Mali on Alert: the Military deployment in deliberation

After the agreement of Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants on the establishment of an Islamic state:

Attention turns towards the establishment of an international or regional force, and criticism to Algeria for discarding its regional duties.

Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants have joined forces in northern Mali and say they will create an independent Islamist state.  The groups took advantage of a military coup in Bamako to seize control of the territory in early April. Resistance is growing in the north to the efforts to introduce Islamic law.

Gao is one of three northern strongholds that fell to Tuareg separatists and Islamist militants during the chaos that followed a March 22 military coup in Bamako.

The two groups joined forces in late May and say they will create an independent Islamic state in what is now nearly two-thirds of Mali’s national territory. The militant Islamist sect Ansar Dine is already imposing its brand of Islamic law in the north.

Violent protests erupted in Gao in mid-May, as frustrated youth tore down militants’ flags and marched on the groups’ separate headquarters.

Ansar Dine has ties to al-Qaida’s North Africa franchise, al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM, whose militants and leaders have been spotted in Gao and other towns since the occupation.

In Gao, Ansar Dine is trying to win over the population. Militants have given out their phone numbers and come to the aid of residents against attacks by bandits and other armed groups. Ansar Dine has posted guards outside the reopened hospital in Gao.

 

Midwife Zemila Isiyaku says they work in difficult conditions, but the people need them.  Everyday, she says, they hear gunshots.  She says it is thanks to Ansar Dine that they are able to work, it keeps them safe.

International human-rights groups say Ansar Dine’s crackdown in the north has included summary executions and amputations.

In Gao, town leaders formed an elders’ committee to serve as intermediary between the population and occupying forces.

The United Nations says more than 200,000 Malians have fled the north this year.

In mid-May, Ansar Dine escorted the first convoy of humanitarian aid to reach the occupied territory.  The militants manned machine guns mounted on pickup trucks.  The sect’s black flag flapped in the wind as the convoy rolled north.

Ansar Dine set the following conditions: all aid must come from Malian Muslims and no international products or agencies are allowed.

West African bloc ECOWAS has offered to deploy regional peacekeepers to Mali.  The nation’s military, unable to halt the rebellion in the north earlier this year, is in shambles following the coup.  While Boni Yayi actual President of the African Union suggests deployment of international forces in northern Mali. Mohamed Bazoum – the foreign minister of Niger – commented on these development that since situation in degrading Since the challenge of AQIM is emerging in northern Mali, and the military option remains actually the only one to save Mali’s integrity and all the region..

Bazoum thinks that hypothesis put forward by President Boni Yayi is a serious one, even if the easiest way for now is that there should be urgently a deployment of forces from ECOWAS to assist Malian army to be restored and reorganized as soon as possible. The engineering of such operation would be conducted by the Malians themselves and supported by all the countries of the region.

Mohamed Bazoum suggested military assistance in both logistics and human resources that should be equally assigned by ECOWAS from neighboring Countries.

The head of Niger diplomacy strongly call for Algerian to step down from their agendas in northern Mali, and to assume their complete responsibility towards the integrity of Mali, and the security of the entire region instead of withdrawal from the scene.

Bazoum comfort Algerian that any international deployment will not affect at any means its southern borders, since Algeria is expected to be a joined actor.

Nobody has a clear vision of Mali’s immediate political future and nobody knows how the weak and demoralized national army can take back the North from the well armed and well financed group Aqmi and their allies, the Ansar Dine.

The country is paralyzed. And to make matters worse, a new conflict between Sanogo and Ecowas has emerged. Sanogo wants a national convention of all political forces to work out who will govern until new elections can be held, Ecowas threatens new sanctions if the present interim government does not stay.

Everyday that uncertainty continues in Bamako will be a bonus for the Islamic radicals controlling the north. To a large extent, money is what determines the power relations in the north. Aqmi, which originates in Algeria, has been controlling smuggling routes through the Sahara for many years.

These routes have meant business in that vast area for centuries, but while in the past salt and gold were traded, the commodities are now drugs, weapons and migrants trying to reach Europe. The kidnapping of Western tourists is also believed to have earned Aqmi millions of dollars.

The fall last year of Libya’s leader Muamar Gaddafi heralded a dramatic change in the balance of power as Tuareg mercenaries who had served in the Libyan army returned to Mali with very heavy weapons. Tuaregs have been fighting central authority since the beginning of last century.

First it was the French, then after independence against the new government in Bamako. When the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA) declared an independent state in the North last month, the Tuaregs seemed to have achieved victory. They are seen as liberators in the town of Kidal, where the Tuareg are in the majority. But in other towns like Gao and Tombouctu they were overtaken by the religious zealots of Aqmi and the Ansar Dine.

Many Tuareg rebels changed side and joined Aqmi, because Aqmi has the money. Many displaced Malians from the North now say that the MNLA fighters loot, while the soldiers of Aqmi and Ansar Dine are disciplined and try to establish order.

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