In the three months since French led
forces drove Islamic terrorists out of the cities of northern Mali, life
has been hard up there. That’s because these cities depended a lot on
tourism, which disappeared a year ago when the Islamic radicals and
Tuareg rebels showed up. The tourists have not returned and the lost
income has over a third of the population in the cities dependent on
charity or foreign aid to survive. Hunger is common and many refugees in
neighboring countries have not returned because of the poor economic
conditions.
The Malian army is concentrating troops near the northeastern town
of Kidal, which is controlled by the MNLA rebels. The MNLA means (in
French) “Liberation Army of Azawad” and the Mali government is upset
that MNLA men control most of the rural (and very thinly populated)
areas in the north. The only large town the MNLA controls is Kidal and
the Mali troops are threatening to take it back by force. It’s unlikely
the Mali soldiers and police could handle the MNLA gunmen, so the
concentration of security forces near Kidal is seen more as a bargaining
tactic than as a real threat to the MNLA. Negotiations with the MNLA
have not gone well as the rebels are insisting on an autonomy agreement
and the French and African peacekeepers have been unwilling to shut down
the MNLA for the Mali government. The Mali Army is seen as more of a
threat to an elected Mali government than to the Tuareg rebels.
MNLA rebels torment the Mali troops with things like approving
documents (like passes) with rubber stamps that say “State of Azawad”.
That is the Tuareg term for their homeland in northern Mali and at the
moment its capital is Kidal. The MNLA refuses to disarm but is willing
to negotiate their role in the north. After invading in January France
tolerated the MNLA as long as the rebels cooperated and did not fight
the Mali army or government officials. Several hundred Tuareg Malian
soldiers work directly for the French as scouts and translators. These
men help the French determine which Tuareg rebels can be trusted and
which are Islamic terrorists (usually members of MUJAO or Ansar Dine.)
The Tuareg rebels still want autonomy (self-rule) and the black
African majority (90 percent of the population) in the south does not
want to allow it. But the Mali Army, dominated by black Africans, is
still a corrupt bunch of ill-trained poorly equipped and ineptly led
gunmen who tend to serve whoever pays them. This army is still incapable
of defeating the MNLA and so far has been unable to persuade the
peacekeepers to do it for them. The MNLA expects the July elections
(the 7th for the president the 21st for parliament) to bring another
group of corrupt southerners to power.
French troops continue to search for and attack Islamic terrorist
groups in the north. French intelligence has identified dozens of camps
and equipment storage sites al Qaeda constructed in the north during the
last year and, in the far northern mountains near the Algerian border,
over the last decade. France is using its warplanes and smart bombs to
attack these bases and supply dumps.
Sending in ground troops is a less
attractive option because of the al Qaeda use of landmines and the
possibility of ambush by nearby terrorists. The French troops can go in
on foot, but there are more targets to be hit than there are infantry to
hit all of them. It takes time and manpower to clear the mines.
Islamic terrorists who have fled Mali are showing up in nearby
countries. Tunisia recently revealed that a group of fifty armed Islamic
terrorists have been operating in the Atlas Mountains (the coastal
mountain range that runs from Morocco to Tunisia) for the last six
months and that at least a quarter of them were veterans of the recent
fighting in Mali. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had members
from all over North Africa, but mostly from Algeria and while defeated
in Mali it was not destroyed there. Hundreds of experienced Islamic
terrorists have scattered and are reorganizing via email, cell phones
and hand-carried documents. Recruiting has taken a hit, as the
operations in Mali this year showed once more that Islamic radicals
cannot stand up to professional soldiers and their “Islamic” governing
methods tend to turn the population against them. This caused over a
thousand AQIM members to desert, while nearly 500 were killed in the
Mali fighting. Hundreds of local Islamic terrorists (Tuaregs and black
Africans from countries in the region) have stayed in northern Mali and
are carrying out a terrorism campaign. There are a few larger groups of
these Islamic terrorists still wandering around the far north but they
are being hunted by French aircraft and hit with smart bombs. Some of
these Islamic terrorists have renounced their alliance with al Qaeda and
are trying to evade attack by just being another group of Tuareg
separatists.
One aspect of the Islamic terrorism in the north has not run for
cover. That is the Wahhabi Moslems created over the last two decades by
Saudi Arabian missionaries and money. Since the 1980s nearly a hundred
billion dollars of Saudi money (from the government and private
donations) has been used to send thousands of Wahhabi missionaries to
(mostly Moslem) foreign countries and recruit new adherents to this
conservative and intolerant form of Islam. The money went to build
mosques and madrassas (religious schools) and pay Islamic conservative
clergy and teachers to convert more people to the Wahhabi way of
thinking.
Al Qaeda started as an organization of Wahhabi militants and
Wahhabi believers still form the core of most Islamic terror
organizations. The Saudis deny that they are subsidizing Islamic
terrorism, but the Wahhabis preach hatred of non-Moslems and violence
against those who do not accept the Wahhabi way. These Islamic radical
missionaries have been active in Mali for over a decade and although
less than ten percent of Mali Moslems adhere to Wahhabi beliefs, they
are among the most active Moslems and did not get upset when, a year
ago, Islamic terrorists in the north began destroying the holy places of
the majority Sufi Moslems up there. Wahhabis were busy in the south as
well as the north and police has recently discovered and arrested
southerners who had formed terrorist cells as a result of their Wahhabi
beliefs.
May 10, 2013: Five suicide bombers died in two attacks on
peacekeepers. One bomber attacked a Niger Army camp 300 kilometers east
of Gao. That one consisted of the bomber driving a car through the camp
entrance checkpoint and being shot at by guards and other troops. The
bomber was shot dead before he could detonate his explosives. The second
attack was to the west, near Timbuktu, against a Mali Army camp. The
four bombers died and two soldiers were wounded. These five bombers were
recruited, trained and sent out by MOJWA (Movement for Oneness and
Jihad in West Africa) which is largely composed of black African Islamic
radicals and led by Mauritanians.
MOJWA is unique among Islamic
terrorist groups because its leadership is black African.
Mauritanian
security forces have made it very difficult for MOJWA to operate in
Mauritania and that’s why so many MOJWA members moved to Mali in the
last year. Many are still there and not looking forward to the arrival
of Mauritanian troops as peacekeepers.
May 7, 2013: AQIM released a video on the Internet in which Moslems
worldwide were urged to attack French people and property wherever they
could. AQIM has been calling for this sort of thing since French led
forces drove them out of northern Mali last January. There have been a
few attacks, but not much damage. In response, France has increased its
efforts to hunt down Islamic militants in France.
Troops from Mali and Burkina Faso entered the village of Ber (50
kilometers northeast of Timbuktu). MNLA rebels had withdrawn from Ber to
avoid a fight with the Burkina Faso peacekeepers. There had been
fighting in Ber between Arab and Tuareg residents, which attracted the
attention of the peacekeepers.
May 6, 2013: In neighboring Niger a Nigerian Air Force Alpha jet
crashed as it was returning from a reconnaissance patrol over northern
Mali. The two man crew of the Alpha jet died, so it will take more time
to find out what exactly happened. Ground fire is unlikely as the jet
was in Niger air space when it went down. Nigeria sent two of its light
bombers (Alpha jets) to Niger last January as part of its contribution
to the Mali peacekeeping force. Nigeria has used these jets in
peacekeeping missions before, for scouting and attacking ground targets
with machine-guns and bombs.
May 5, 2013: Morocco announced that it arrested members of two
local Islamic terrorist cells and found that both groups had been in
touch with Islamic terrorists in Mali.
May 4, 2013: In Gao a suicide bomber on a motorbike attacked a Mali
Army patrol, killing himself and five soldiers. Elsewhere in Gao three
Islamic terrorists in a car opened fire on Mali soldiers, killing two of
them. Return fire killed all three of the Islamic terrorists.
April 28, 2013: Another French soldier was killed in northern Mali,
this time by a roadside bomb. This makes six French soldiers lost in
the last four months. There are about 4,500 French troops in Mali, about
half of them in the far north pursuing the remnants of the Islamic
terror groups that controlled the north for over six months.
