Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis

Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis Inside Pages The War in Mali: Islamists, Tuaregs and French 2 Intervention - Ahmed S. Hashim Facets of religious violence in Pakistan - 9 Muhammad Feyyaz Regional Implications of Pakistan’s Changing 14 Militant Landscape - Abdul Basit Volume 5: Issue 02, February 2013 2 The War in Mali: Islamists, Tuaregs and French Intervention By Ahmed S. Hashim In January 2013, the French government of President Francois Hollande found itself involved in an increasingly complicated war against Islamist militants and Tuareg separatists in the remote and dusty country of Mali, a former French colonial possession and one of the poorest countries on the African continent. This intervention – codenamed Operation Serval – came at the culmination of a long chain of events in that hapless country whose current situation is characterized by political in- stability, economic stagnation and longstanding Tuareg separatist sentiment in the north and Islam- ist extremist infiltration via porous and poorly-guarded borders. Mali and the Sahel Region can drugs pass through this vast and virtually un- policed desert expanse. Mali is in what is referred to as the Sahel, a deso- late and forbidding region in the middle of the The Sahel region separates the Arab-dominated Sahara desert. Although there is some ongoing nations of North Africa (which also contain a debate concerning the geographical extent of the large ethnic group known as Amazigh or Berbers) Sahel region, it is generally considered to extend from those of sub-Saharan Africa. In the minds of from the Western Sahara – a territory whose sov- nineteenth century Orientalists the Semitic (Arab) ereignty is at issue – on the Atlantic to the Horn and Hamitic (Amazigh) constituted the native of Africa on the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. “whites” of Africa whose relations with the “black” Specifically, it includes the following states: West- Africans were marred by manifestations of racial ern Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ni- superiority on the part of the former, mutual sus- ger, Chad, Sudan (North), Eritrea, Ethiopia, So- picions and hatreds, and by the practice of taking maliland and Somalia. The Sahel countries are blacks as slaves by Arab and Berber tribes. among the world’s poorest, and the region overall These mutual racial prejudices have been carried is racked by drought and food shortages. It is into contemporary times. Immediately below the also host to some of the world's busiest smug- Sahel nations are the more prosperous – but also gling routes. People, weapons and South Ameri- conflict-ridden nations (e.g. Nigeria) of West Afri- Map of the Sahel region. Source: Qantara http://en.qantara.de/ files/6973/6874/4b59c b6097ea6_Map_Sahel .jpg Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, Vol. 5, Iss. 02, 2013 The War in Mali 3 ca. What happens in the Sahel is not limited to fertile southern region of the country, which also the Sahel as events there – often themselves a includes the capital, Bamako. The northern de- consequence of disruption in North Africa (e.g. sert region which includes the historically im- the Libyan Revolution of 2011 against Colonel portant Islamic centre of learning, Timbuktu, is Gaddafi sent thousands of Africans back into the home to nomadic Arab tribes and another no- Sahel) and witnessed the flooding of the Sahel madic people called Tuaregs (they prefer to call with Libyan arms that are more advanced than themselves Kel Tamasheq). The Tuaregs are a those already in that region. sub-branch of the Amazigh peoples who were already there when the Arabs arrived to claim What of Mali itself? In the late 19th century, the region for Islam. The Arabs and Tuaregs of France imposed its control over most of West Mali constitute somewhere between 10-15% of Africa and in the process supplanting and often the total population. The overwhelming majority destroying by military force quite sophisticated of Malians are Muslims (90%). The differences local empires or states; they then set about es- in Mali were not religious, but between the poor- tablishing modern borders for their possessions. er and neglected Tuareg and Arab-inhabited The Mali which emerged from French colonial- north and the more fertile black African southern ism in 1960 nonetheless inherited a very large part of the country. For much of Mali’s modern land area that was over twice the size of modern history as an independent nation, there was no France. Modern Mali is a poor, landlocked na- religious strife or manifestations of extremism; tion of almost 15 million people in the western but there were signs of Tuareg and Arab sepa- part of the Sahel. Its population is composed ratist sentiment from the very beginning of the largely of black Africans who live in the more founding of Mali. Political map of Mali Source: Maps of the World http:// www.mapsofworld.com/ mali/mali-political- map.html Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, Vol. 5, Iss. 02, 2013 The War in Mali 4 Tuareg Rebellions, 1963-Present regs and Arabs were under-represented in the government and public sector. What little existed When France granted Mali independence in in the way of public funds was spent in the 1960, the northerners were chagrined that the south. An economically and politically vulnerable colonial power had chosen to include them with- Mali faced a second Tuareg rebellion. By 1991, in a country politically dominated by an “African” alienated by years of discrimination and by mas- government in Bamako far away in the south. sacres in Mali and Niger, Tuaregs in both coun- Many in the ethnically distinct north of Mali tries rebelled. A year later, the Malian Army (along with some in southern Algeria and north- launched bloody reprisals against civilians after ern Niger) expected an independent Tuareg, Tuareg rebel attacks on the city of Gao. Berber, and Arab nation to be formed by the Sahara desert regions when French rule ended. In the latest rebellion which erupted in January The Tuareg rebellion of 1962–1964, sometimes 2012 after months of preparation, the rebels called the First Tuareg Rebellion or the Al- organised themselves under the banner of the fellaga, was a short-lived and amateurish insur- National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad gency by disgruntled Tuareg elements against (MNLA), an organization which was founded at the socialist government of Modibo Keita which the end of 2011 as a result of the fusion of dis- was dominated by southerners. No more than parate rebel groups. Its emergence has been 1,500 poorly-armed anti-government fighters spurred by the return of thousands of well- were ever active, but the ferocious response of armed and experienced Tuareg from fighting for the Malian Armed Forces resulted in a refugee the late Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. In the past, crisis, as thousands fled to Algeria. The subse- many destitute Tuareg men fled to Libya and quent military occupation of the northern region, joined the Libyan army where they received rel- the torture and extra-judicial killings of rebels led atively good training, housing, and good sala- to deep resentment among the northerners. ries. They participated in Qaddafi’s foolhardy and losing wars in sub-Saharan Africa; nonethe- Northern disgruntlement was accentuated by less, these adventures provided them with con- socio-economic marginalization in a country siderable combat experience. These men con- whose rigid socialist policies led to increased stituted the core of the MNLA fighting units and poverty and then bankruptcy by the end of the were under the command Mohammed Ag Najm, 1960s. Keita turned to the West (particularly a former officer in Gaddafi’s army. The MNLA is France) for economic assistance. However, in led by secretary general Bilal Ag Acherif and 1968, before Keita’s new direction bore any fruit, head of the political wing is Mahmoud Ag Aghali. his regime was overthrown by a group of young The MNLA leaders say they want a free, inde- army officers led by Lieutenant (later General) pendent and secular state, which they call Moussa Traore, who expected the West to help Azawad. Mali recover. However, little foreign direct in- vestment made its way to Mali and the country The combat units of the MNLA proved to be bet- was unable to develop worthy national infra- ter and more motivated fighters than the Malian structure. Much of the national budget was eat- soldiers. Mali's regular army consists of approxi- en up by a huge and corrupt public sector that mately 7,500 personnel - mostly mobile infantry had been inherited from the days of socialism. supported by some Special Forces, approxi- Meanwhile, birth rates remained high, and Mali mately 4,000 paramilitary and northern pro- was unable to provide meaningful employment government militia groups that were frequently to its expanding population. The northern region relied upon by Bamako to supplement its efforts. suffered more than the southern region as Tua- Despite a historical need for rapid and mobile Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, Vol. 5, Iss. 02, 2013 The War in Mali 5 force projection into the remote desert north Démocratie et la Restauration de l'État: from the southern power base, the Malian gov- CNRDR). The committee denounced the Presi- ernment's military infrastructure in the region dent's incompetence and promised to “hand consisted largely of small garrisons connected power back to a democratically elected Presi- by poorly maintained roads, with larger bases dent as soon as the country is reunified and its maintained at the three regional capitals bearing integrity is no longer threatened.” But the emer- the names of the administrative areas they rep- gence of a military government in Bamako actu- resent: Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.

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