Apaches cause peace talks to falter
The Dutch have four Apache attack helicopters in Mali and they have fired their first shots, just as peace talks are underway in Algiers:http://af.reuters.com/article/morocc...V242Y20150123?
US on duty deaths in a crash in Mali in 2012: update
Some light on this strange incident in 2012, subject of Post 147:
US on duty deaths in a crash in Mali Nor have events in Mali been without loss for the USA, edited down and dated 20th April 2012 (thanks to a SWC reader):
Quote:
Three American military personnel and three civilians died early Friday in a single-car crash in Mali's capital, U.S. officials said... one of the three Americans was from U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, and the two others were assigned to U.S. Special Operations Command. The military personnel were in Mali as part of a U.S. special operations training mission that was suspended after last month's coup overthrew the country's democratically elected president.
Link:http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04...in-mali-crash/
Within a long article via Open Democracy on AFRICOM's faulty record:
Quote:
Three of the dead were American commandos. The driver, a captain nicknamed “Whiskey Dan,” was the leader of a shadowy team of operatives never profiled in the media and rarely
mentioned even in government publications. One of the passengers was from an even more secretive unit whose work is often integral to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which conducts clandestine kill-and-capture missions overseas. Three of the others weren’t military personnel at all or even Americans. They were Moroccan women alternately described as barmaids or "prostitutes."
The six deaths followed an April 2012 all-night bar crawl through Mali’s capital, Bamako, according to a formerly classified report by US Army criminal investigators.
The command, for example,
issued a five-sentence press release regarding those deaths in Bamako. They provided neither the names of the Americans nor the identities of the “three civilians” who perished with them. They failed to mention that the men were with the Special Operations forces, noting only that the deceased were “US military members.” For months after the crash, the Pentagon kept secret the name of Master Sergeant Trevor Bast, a communications technician with the Intelligence and Security Command...
“It must be noted that the activities of US military forces in Mali have been very public,” Colonel Tom Davis of AFRICOM
told TomDispatch in the wake of the deaths, without explaining why the commandos were still in the country a month after the United States had
suspended military relations with Mali’s government. In the years since, the command has released no additional information about the episode.
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/nick-t...behaving-badly
I know from previous comments on the author, Tom Engelhardt (and presumably the co-author Nick Turse) has a strong agenda and viewpoint.
Touareg factions and a small war
A rare UK press report on Mali, it starts with:
Quote:
The worst violence between army troops and Touareg rebels in more than a year threatens to delay long-awaited accord, due to be signed today
(It ends with) Now, after over three years of civil war ordinary people in northern
Mali are desperate for a return to security and normality, but a resolution is not yet in sight.
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-deal-violence
What peace deal? No end to Mali conflict
A short article, which appears not to involve being on the ground and starts with:
Quote:
More than eight weeks after a landmark peace accord between Mali’s Bamako government and a Tuareg-led rebel coalition brought hope of an end to years of unrest, little has been done to end the fighting and militancy is once again on the rise. In recent months, Mali has experienced some of the worst violence since international forces pushed Islamist militants out of their northern strongholds in January 2013.
Link:http://www.irinnews.org/report/10188...mali-conflict?
Deaths in Mali before today
A 'Long read' and a question
Just found this long review article and only partly read - others have been worth reading:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...uggle-for-mali
For the weapons experts the photo of Malian soldiers to my "armchair" level of knowledge do not appear to be carrying any ammunition, except the magazine in their AKs.
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d0e7e...rmat&sharp=10&
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d0e7e...rmat&sharp=10&
The Malian Jihadi Landscape
A podcast with Andrew Lebovich (38 min) which offers his views on:
Quote:
Some of the topics covered include:
- The political process in Mali after the French intervention
- Why there has been a rise in violence recently
- Why IS has not been able to penetrate Mali like many of the other jihadi zones
- Where things might be going from here
Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/jihadolo...hadi-landscape
Update: It ain't half hot Kamerad
This War is Boring article is focused on the German Army's problems with their vehicles in the heat and dust of Mali, lus their drones and armed helicopters:http://warisboring.com/malis-desert-...ored-vehicles/
Then it intriguingly refers to the Malian National Guard:
Quote:
The Garde’s speed and flexibility, its keeping with the principles of Sahelian warfare, combined with greater trust in Mali’s north—where the army is widely loathed—means they are today among the most effective troops in Mali’s armed forces, along with the special forces.
According to the IISS Military Balance it has 2k, the Army 18k and there is a separate Gendarmerie.
Mali: France's Afghanistan
An intriguing comparison and hat tip to WoTR for the article. Here is one poignant phrase:
Quote:
Both the United States and France now seem stuck in intractable wars, frustrated by the apparent fruitlessness of their best efforts. The Afghan and Malian governments, moreover, bear a large portion of the responsibility for the wars’ failures.
Link:https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/ma...-a-difference/
A dozen shades of khaki: counter-insurgency operations in the Sahel
An overview article on the various international, regional and local forces deployed in the region, the Sahel, but Mali features strongly so added here.
I had missed this:
Quote:
Separately, Germany is shortly to open a military base in Niger to support MINUSMA, while Italy has announced it will sent 470 troops to the country to counter people-smuggling and combat extremism.
Link:http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/201...erations-sahel
However the author's credibility is marred by labeling the first photo as French soldiers when they are clearly from Mali.
COIN in the Sahel: who are the blurred enemy?
A brief overview of the key non-state armed actors in the region, which includes non-jihadist groups in alliance sometimes with the Mali government for example; jihadist groups and others.
Nothing is simple:
Quote:
As well as hardcore jihadism, the ingredients of this region’s conflict dynamics also include long-standing and often violent rivalries, trafficking, and self-defence activities. Jihadist groups such as ISGS include in their ranks numerous members of Niger’s Fulani community, which has long been in conflict with Tuaregs in Mali. “Jihadist violence often intertwines with local intercommunal tensions related to competition over natural resources and trafficking, making it difficult to distinguish the real nature and motives of many incidents,” the ICG report after the October Niger attack.
Link:http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/201...i-Niger-threat