Northern Mali is the target of operations:
Quote from: BBCPresident Francois Hollande says French troops are taking part in operations against Islamists in northern Mali.
French troops "have brought support to the Malian army to fight against the terrorists", Mr Hollande said.
He said the intervention was in line with international law, and had been agreed with Malian President Dioncounda Traore.
Armed groups, some linked to al-Qaeda, took control of northern Mali in April after a coup in the capital, Bamako.
The militants said this week that they had advanced further into government-controlled territory.
Mr Hollande said French military action had begun on Friday afternoon and would last "as long as necessary.
The EU has also committed a force of 200 military trainers for the Malian Army. I don't know what nationality, but this is almost certainly a NATO approved operation, so Italy, Spain etc are all good bets.
Not sure how ECOWAS will feel about this, though.
Problem with this is, if the French WIN, it's all "Wow. You beat Mali. :boring: "
And if they lose, it's all "YOU LOST TO MALI!"
:lolchix:
The unfortunate paradox of fighting insurgents everywhere. Even when you win, you lose.
Britain is deploying aircraft to assist in troop and material transport. Not surprising, since we scrapped our own aircraft carrier, we are reliant on the French for theirs, which means we are tied to the French military's wacky foreign adventures for the near future.
Uh, France, when you fight a war, part of that is to attempt to
deny the enemy more territory, not let them grab extra towns:
QuoteFrench Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Diabaly, 400km (250 miles) from the capital, Bamako, was taken in a counter-attack on Monday.
Mr Le Drian insisted France's campaign was "developing favourably".
He said Islamists had retreated in the east but admitted French forces were facing a "difficult" situation against well-armed rebels in western areas.
Well armed, note, not just from the stockpiles of weapons that crossed the border from Libya, but also by Algeria, which seems to be playing every side against each other in this little drama.
Mauritania too. I've read rumours that the government there backed elements of the Tuareg rebels, though I'd be surprised if they were keen on the presence of Islamic militants. Given Mauritania's own racial tensions (which no doubt contributed to their support of the rebels), I doubt they're keen on people who take Islam's racial equality seriously.
Heh. I love wartime press releases, especially when things aren't going well. There's a certain type of language that develops to make a defeat sound better.
"The attackers were severely punished in fierce fighting South of <insert town to the North that the defenders swore to hold>", etc.
Even if they eventually take back all the towns, this could still mean years of hide-and-seek fun in the vast northern deserts.
Lolz
Quote from: BBCFrench military officials say the Malian army has not recaptured the central town of Konna, contradicting reports from Mali at the weekend.
France launched its military intervention last Friday after Islamists seized Konna and began advancing further south.
After French air strikes began, a Malian military official said the army had brought Konna back under control.
But the defence minister in Paris said it was not in Malian hands.
Anyone thought about asking someone in Konna what's going on? Because at least one of those guys is wrong.
:lulz: That's what we have security and military correspondents for: so we don't have to be told distasteful, factual information by people actually living through the experience.
As an aside, I did try a quick look on Twitter, but all I saw was a bunch of white people arguing whether Konna was still in Islamist hands or not.
I know, I just thought the BBC might have more resources than me to fact find.
Once again, I am wrong.
Sorry, all BBC reseachers are currently looking into a story which suggests there has never been a single case of a sexual predator even seen near the offices of the Company or the presence of an employee, let alone actually protected in any way by the corporation.
Quote from: Cain on January 14, 2013, 10:01:52 PM
Uh, France, when you fight a war, part of that is to attempt to deny the enemy more territory, not let them grab extra towns:
QuoteFrench Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Diabaly, 400km (250 miles) from the capital, Bamako, was taken in a counter-attack on Monday.
Mr Le Drian insisted France's campaign was "developing favourably".
He said Islamists had retreated in the east but admitted French forces were facing a "difficult" situation against well-armed rebels in western areas.
The radio report I heard today said, "It is not known whether this was a strategic retreat or an actual defeat."
Probably a strategic defeat.
http://africasacountry.com/2013/01/14/france-in-mali-the-end-of-the-fairytale/
QuoteThe drama of the Islamist offensive should not be underestimated—a successful assault on Sevaré would have meant the loss of the only airstrip in Mali capable of handling heavy cargo planes, apart from that in Bamako. The fall of Sevaré would in turn have made any future military operation a nightmare for West African or other friendly forces, and it would have chased tens of thousands of civilians from their homes.
Hence why the French moved so quickly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21056592
QuoteThe Somali Islamist group al-Shabab says it has killed French intelligence agent Denis Allex in retaliation for a failed French operation to free him.
No prizes for guessing what the French stance is. At least both sides agree that the chap is dead, so it's looking bad for him either way.
Dr Nafeez Ahmed, one of the few geopolitical commentators who doesn't make me want to strange a puppy, points out... (http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2013/01/energy-imperial-geostrategy-in-africa.html)
QuoteNabila Ramdani's endorsement of France's Mali intervention, supposedly "aimed at ridding Mali of particularly sinister insurgents," overlooks key factors which have now made themselves manifest in last night's hostage seizures in Algeria.
Firstly, 'al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb' (AQIM) was, according to experts like Professor Jeremy Keenan from SOAS - the most cited academic in the world on North Africa - virtually manufactured in the region by Algerian intelligence services with clandestine US support. This short-sighted policy originated with the Algerian military junta's attempts to fabricate a justification for exterminating members of the peaceful Islamic Salvation Front after it won democratic elections decades ago. The policy was reinforced by NATO's intervention in Libya, shoring up Islamist militias with AQIM affiliations across the region.
Secondly, Ramdani naively ignores NATO's strategic interests in North Africa, described in 2007 by State Department adviser J. Peter Pham as "protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources... a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment."
Mali is believed to have significant oil and gas potential.
A confidential US embassy cable (8 May 2006) obtained by Wikileaks observes that a "significant impediment" to "extracting and transporting oil" in Mali is "regional political instability and terrorist activities."
With reports of extensive civilian casualties due to French airstrikes, it is far from clear that they will be beneficial for Mali, even if Ramdani concedes they may be troublesome for France. Such military action will only lend legitimacy to the most virulent AQIM components of the insurgency.
A better approach would be to cut off AQIM at source - by reigning in Algerian military intelligence.
But perhaps that's not the point.
Original print has links.
This in particular is worth reading http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/2010/07/201071994556568918.html
QuoteWhile the UN statement fits the catastrophic image being portrayed of the Sahara-Sahel region by the US, European and other Western interests, the truth is not only very different, but even more serious in that both the launch of the Saharan-Sahelian front in the 'global war on terror' (GWOT) and the subsequent establishment of al-Qaeda in the region have been fabricated.
These two deceptions have one key feature in common, namely that they were both implemented by Algeria's secret military intelligence service, the Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS), with the knowledge and complicity of the US.
I will explain each in turn.
Militarising Africa
A Saharan front in the GWOT was planned by the US and Algeria in 2002 and launched in early 2003.
The pivotal incident that justified the launch of the new front was the abduction in February-March 2003 of 32 tourists in the Algerian Sahara, ostensibly by Islamic extremists of Algeria's Groupe Salafiste pour le Prédication et le Combat (GSPC) under the leadership of Amari Saifi (aka El Para). However, it transpired that El Para was an agent of Algeria's DRS and his false flag operation had been undertaken with the complicity of the US department of defence.
QuoteWithin two months of El Para's hostage-takings, the US' top military commander in Europe (with responsibility for Africa), General James Jones spoke of "large ungoverned areas across Africa that are clearly the new routes of narco trafficking, terrorist training and hotbeds of instability".
Even before the hostages had been released, the administration of George Bush had designated the Sahara as a new front in the GWOT. Bush referred to El Para as 'bin Laden's man in the Sahel', while Jones' deputy commander described the Sahara as a "swamp of terror", a "terrorist infestation", which "we need to drain". The US military even produced a series of maps designating the Sahara-Sahel as a 'Terror Zone'.
In January 2004, Bush's Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI) saw US troops, special forces and 'contractors' being deployed into Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad. In 2005, the PSI was expanded through the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) to include Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, thus linking two of Africa's main oil and gas-producing regions, Algeria and Nigeria, into a military security arrangement whose architecture was American.
With no 'real' terrorism in the region, the US, through the region's repressive regimes, sought to provoke what it called 'putative terrorists'. Algerian police, acting as agents provocateurs, provoked riots in the city of Tamanrasset; in Niger, a trumped up murder charge against a Tuareg minister was designed to trigger a Tuareg rebellion, while in May 2006, the DRS, accompanied by some 100 US special forces, flown covertly from Stuttgart to Tamanrasset, crossed into northern Mali to support a short-lived Tuareg rebellion.
Increasing political instability and insecurity, generated primarily by this fabricated front in the GWOT, the increasing repression of US-backed regimes and the associated damage to local economies and livelihoods, led to the outbreak of Tuareg rebellions in Niger in February 2007 and in Mali a few months later.
The problem for the US was that the Tuareg rebellions were proof that political unrest in the Sahel, contrary to Washington's disinformation, had nothing to do with Islamic extremism, but was the outcome of the US' own duplicitous policy in the region - what Americans call 'blow-back'.
Oh, and...
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-new-al-qaeda-menace-7305
QuoteAlgiers has taken a curiously passive approach to the crisis in Mali. It withdrew its military advisors from Mali when the conflict began and cut off military assistance. It refers to the issue as a purely internal one. It has pressed for a political solution—not a military intervention. In turn, the jihadists have praised their restraint. The Algerians were against the NATO operation in Libya, which they feared would unleash Al Qaeda in the area. They are especially anxious that a potential intervention in Mali not include French or other Western forces.
There have also long been rumors and reports that the Algerian generals have back door connections with elements in Al Qaeda. Algeria's intelligence chief General Mohamed "Toufik" Mediene, the most powerful man in the country, allegedly encouraged AQIM's growth to create a bogeyman to justify the secret police's control of the country. An extremely secretive man, Mediene, was trained by the KGB and has run the intelligence service for over twenty years. Ghaly is said by some experts to be very close to Mediene's spies. Algeria's curious role will revive speculation about its secret connections in the Sahara.
And if you think, in light of all the above, that this is a coincidence, you are too much of a sucker to be trusted with the vote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21085590
QuoteHundreds of hostages have been freed from militants at an Algerian gas facility, state media say, but about 30 foreigners are still unaccounted for.
State-run APS news agency said 573 Algerians and 'around 100' of 132 foreign workers were freed at the In Amenas facility.
The militants remained holed up at the site, APS said. About 10 Britons are thought to be still held.
QuoteOn Friday morning, a spokesman for the group thought to be behind the attack told the Mauritanian ANI agency - which has received several messages from the militants - that it would carry out further operations.
Algerian officials said the militants were operating under orders from Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who was a senior AQIM commander until late last year.
ANI quoted sources from Belmokhtar's group as saying that they wanted to exchange their American captives for two high-profile detainees in American jails.
They are the Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted over the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, and Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted in 2010 of attempting to kill US military personnel.
An earlier statement purporting to come from the kidnappers says the raid was carried out in retaliation for the French intervention against Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in neighbouring Mali.
Like Gordon Corera
QuoteBut BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera says the kidnapping was a complex operation which is unlikely to have been planned and carried out since the surprising French intervention in Mali last Friday.
SUCKER. It's not at all complex if they had military backing, if this was a warning shot to the NATO powers about meddling with Algerian designs on Mali. Which it so. fucking. obviously. IS.
Wait, I'm a little confused. These are American-Algerian created but are firing a warning shot against NATO intervention? I think I missed something...
Yup.
Just because they were a joint American-Algerian operation doesn't mean the Americans have joint custody over their actions. Who's the more proximate actor? Algeria. Who's the actor with the most local power? Algeria. Who is covertly supporting AQIM's takeover in Mali? Algeria.
The Americans were there at the start, but it doesn't mean they have ownership of the beast they helped create. Algeria has designs on Mali, and America's ally France, riding in to secure their territorial integrity, does not help their plans. Not one bit.
AQIM wants a safe base of operation in Mali. Algeria wants...well, lots of things. A scary enemy to justify their police state. To carve out a greater regional role. To decimate possible contenders to its oil and gas markets. Possibly all of the above.
The French don't intervene without American say-so, whatever Hollande might otherwise claim. This is a White House sanctioned and blessed op. So the Algerians are pissed. They say "let's teach NATO to butt out of our business". They pass along some ideas and some knowledge about the security of oil facilities in Algeria to AQIM-linked militants, who are also looking to push the NATO-backed presence out of Mali. The plan is terrorise and threaten Western corporations. Not enough to force them out. But to grab headlines, make people fearful, make people think twice about fucking with AQIM directly.
And lo and behold, we have a hostage crisis.
Quote from: Cain on January 19, 2013, 01:40:37 AM
Yup.
Just because they were a joint American-Algerian operation doesn't mean the Americans have joint custody over their actions. Who's the more proximate actor? Algeria. Who's the actor with the most local power? Algeria. Who is covertly supporting AQIM's takeover in Mali? Algeria.
The Americans were there at the start, but it doesn't mean they have ownership of the beast they helped create. Algeria has designs on Mali, and America's ally France, riding in to secure their territorial integrity, does not help their plans. Not one bit.
AQIM wants a safe base of operation in Mali. Algeria wants...well, lots of things. A scary enemy to justify their police state. To carve out a greater regional role. To decimate possible contenders to its oil and gas markets. Possibly all of the above.
The French don't intervene without American say-so, whatever Hollande might otherwise claim. This is a White House sanctioned and blessed op. So the Algerians are pissed. They say "let's teach NATO to butt out of our business". They pass along some ideas and some knowledge about the security of oil facilities in Algeria to AQIM-linked militants, who are also looking to push the NATO-backed presence out of Mali. The plan is terrorise and threaten Western corporations. Not enough to force them out. But to grab headlines, make people fearful, make people think twice about fucking with AQIM directly.
And lo and behold, we have a hostage crisis.
Gotcha. Is Algeria then seeking to become... hmm, well are they looking to annex Mali, or are they trying to make it a client state of some sort?
My personal belief is "dismember it and prevent it from forming any kind of cohesive whole". Actual annexation is the kinda thing that would bring down definite US wrath, in military form (last real time someone tried to annexe another country was Saddam Hussein). So rip the country apart. Prevent it from being a potential future threat, military or economic. Support factions that will help bring about this goal. Mali may not look like much of a huge threat, from our vantage point, but the view from Algiers is probably rather different.
Quote from: Cain on January 19, 2013, 01:49:39 AM
My personal belief is "dismember it and prevent it from forming any kind of cohesive whole". Actual annexation is the kinda thing that would bring down definite US wrath, in military form (last real time someone tried to annexe another country was Saddam Hussein). So rip the country apart. Prevent it from being a potential future threat, military or economic. Support factions that will help bring about this goal. Mali may not look like much of a huge threat, from our vantage point, but the view from Algiers is probably rather different.
Being the winners of both world wars probably does skew our perceptions a bit. I'm not that great with knowing stuff about North Africa, either, so I'm not really sure of the dynamics between all of the countries there. Though I do seem to recall there being some territorial dispute between Algeria and Morocco. Not that that has anything to do with this, it just popped into my head.
So does every country in N. Africa / Middle East have its own pet terrorist group that it can use to destabilize its neighbors and justify US/NATO operations?
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on January 19, 2013, 04:16:43 AM
So does every country in N. Africa / Middle East have its own pet terrorist group that it can use to destabilize its neighbors and justify US/NATO operations?
Most African countries full stop have secessionist or terrorist groups operating within their borders.
All part of the fun of having your borders drawn up by people looking to neutralize outside opposition - it invariably means throwing together two people who historically hate each other more than those manipulating them. Islamist groups are the big ones of late, but you still have classic Marxist-Nationalist types running around too.
Anyway....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/david-cameron-warns-of-decadeslong-struggle-against-islamist-terrorism-in-north-africa-8458964.html
QuoteMr Cameron said the attack was a "stark reminder" of the continuing terrorist threat and vowed to use Britain's chairmanship of the G8 to ensure that it was right at the top of the international agenda.
"This is a global threat and it will require a global response. It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months," he said.
"It requires a response that is patient and painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve and that is what we will deliver over these coming years.
"What we face is an extremist, Islamist, al Qaida-linked terrorist group. Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in north Africa.
"It is linked to al Qaida, it wants to destroy our way of life, it believes in killing as many people as it can. We need to work with others to defeat the terrorists and to close down the ungoverned spaces where they thrive with all the means that we have."
North Africa is being built up as the next great theatre in the Global War on Terror. And given how badly Afghanistant was fucked up....North Africa is bigger than North America. Mali alone is bigger than Texas, or any two European countries. The idea that we can win a war over such a large area of operation is foolishness.
Especially when we apparently don't know who our enemies are (http://news.yahoo.com/algeria-prisoner-swap-shows-al-qaeda-wont-leave-000459155.html):
Quote"It is absolutely essential that we broaden and deepen our counterterror cooperation going forward with Algeria and all counterterror efforts in the region," Clinton said. Citing her conversations with Algerian officials in recent days, she said, "I made clear that we stand ready to further enhance counterterror support that we have already supplied."
The French have taken Timbuktu and Gao, both without any resistance. This leaves only one major town in Tuareg rebel hands.
Also conspicuous by their absence are the Islamist groups, who have apparently crossed the border into Burkino Faso. Meanwhile, the Tuareg rebels are retreating back into the Sahara Desert, preparing for cross-border guerrilla warfare.
This isn't finishing anytime soon.
Appreciate the updates.
UK troops to be deployed to Mali:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21240676
QuoteThe UK is expected to agree to send troops to train forces in Mali, as part of a joint EU mission, at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.
Number 10 said David Cameron spoke to French President Francois Hollande on Sunday evening about further possible British help for French forces in Mali.
The UK said it was "ready to provide further assistance where we can and depending what French requests may be".
French-led troops have taken Timbuktu in their operation against Islamists.
BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said there was still no question of British forces taking on a combat role in Mali.
Uh, hello, "insurgency"? Every troop is in a combat role, dipshit. In fact, if I was an insurgent leader, I'd be rummaging around the spare change draw to see exactly how much of a bounty can be put on the head of every foreign military trainer. One trainer is worth as many troops as he can effectively improve, which over a period of time can be significant. Western armies don't like putting their own troops in harms way, especially not when there are sepoys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepoy) to bear the brunt of the fighting.
You strike at the source of an enemy's power, and in the case of the Malian government, that power is its overseas allies. Drive up the political costs of engagement with ugly killings, reduce the effectiveness of the Malian Army (which is pretty poor) and fight the war on your terms - not the enemy's.
Great stuff. The best thing about these modern day sepoys is shown in how effective this strategy has been in Iraq, Afghanistan etc...
How quickly is this likely to ramp up? There's going to have to be a lot of "peacekeeping" either way.
I seem to recall something about the area being gold rich too. A pleasant secondary bonus given the multitude of cheap local labour and highly (cost) efficient methods of recovery. Mercury is still the method of choice in the area I believe.
"Ramp up" in the sense of...? It's a guerrilla war. It's going to be mostly quiet, with the occasional scene of bloody violence. That's how they go.
Niger is allowing the US to use it's airspace for drone surveillance. Whoever it was who said this was part of a more concerted push into North Africa generally, award yourself a cookie. The War on Terror (Global Edition) may be selling poorly, but local franchises, such as the North African one, are apparently all the rage.
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.
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.
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?
Quote from: Cain on January 27, 2013, 05:19:43 PM
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? :)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323926104578276003922396218.html
How's that for some clandestine shit.
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&
QuoteWhen 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?"
QuoteWhen 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.
And...here's the drug angle we've all been waiting for
http://mondediplo.com/2013/02/03drugs
QuoteA 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."
QuoteSince 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:
QuoteContrary 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.
Quote from: Cain on February 04, 2013, 11:02:23 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: Junkenstein on January 31, 2013, 07:27:23 PM
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.
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...
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 (http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/58506/print) from Germany Foreign Policy suggests that Qatar and Saudi Arabia are supporting Islamists in northern Mali, for example. There is also this article (http://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/qatar-funding-islamist-rebels-in-mali/), alleging much the same.
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.
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 (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/23/one-eyed-terror-leader-s-government-connections.html).
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!
Probably the former. I mean, the Cold War only had simplicity enforced on it by the (false dichotomy) of the bipolar relationship between the USA and USSR. Check out the career of one Iveno Azev if you want to see how this isn't necessarily confined to modern times.
Can't find Iveno Azev on google or wikipedia, any chance you could provide a link to info?
Huh, how odd.
He was a Russian spy. He was also the leader of the "Battle Organisation" of the Social Revolutionaries. He was intimately involved in the planning and execution of several high level assassination attempts, including that of the head of the political section of the secret police, the Minister for the Interior, and Duke Sergei Alexandrovitch, the Tsar's uncle and chief of the Moscow Military District. The Tsar himself was a target for assassination by the time of his arrest. The magnitude and scale of his crimes were so great that, when it was revealed he was an agent provocateur for the police, the claim was initially met with disbelief.
For his troubles, he got a cool 14,000 rubles a year. Whose side was he really on? Who knows?
Ah, here we go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevno_Azef
Stupid Russians and their stupid alternate spellings.
Quote from: Cain on March 08, 2013, 11:38:10 AM
Huh, how odd.
He was a Russian spy. He was also the leader of the "Battle Organisation" of the Social Revolutionaries. He was intimately involved in the planning and execution of several high level assassination attempts, including that of the head of the political section of the secret police, the Minister for the Interior, and Duke Sergei Alexandrovitch, the Tsar's uncle and chief of the Moscow Military District. The Tsar himself was a target for assassination by the time of his arrest. The magnitude and scale of his crimes were so great that, when it was revealed he was an agent provocateur for the police, the claim was initially met with disbelief.
For his troubles, he got a cool 14,000 rubles a year. Whose side was he really on? Who knows?
Ah, here we go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevno_Azef
Stupid Russians and their stupid alternate spellings.
Any country who thinks it's okay to stick back to front capital E's in the middle of words deserves everything they have coming to them as far as I'm concerned :argh!:
Also consider the career of one Ronald Hadley Stark (http://www.skilluminati.com/research/entry/ronald_hadley_stark_the_man_behind_the_lsd_curtain/).
Another Algerian intelligence asset (former/current status unknown) hath been snuffed.
BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21912281):
QuoteIslamist commander Abdelhamid Abou Zeid has been killed in fighting in Mali, the French presidency has confirmed.
Abou Zeid was a senior figure in al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Earlier, the French newspaper Le Monde said DNA samples had made it possible to formally identify Abou Zeid.
Let us recall what Jeremy Keenan (http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/2010/07/201071994556568918.html) said:
QuoteIn the case of AQIM in the Sahara-Sahel, now known as al-Qaeda in the Sahel (AQIS) or the 'Sahara Emirate' ('Imarat Essahra'), it is difficult to distinguish between the latter two. Of the AQIS's alleged leaders, Abdelhamid abou Zaïd, Yahia Djouadi (and their many aliases) and Mokhtar ben Mokhtar (MBM) all have linkages to the DRS. Abdelhamid abou Zaïd is closely associated with the DRS, being El Para's 'number two' in the 2003 operation; Djouadi was also a member of El Para's team, while MBM has a more 'freelance' relationship with the DRS.
In short, the AQIS is the latest manifestation of the DRS' successful creation and infiltration of Islamic 'terrorist' groups, in much the same way that the GIA leadership was infiltrated by DRS agents Djamel Zitouni and Antar Zouabri in the 1990s. In the case of the GIA's successor, the GSPC founder Hassan Hattab now lives under the protection of the DRS.
Abdelhamid abou Zaïd is of course an alternate spelling of Abdelhamid Abou Zeid.
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