Ripples from Mali: events plus outside Mali

[Stan]

Not that these translations are much better

French news black out

Islamist commander Abou Zeid's death in Mali 'probable'

Chadian officials claim their troops have killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar

I also call for caution with the google translation...

[davidbfpo]

A title that may jar with many here, by Patrick Smith in The Africa Report, a Paris-based monthly journal:http://www.theafricareport.com/North...you-think.html

Citing an AU official:

What are we doing 50 years after independence calling on former colonial powers to resolve our security disputes?

Earlier articles include 'Who are the exemplary armies in Africa?' and 'Why are African armies so bad?'.The later ends with:

..what most of these armed forces lack are motivation and allegiance to the mission they are entrusted with.#
.....Fighting without knowing why... 

These armies are wary of the State and the State is suspicious of them... lest they turn against them.



[davidbfpo]

I do know where Niger is, but had forgotten there is a French-owned and run uranium mine. The attacks had little reporting here, as Woolwich happened.

Islamist militants staged brazen twin car bomb attacks on an army base and a French-run uranium mine in Niger, killing at least 20 people and taking several trainee army officers hostage...The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO)....claimed the near simultaneous bombings

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-hostages.html

Two French reports need to be read; one suggests the location at the mine was very carefully chosen and production will be hindered for two months:http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20130526-n...-le-site-areva

The second strike on a military base appears to have targeted the army officers training academy:http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20130527-i...ar-belmokhtar-

[davidbfpo]

Analysis of recent events by Andrew Lebovich on al-Wasat:

While news is still emerging, this post is an attempt to provide context and a preliminary assessment of what we know so far about these attacks. I will also look at what the attacks signify regarding the evolution and current state of jihadist militancy in the Sahel, before briefly looking at the overall security environment in Niger.

He ends:

Many questions remain about the attacks last Thursday and their effect on the region. We will get answers to some of those questions, but not all. But the attacks in northern Niger have once more shown the determination of militants to stage significant attacks, cast a light on the changing nature of militancy in the Maghreb and Sahel, and shown the persistent security challenges facing the region’s fragile states.

Link:http://thewasat.wordpress.com/2013/0...hifting-jihad/

[davidbfpo]

A short report 'Challenging the Myth of the Drug-Terror Nexus in the Sahel' from the West Africa Commission on the Impact of Drug Trafficking on Security, Governance and Development in West Africa (WACD) by a German author.

In summary:

This paper reviews the evidence for the links between drug smuggling and extremist activity in the Sahel-Sahara region. While it demonstrates that such links clearly exist, the paper argues that the widespread talk of a drug-terror nexus in the Sahel is misleading, for several reasons. First, much of the evidence presented as basis for such claims can either be easily debunked, or is impossible to verify. Second, rather than the two extremist groups as such, involvement in drug trafficking appears to concern individuals and groups close to, or within, MUJAO and AQIM: within both groups, members are driven by multiple and, at times, conflicting motivations. Third, numerous other actors are playing an equally or more important role in drug smuggling, including members of the political and business establishment in northern Mali, Niger and the region’s capitals, as well as leaders of supposedly ‘secular’ armed groups. Fourth, the emphasis on links between drug trafficking and terrorism in the Sahel serves to obscure the role of state actors and corruption in allowing organized crime to grow. Fifth, the profits derived from kidnap-for-ransom played a much more significant role
in the rise of AQIM and MUJAO.

Link:http://www.wacommissionondrugs.org/w...2013-08-19.pdf

[davidbfpo]

jane Corbin, one of the better BBC reporters, returns to the Amenas incident in a hour long documentary 'This World: Terror in the Desert', which I am watching now. So far nothing new, but she has several hostages talking, both expats and Algerian hostages.

Hopefully you too can watch:http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/bbctwo/live

Or there is a written article:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23878183

[AdamG]

Death, Darkness and the Deserters
From the archives, a harrowing tale of African desert warfare from June 2008
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/f107d318173f