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Ansar Dine taken control of Mali |
Only three months ago, Tuareg
separatists and Islamist, al Qaeda-affiliated Ansar Dine movement joined forces
to wrest control of northeast Mali from the central government in Bamako, the
country’s capital. At the end of March they declared the independence of that
area – two-thirds of Mali’s territory, roughly the size of France — and called
it Azawad. The initial cooperation between the separatists and the Islamists
soon deteriorated into a contest over who would control Azawad, a contest which
Ansar Dine has been winning. The Islamists already control most of Azawad
territory, where they have imposed a strict Sharia law. The strict Islamic law
is anathema to the tolerant Tuareg, and UN observers report that more than
400,000 refugees have already fled the Islamists-controlled areas.
The latest victory by Ansar Dine was
yesterday’s takeover of the city of Gao. More than twenty people were killed in
the fighting, and Bilal Ag Cherif, the leader of the Tuareg National Movement
for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) was wounded.
The de facto control of Azawad by an
al Qaeda offshoot, and the fact that Ansar Dine has recruited hundreds of
seasoned fighters from Pakistan and Afghanistan to help it police the area,
have been a source of growing concern for Mali’s neighbors, and for the EU and
the United States. Back in March, the French foreign minister at the time,
Alain JuppĂ©, was warned by Mali’s neighbors that the region risked becoming a
“West African Afghanistan” if Ansar Dine gained control of the north.
These worries have intensified as it
became clear that the political crisis in Bamako is far from over, and it is
not clear how soon the Mali government could marshal its own military, now
deeply divided, for a campaign to reunify the country.
Mali’s neighbors
Mali’s neighbors are already
preparing their next move. Under the leadership of Niger’s president Mahamadou
Issoufou, four of Mali’s neighbors – Niger, Mauritania, Algeria, and Burkina
Faso – have began to prepare for a coordinated military operation to oust the
Islamists from Azawad and reunify Mali. Msnbc reports that West African military chiefs, after
a meeting in Ivory Coast, announced that they have secured troop commitments
from three nations for a Mali intervention force.
The group has asked France and the
United States to assist the military effort with intelligence and logistical
support, and the two countries agreed.
Source: Homeland Security News Wire
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