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IN THIS ISSUE: Briefs VOLUME X, ISSUE 7 uAPRIL 6, 2012 IN THIS ISSUE: BRIEFS................................................................................................................................1 SOMALIA’s NEIGHBORS MAKING PROGRESS AGAINST AL-SHABAAB DESPITE THREATS OF RETALIATION By Abdullahi Ahmed Mohamed.................................................................................4 WEST AFRICA’s MOJWA MILITANts – COMPETITION FOR AL-QAEDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHREB? General Julius Karangi By Dario Cristiani ......................................................................................................6 HOW KURDISH PKK MILITANTS ARE EXPLOITING THE CRISIS IN SYRIA TO ACHIEVE Terrorism Monitor is a publication REGIONAL AUTONOMY of The Jamestown Foundation. By Emrullah Uslu.......................................................................................................8 The Terrorism Monitor is designed to be read by policy- makers and other specialists yet be accessible to the general public. The opinions expressed ARAB-TUBU CLASHES IN SOUTHERN LIBYA’S SABHA OASIS within are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily Following deadly clashes between Tubu and Arab tribesmen in the Libyan oasis reflect those of The Jamestown of Kufra in February, another round of fighting between the Tubu and Arabs Foundation. using automatic weapons, rockets and mortars erupted in late March in Libya’s strategic Sabha oasis. Tubu residents in Sabha reported Arab tribesmen torching Unauthorized reproduction or the homes of Tubu residents or expelling them at gunpoint while Arabs warned redistribution of this or any of Tubu snipers (Libya Herald, March 28; AFP, March 29). Three hundred Jamestown publication is strictly Transitional National Council (TNC) soldiers arrived in Sabha on March 26, prohibited by law. with more arriving in the following days. Without a national army that can be called upon to restore order, the TNC instead called on Arab militias from northern Libya to deploy in Sabha, including militias from Misrata, Ajdabiya, Zintan and Benghazi (Libya Herald, March 28; Tripoli Post, March 29). Though a dispute over a stolen car was said to have ignited the fighting, others have cited rising tensions over the distribution of $4 million earmarked by the TNC for use in Sabha (Financial Times, March 29). Sabha, a city of 210,000 people about 400 miles south of Tripoli, is the site of an important military base and airfield as well as being a commercial and For comments or questions about transportation hub for the Fezzan, the southernmost of Libya’s three traditional our publications, please send an provinces. Many of the residents are economic migrants from Niger, Chad and email to [email protected], or contact us at: the Sudan, while the Qaddadfa (the tribe of Mu’ammar Qaddafi) and the Awlad 1111 16th St. NW, Suite #320 Sulayman are among the more prominent Arab tribes found in Sabha. One of Washington, DC • 20036 the last strongholds of the Qaddafi loyalists, Sabha was taken by TNC militias Tel: (202) 483-8888 in light fighting over September 19-22, 2011. Fax: (202) 483-8337 Copyright ©2011 TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE TERRORISM MONITOR, VISIT http://www.jamestown.org TerrorismMonitor Volume X u Issue 7 u April 6, 2012 By March 29, the fighting had begun to ebb as tribal elders Qaddafi foreigners even though the local Teda Tubu were met to negotiate a ceasefire and the oasis town began to subject to repressive measures from the Libyan leader, fill with some 3,000 TNC-backed militia fighters from who liked to suggest that the indigenous Tubu had only northern Libya (Jordan Times, March 30). The clashes arrived in Libya during the Italian occupation or later. are believed to have left 50 dead and 167 wounded while revealing the continuing fragility of the post-Qaddafi During the anti-Qaddafi rebellion, some Tubu formed the Libyan state (Tripoli Post, March 30).Though active rebel-allied “Desert Shield Brigade,” which conducted fighting between the Tubu and Zuwaya Arabs in Kufra long-range raids (a Tubu specialty) on Murzuk and al- eased in March, tensions remain high as the Zuwaya Qatrun (Ennahar [Algiers], August 20, 2011; AFP, July claim Tubu from Chad have infiltrated the oasis and 23, 2011). The Brigade was led by veteran Tubu militant supplied weapons to the Libyan Tubu in an effort to take Barka Wardagou, the former leader of the Niger-based control of the borders and smuggling. Local security Tubu movement Front armé revolutionnaire du Sahara officials have warned it would take “only one shot for (FARS), which has worked in cooperation with Tuareg things to degenerate.” (Now Lebanon, March 22; for militant groups in the past. Kufra see Terrorism Monitor Brief, February 23). Bashir al-Kabit, the head of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, The Libyan Tubu claim that, rather than facilitating the said the fighting in Kufra was only an isolated incident, entry of foreign militants, the local Tubu have formed blown out of proportion by the media, while suggesting their own border patrols to ensure Libya’s sovereignty in the Tubu were still in the pro-Qaddafi camp: “There the absence of an effective central authority. According are some tribal problems. Some tribes were in favor of to Tubu representative Muhammad al-Sanusi, “Libya’s the [Qaddafi] regime, and some others were against it. borders are a red line” (Now Lebanon, March 1). Some skirmishes are taking place. There is also a fifth column that is still active in the country; they belong Led by Isa Abd al-Majid, some Libyan Tubu organized to the al-Qaddafi group. They are trying to carry out resistance to the Qaddafi regime in 2007 by organizing some operations to prove to the world that Libya is not the Tubu Front for the Salvation of Libya (TFSL), though stable” (al-Sharq al-Awsat [Cairo], March 9). al-Majid emphasized at the time that the movement was not seeking separation, only “the restitution of our The Tubu are an indigenous Black African tribe following rights” (al-Alam TV [Tehran], August 15, 2007). In a semi-nomadic lifestyle in what is now southern Libya, light of the fighting in Sabha and the clashes between northern Chad and northeastern Niger. The fiercely the Tubu and the Zuwaya Arabs of Kufra Oasis in independent Tubu were renowned for their stiff resistance February, al-Majid expressed the exasperation of the to the encroachments of the French Colonial Army in Libyan Tubu by announcing “the reactivation of the the late 19th/early 20th centuries, often conducted in Tubu Front for the Salvation of Libya [TFSL] to protect cooperation with Libya’s Sanusi Sufi order, which had the Tubu people from ethnic cleansing… If necessary, established an anti-colonial Islamic confederation in the we will demand international intervention and work Sahara. The Tubu are divided into two groups speaking towards the creation of a state, as in South Sudan” different dialects of a common Tubu language, the Teda (Libya Herald; March 28). With the TNC struggling to group of southern Libya and the larger Daza group now establish national institutions, separatist threats have found in Chad and Niger. Tubu politician and guerrilla even spread to the TNC’s powerbase in Cyrenaica. In leader Goukouni Oueddei (president of Chad, 1979- mid-March, 3,000 representatives gathered in Benghazi 1982 and son of the derde [chief] of the Teda), was to form an autonomous region in eastern Libya under backed by Libyan forces in his struggle for control of the “Congress of the People of Barqa [the Arabic name Chad in the 1980s against the French-backed Hissène for Cyrenaica)” led by Ahmad al-Zubay al-Sanusi, the Habré, a member of the Anakaza branch of the Tubu grandson of King Idris al-Sanusi (1951-1969) (Jomhuri- and a former defense minister in Goukouni Oueddei’s ye Eslami [Tehran], March 22). The new autonomous government. Qaddafi’s price for this support was control region would hold about three-quarters of Libya’s of the uranium-rich Aouzou Strip in northern Chad, known oil reserves. which was eventually returned to Chad by a decision of the International Court of Justice in 1994. Many According to Ahmat Saleh Boudoumi, a Tibesti Tubu Daza Tubu migrated north into Libya to work in the and author of Voyages et conversation en pays toubou, oil industry with the encouragement of Qaddafi. Arab “Relations between the Arabs and Tubu have always Libyans continue to identify these migrants as pro- been bad. To be integrated with the Arabs… he must 2 TerrorismMonitor Volume X u Issue 7 u April 6, 2012 renounce his identity, [something] that the Tubus have L’Essor [Bamako], April 2). In an especially troubling always refused. Hence their marginalization in Libya” development for the coup leaders, Colonel al-Hajj ag (Tahalil [Nouackchott], March 31). Gamou, the military chief-of-staff in Kidal region and a highly capable leader of a pro-government Tuareg militia, has declared his allegiance to the MNLA rebels IS A MILITARY INTERVENTION POSSIBLE IN (L’Indicateur du Renouveau [Bamako], April 2). The MALI? rebels appear to have already seized large stockpiles of arms from captured garrisons in the north. As the political and military situation deteriorates in Mali following a poorly-planned coup by junior officers ECOWAS is demanding a return to constitutional order and the subsequent occupation of nearly all northern and a transfer of power to the Speaker of Parliament, Mali by Tuareg rebels and various tribal allies there Professor Dioncounda Traore, in accordance with is increasing discussion of the possibility of a military article 36 of the Malian constitution. For now, however, intervention to restore order and prevent Mali’s unrest there is every sign that the junta plans to remain in from spilling over its borders. power. Despite the crisis in the north, the military junta in Bamako is insisting on going ahead with prosecutions The most likely source of a military intervention of President Amadou Toumani Touré and other leading would be the Economic Community of West African political figures on charges of treason and corruption.
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