them in mind as things develop round there. Where are the particular areas of interest for China?

[Elder Iptuous]

The French have taken Timbuktu and Gao, both without any resistance ...

Although i haven't been really following this, it all seems worth it, from my privileged position just to hear that "the French have taken Timbuktu".

do we have any details of this event so that it may be used with any degree of accuracy in conversational simile? 

[Telarus]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323926104578276003922396218.html

How's that for some clandestine shit.

[Cain]

The NYT has some info on how Timbuktu fared under shariah law

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/world/africa/timbuktu-endured-terror-under-harsh-shariah-law.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&

When the Islamist militants came to town, Dr. Ibrahim Maiga made a reluctant deal. He would do whatever they asked — treat their wounded, heal their fevers, bandage up without complaint the women they thrashed in the street for failing to cover their heads and faces. In return, they would allow him to keep the hospital running as he wished.

Then, one day in October, the militants called him with some unusual instructions. Put together a team, they said, bring an ambulance and come to a sun-baked public square by sand dunes.

There, before a stunned crowd, the Islamist fighters carried out what they claimed was the only just sentence for theft: cutting off the thief's hand. As one of the fighters hacked away at the wrist of a terrified, screaming young man strapped to a chair, Dr. Maiga, a veteran of grisly emergency room scenes, looked away.

"I was shocked," he said, holding his head in his hands. "But I was powerless. My job is to heal people. What could I do?"

When shots rang out in Independence Square, just behind Mr. Tandina's house, he knew that Timbuktu's latest conquerors had arrived.

"The barbarians were at our gate," he said with a sigh. "And not for the first time."

The Tuareg fighters took control of the city, and for two days they looted its sprawling markets, raped women, stole cars and killed anyone who stood in their way.

"Then the man with the big beard came," Mr. Tandina said.

Barrel-chested and dressed in a blue tunic, the leader of Ansar Dine, an Islamist group with links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, arrived with several truckloads of fighters. The new rebels called the city's people to a public square and made an announcement.

"They said, 'We are Muslims. We came here to impose Shariah,' " Mr. Tandina said.

At first, Timbuktu's people were relieved, he said. Beginning a hearts-and-minds campaign, the group garrisoned the fearsome Tuareg nationalists outside of town, which stopped the raping and pillaging.

They did not charge for electricity or collect taxes. Commerce went on more or less as usual, he said.

Then a mysterious group of visitors came from Gao, heavily armed men riding in pickup trucks, trailing desert dust.

"They told us they were here to establish an Islamic republic," Mr. Tandina said.

It started with the women. If they showed their faces in the market they would be whipped. The local men grew angry at attacks on their wives, so they organized a march to the headquarters of the Islamic police, who had installed themselves in a bank branch.

The Islamists greeted the protesters by shooting in the air. Many fled, but a small group, including Mr. Tandina, insisted that they be heard.

A young, bearded man came out to meet them. Much to Mr. Tandina's surprise, he recognized the Islamic police official. His name was Hassan Ag, and before the fighting began he had been a lab technician at the local hospital.

"When I knew him he was cleanshaven, and he wore ordinary clothes of a bureaucrat," Mr. Tandina said.

Now he was dressed in the uniform of the Islamist rebellion: a tunic, loose trousers cut well above the ankle, in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad, and a machine gun slung across his shoulder.

"I told him our women were being harmed," he said.

Mr. Ag was unmoved.

"This is Islamic law," he said, according to Mr. Tandina. "There is nothing I can do. And the worst is yet to come."

Interesting, the relationship between the Tuareg rebels and the Islamists.  I'm forced to wonder whether letter the Tuaregs loot and plunder only for the Islamists to sweep in and establish some semblance of law and order was a purposeful set-up, or whether it speaks to deeper divisions between the two groups. 

It could easily be either.  Cesare Borgia let the Romanga lords under him loot and pillage, only to ride in and kill them later, securing the loyalty of his subjects and deposing dangerous rivals at the same time.  At the same time, Islamists are really keen on law and order, their style.  That was the big appeal of the Taliban, after all.  And the United Islamic Courts in Somalia.  The Islamic Republic of Iraq....before it went too far in its predations on Shia Muslims, and risked civil war.

And if it was on purpose, it may tell us other things.  Why would a Tuareg commander allow Islamists to order his men around?  Are the Tuareg rebels dependent on money and arms that are funding the Ansar Dine, are the Islamists in fact the more powerful party here?  Or were they not interested in Timbuktu?  Is this suggestive of some kind of raiding party mentality, which is pretty common among warrior tribal groupings, such as the ones the Tuaregs come from.  Historically, their culture has a history of raiding for loot and slaves and I wonder if, after having their "fun" and proving their worth as men of "honour", they were content to let the Islamists take over.

I simply don't know enough about the two groups to make an informed judgement. 

[Cain]

And...here's the drug angle we've all been waiting for

http://mondediplo.com/2013/02/03drugs

A Boeing 727 from Venezuela carrying an estimated five to nine tonnes of cocaine landed at Tarkint, near the city of Gao in northeast Mali, in November 2009. It unloaded and made a failed take-off attempt, and then was set alight. The drugs were never recovered. An investigation revealed that a Lebanese family and a Mauritanian businessman who had made a fortune from Angolan diamonds were among the backers of the enterprise.

How could such a large plane carrying so much cocaine freely enter a region that, although desert, was neither uninhabited nor ungoverned? A French specialist who wishes to be anonymous claims that a government minister and highly placed people in the army and intelligence services with connections to the former president, Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT), were involved, as were some members of parliament from the north of the country.

The source said: "It's a sensitive subject. It goes to the heart of power. When ATT's regime collapsed, high-ranking officers in the Malian army and intelligence who had links with the drugs trade found themselves totally delegitimised. That's one reason why the enlisted men and the junior officers took part in the March 2012 coup. The higher ranks had a collection of cars that the entire military budget couldn't have bought. Drug trafficking brought major benefits: it helped with elections and real estate deals were financed through money laundering operations... Many politicians came to arrangements with the traffickers. If an over-eager soldier stopped a convoy, he'd get a call from someone higher up telling him to let it through. It happened on the border with Guinea in the time of Ousmane Conté, the Guinean president's son, who was arrested for drug trafficking. ATT turned a blind eye to it. He let things slide. The Malian regime was one of the most corrupt in West Africa."

Since 2004, West Africa has become a major hub for cocaine trafficking, storage and distribution. It caters for between 12% and 25% of European demand: 21 tonnes out of 129 in 2009, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The region offers international drug traffickers a range of competitive advantages: its strategic position between producer and consumer countries; cheap logistics and labour; slack controls and weak law-enforcement; endemic and low-cost corruption; a general climate of impunity.

Midway between South America and Europe, this new staging post receives products from the world's top cocaine producers, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. It supplies Europe, the second-biggest cocaine market in the world, with a value estimated at $33bn in 2012 (just $4bn less than North America). Cocaine is the second most commonly used drug in Europe after cannabis, with over four million users in 2008, under 1% of the population.

So, yet another Western intervention aimed at establishing a foothold in a region which is intimately linked to the drugs trade.  Gosh, what an incredible coincidence.

And here's the narco-financial aspect the Malian intervention:

Contrary to expectations, the division in Mali hasn't made the trade easier. "A weak state presents an opportunity for traffickers, but a completely disorganised territory is dangerous," the Sahel specialist told me. "Without reliable support from the army or the police, or from local and national politicians, the security of cocaine consignments can't be guaranteed. Even if you have struck deals with all the jihadist and MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad) groups in the north, you still risk being ripped off."

In other words, a consequence of the reunification of Mali and routing of Ansar Dine and the NMLA will be that Mali is once again a safe and reliable transit route for drugs going into Europe.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I simply don't know enough about the two groups to make an informed judgement.

It's sentences like these that ensure that I read Cain's political posts, and generally take them at face value.  Knowing when you don't know, and being secure enough in your expertise to admit it is a rare thing indeed. 

Just saying.

[Cain]

It's definitely something certain political pundits could do with.  Along with any actual knowledge of politics, of course.

The truly ironic thing is that, in their place, I'd know who to go to in order to get more knowledge on the region, and to be able to add that to my own expertise to come up with a superior understanding of events.  As a bystander, while I could do that, my request would be far lower on the list of priorities for such people.

[Cain]

Thanks for the pointers, I'll try and keep them in mind as things develop round there. Where are the particular areas of interest for China?

Anywhere with natural resources China needs.

Given underdevelopment in Africa due to corruption and dictatorship, this means practically everywhere.

[Deepthroat Chopra]

Just been reading that the French strongly suggest the Islamist militants are being supplied by Qatar. This article seems to suggest Qatar is becoming a player in some sort of Islamic cold war. Jopefully, this Charles McPhreda doesn't make Cain want to strangle a puppy. I don't know anything other than the short bio at the end of the article.

http://newmatilda.com/2013/02/05/qatari-finger-every-pie

In a series of interviews accorded to French investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaîné last year, French intelligence blamed one country, in particular, for financing a "terrorist haven" in northern Mali: Qatar.

"According to intelligence gathered by DRM (the Directorate of Military Intelligence), Tuareg insurgents from the MNLA (secular and pro-independence), and the [Islamists] from Ansar al Dine, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa have received Qatari aid in dollars," an Algerian paper quoted the weekly — which doesn't publish online — as having reported.

Qatar denies those claims. The emirate's government blames "brother nations" for spreading "maliciously intentioned" rumours about its involvement in Mali. The emirate says it wants to lead peace negotiations to secure a peace agreement there.

All the same, French experts claim that Qatar harbours energy interests in Mali. Geographer Mehdi Lazar thinks the emirate wants to exploit Malian gas reserves.


I've got friends that live in Doha, though, who think Qatar is more "westernised" than the rest of the Arab world. I suspect they live in an ex-pat bubble though. I don't know. They co-ordinate the Doha film festival, and in that framework, I'm sure Qatar would look all secular. They make far too much cash, and live in 5 star places.

It seems no-one's in doubt that Qatar won the hosting rights to the World Cup (football) through blatant corruption of what was probably the most corrupt orgainsation in the world, FIFA.

It is hard to imagine such a small nation with so much power. But there's the oil money...

[Cain]

Seems plausible.

Again, I don't know enough about the Mali situation to say.  We do know however that Qatar has supplied arms to the Libyan Islamist groups and it seems to have a quid quo pro with the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.

The other possibility is Saudi Arabia.  If anything, the Saudis have been even more aggressive about supporting vicious fundamentalist organizations as part of its post-Arab Spring restructuring of the Middle East/North Africa.  Given the lack of US leadership in the region (Obama's policy of "leading from behind"), it seems Saudi Arabia is using that gap to assert it's own agenda, and it's a pretty brutal power calculation in favour of more Sunni fundamentalists to bolster the Saudi position against Iran.

I do know that a senior leader in Ansar Dine was the former Malian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and was removed from the country for his suspected links with radicals on the Arabian Peninsula...but given Ansar Dine is actually the most moderate of the major Islamist factions in Mali, that may not mean much.  This article from Germany Foreign Policy suggests that Qatar and Saudi Arabia are supporting Islamists in northern Mali, for example.  There is also this article, alleging much the same.

[Cain]

Islamists have infiltrated back into Gao and started a firefight.

I strongly suspect this is nothing more than a probe of Malian Army defences and spreading a bit of terror and mayhem...but that's only a suspicion.  Worth keeping an eye on.

[Cain]

Mokhtar Bel Mokhtar has, allegedly, been killed by Chadian Special Forces.

Well, I suppose that's one way to ensure he doesn't talk about his freelance work for the Department of Intelligence and Security.

[LMNO]

Ok, is it all the new technology available to draw connections between people, or is this century essentially a pack of Tobas Knights* running around triple crossing each other?










*Tobias Knight was the quintuple agent in Illuminatus!