Bloodshed in the Sahara - The Mali Question and the Tuareg Cause

French troops in Mali

A few days ago, French president Hollande declared French intervention in Mali had begun in an attempt to push back Islamist rebels far away from the Malian capital, Bamako, after months of quick and bloody advance towards the heart of the Mali government. The French started with air strikes to destabilize the Islamists, now thousands of French troops are in the country in a major ground assault. Less than 48 hours after this operation (Operation Serval) began, Armed Islamists seized a gas facility in the deserts of Southern Algeria, In Amenas, and held many foreign workers as well as Algerians hostage in what is turning out to be one of the worst international hostage crises in decades.

Many people are asking the question why is France taking on Islamists in far-away northern Mali thousands of miles from Paris? Some are wondering whether this will be another long, bloody war like Iraq or Afghanistan? Is this bullying on the side of France, some have even asked? The answer to these lies in the history of Mali itself and the plight of the Tuareg people in the north, and of course the political landscape of Algeria between 1991 - 2002, when Islamists waged a bloody war against the central government in Algiers. Everything is inter-connected.

This war is about the the Tuareg rebels taking advantage of a weak government in Bamako, to rapidly push back the largely under-equipped Malian forces in the north in an attempt to create a separate state. Tuaregs are nomadic-pastoralists occupying a large part of central north-west Africa stretching all the way through the Sahara desert to southern parts of Libya, Algeria and Tunisia. They have long clamored for independence and a separate state of their own but have been brutally suppressed for nearly a century . Going back as far as 1916, during French colonial times, the Tuaregs have staged 5 major rebellions till 2012, all ending in failure with thousands of Tuaregs losing their lives to brutal repression from the French colonial forces and subsequently the central government in Bamako. 

Mali is a poor West-African country, with crippling levels of corruption and a largely underfunded military force. The Touareg rebellion in the north presented a serious challenge to the government which struggled to combat the insurgence in the north. In 2012, a miltary coup toppled the 10 year reign of President Ahmadou Toure, when a section of the army, who cited the government's inability to equip the military well enough, took over government of the country. In a series of talks and negotiations, power has now been restored to an acting, interim President, Dioncounda Traore. But in the meantime, the Tuareg insurgency has made rapid gains on the ground to take over major northern cities including the historical Timbuktu and more recently the garrison towns of Diabaly in a major push towards the south, where Bamako, the capital lies.

It is this aggression that has triggered the recent French intervention, in an attempt to halt the advance of the Tuareg rebels. But from well documented sources, the Tuareg rebels are not what they appear to be. It has been revealed that actually, the rapid advance is the work of AQIM (Al- Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb), the north African arm of al-Qaeda. These fighters have taken advantage of a legitimate Tuareg rebellion to achieve their own aims, which is to have a safe haven for Al-Qaeda in Africa. Why is Al-Qaeda interested in Mali though, you may ask. 

Northern Mali, due to its lack of full government control over the years, have served as a safe area for Islamists ejected from the "dirty war" in Algeria in the early 1990s where they fought a brutal war with the government to establish Islamic rule in Algeria. Many of those fighters are well trained and well armed. They have lived in northern Mali now for many years, mixing with local Tuaregs (who are Animists by tradition), and establishing forms of Islamic codes in the areas of their settlement. During the Tuareg uprising of 2012, what was not immediately apparent was that, the rapid advance was a joint effort by the rebels and well-armed Islamists, who rapidly gained contriol of vast areas in the north, including Timbuktu. The population of Timbuktu have been under the rule of Islamists for around 10 months now since the taking-over by Islamists. Severe forms of Sharia have been reportedly established in these areas, against the wish of the Tuareg populations. An example of a culture clash is that, in Tuareg culture, its the man that covers his face with a turban, the women don't, but in Islam, it is women that have to cover their face. 

Tuareg people

France and the government of Mali are worried that the north of Mali is fast becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda militants taking advantage of a largely uncontrolled area and pushing to establish an Islamic state, not only in the north, but throughout Mali. There are French interests in Mali, mainly in the form of thousands of French expatriates, working inside the country and the fact that a haven for Islamists in Mali could be dangerous to France (and the rest of Europe), which is just a few thousands of miles from the heart of France. 

As much as I believe that the Tuaregs are a brutally oppressed people and need to be heard by the world, their mixing with Islamists for temporary gains is cultural suicide to say the least. The situation of the Tuaregs as a people is a humanitarian issue that Western governments are not keen to explore. But help from Islamists will not help their cause either. 

In the light of these circumstances, the French are not wrong to try to push back this advance by Islamists (masquerading as Tuaregs), form taking over Mali. There is a major problem breeding in Africa in my opinion, with Islamic extremists taking root in a number of countries like Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali. Mali in my opinion is what could happen when weak and  unstable governments cannot control sections of their own countries, opening the doors to fundamentalists with an agenda, which is to put as many parts of Africa as possible under strict Sharia law. These fundamentalists are well trained, well funded and well equipped to bring down most African governments, so maybe outside help is not that bad an option. But we shall see how the Mali situation unfolds in the coming weeks. 

The Siege in Toulouse - A bad omen

Police at the siege in Toulouse (photo courtesy euronews)I watched in horror as gunshots rang out at the scene of the siege in Toulouse where a lone gunman was holed up in a house surrounded by police for nearly 33hours. The sound of automatic gunfire rattled through the quiet suburb of the French city as police tried to arrest the gunman on suspicion of the horrific murders of 7 people including children in the past few days. In the end, the gunman, Mohammed Merah, a French citizen of Algerian descent, died from a sniper bullet as he continued to shoot ferociously at the police, who stormed his apartment.  

I breathed a sigh of relief on reports of his death, that at least Toulouse can rest and come to terms with the huge tragedy that has befallen them, when on Monday, Merah shot dead 4 people at a Jewish school, 3 of them little children. Also at the news of his death, I pondered over the fact that, to Merah's fellow radicals, he might be viewed as a hero of some kind. He died with a gun in his hand and no remorse whatsoever for what he had done. In fact on Twitter, someone likened him to Tony Montana in the 1980s gangster movie Scarface, who died after an intense firefight with the police at his home. It saddens me that he wasn't captured alive, but I am sure he wouldn't give himself up for arrest either. Whichever way, he wasn't going to go down without a fight. 

Some security analysts now wonder whether this is the beginning of a new breed of terror in the West. Known as lone-wolf attacks, they are planned and carried out by one individual and are extremely difficult to detect/combat by authorities. Mohammed Merah was known to have links to al-Qaeda and had received terror training in Afghanistan, but current reports suggest he was gradually radicalised, probably while in prison and he later saw himself as a Mujahideen. In his twisted ideology, he claims to be avenging the deaths of Palestinian children by brutally killing four people, three of them children, in a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday. He earlier killed three French soldiers because, as he said, of France's involvement in Afghanistan. He planned to kill more, and expressed his regrets at not being able to. Last year in Norway, Andrea Brevik killed more than 77 people on Utoya Island, many of them school children, in another tragic consequence of a twisted logic. Brevik claimed he commited his crimes to protect Europe from being over-run by Muslims.

The unfortunate message coming out of these despicable crimes like Merah and Brevik is that one man is capable of planning and unleashing unspeakable horror on a people, city or country. (See this CNN article, French attacks could inspire next generation of terrorists). Terror cells may now concentrate their efforts on brainwashing young westerners to carry out brutal lone-wolf attacks like these. And when I say terror cells, I do not mean just Jihadist cells, but also far-right groups like the one Brevik belonged to. Europe seems to be torn between two faces of terror, Brevik-types on the one hand, and Merah-types on the other. Both faces capable of evil on an unimaginable scale.  

Libya - Are we looking at another Iraq?

GaddafiAt the height of the uprising in Libya, Colonel Gaddafi's tough talk did not particularly resonate with me, Saddam Hussein and his henchmen made bolder threats to US-led coalition forces at the height of the Iraq war. I could vividly remember Saddam's information minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who constantly came on television to deny advance of US military troops in Iraq and comically dismissed any allegations made by the foreign coalition. He was so popular at the height of the Iraq war that he became a loveable rogue across the world. But as soon as it became clear that the US military have entered Baghdad, Saddam and his men were nowhere to be seen. They disappeared into thin air (until they were captured one by one). 

When the Libyan "war" started, Colonel Gaddafi was quick to take this route commonly taken by dictators of his type, e.g Saddam. He appointed his PR man, Moussa Ibrahim, who we have seen quite often on the television denying claims of rebel advance on Tripoli. Gaddafi himself was heard (and seen) making tough comments that he will never abdicate his position except by death and he will fight till the end. I could easily see through his tough talk and in my mind it was only a matter of time before it all fizzles away, when reality strikes, just like in the case of Saddam. These dictators seem to have a habit of empty talks and promises. Now the rebels are in Tripoli and have gained a significant part of Tripoli, where is Gaddafi? I thought he would be the last man standing. In fact Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, has labelled Gaddafi's statements as "delusional".

Now that Libya is almost free from the grasp of Gaddafi, who ruled the country like a family business for 42years, what next for Libya? From what I have been able to gather, the rebels have no concrete organisation and they have a habit of making confusing and unconfirmed statements. For example their claim a few days ago that they have seized Saif Gaddafi, Colonel Gaddafi's son, only for him to turn up on televison a day after. In the past they have claimed to have secured particular towns which turned out to be misleading. But what we know is that they are all men with many Kalashnikovs ready to bring down the Gaddafi dictatorship. This brings me to my next question, who exactly are these rebels leading the uprising in Libya?

By now everyone knows that the revolution in Libya is very different from what we've seen in the other Arab nations, e.g Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, which were led by ordinary people. Libya's revolution seems to be the work of a breakaway faction of the Libyan army. Their former leader, Gen Abdel Fattah Younes was killed in July by unknown assailants, though there were rumours he had ties to pro-Gaddafi forces and was not trusted by the rebel forces. But in reality we know very little of the inside workings of this group of fighters who are desperate to liberate Libya from Colonel Gaddafi. I was surprised when a few months ago, Britain declared its recognition of the Libyan rebels as the legitimate government of Libya when we know almost nothing about them. Are Western governments making decisions with their hearts and not their heads? or vice versa? Its just like the West will support anything or anybody just to get Gaddafi out. But what happens when Gaddafi is out? Are we all going to witness another Iraq, where law and order almost completely collapses? It is also clear that this revolution is actually Nato-led, and not actually the rebels. Without NATO bombings from the air, the rebels wouldn't have been able to make the rapid gains we have seen. It is clear that NATO (and even the international press!) is supportive of the rebels and are not just in Libya to "protect civilians", but are in Libya to get Gaddafi out. 

Behind this war in Libya lies many unanswered questions and fears. Can the coalition of the western governments take up the responsibility for Libya or as they say, will they leave it to the Libyan people to decide their future? Libyan people who for almost 42years have been under a dictatorship and previously under a monarchy (under King Idris)? Quite unlikely. So how does a whole people who have no idea of democracy nor its mechanisms (not even a presidential system like in other Arab countries e.g Egypt) actually build one? A country without a valid constitution (except the Green Book created by Colonel Gaddafi in 1969) and no formal government structures will definitely struggle to build a democracy. So who will build Libya? 

The answer to the question lies among the coalition of countries currently seeking Colonel Gaddafi's exit. Are they ready to commit resources to rebuild Libya at a time when their own countries are struggling under severe economic crises? Only time will tell, but in the meantime the battle for Tripoli continues.