Mali mainly, 2012 coup, drugs & more

[ganulv]

I doubt that they would go for lesser settlements first, and I even doubt that foreigners would attempt to solve this fundamental conflict themselves or to suppress it in the long term.

The muddle is that there are two things going on—a secular separatist movement in the form of the MNLA and an Islamist insurgency in the form of Ansar Dine and the MUJAO. I don’t think foreigners would or should care about Malian–Tuareg issues, either, but there seems to be a real possibility that the GWoT paradigm is going to be applied here.

[davidbfpo]

As always a thorough analytical comment on al-Wasat, with multiple links, on this many faceted issue:http://thewasat.wordpress.com/2012/1...hters-in-mali/

I was curious to note the reports of fighters moving to Mali from Tindouf, a city in western Algeria, better known as the base for the secular nationalist group Polisario. There are thousands of trained, experienced fighters there and their families (in exile from Western Sahara, now absorbed into Morocco).

[davidbfpo]

The latest Strategic Comment, a broad brush so wider than Mali & The Sahel:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...and-the-sahel/

[ganulv]

The latest Strategic Comment, a broad brush so wider than Mali & The Sahel:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...and-the-sahel/

I get the impression that Ansar Dine might not have come into being had its leader been able to find room at the MNLA table and that his being left out seems to have had more to do with Tuareg social structure than it did with religious ideology. I am not certain that is the case, but it is a possibility that I hope is kept in mind by the planning and policy-making class.

[davidbfpo]

Paul Roger's column looks at:

The growing prospect of western-backed military intervention to reverse the spread of Islamism in west Africa is good news for an evolving al-Qaida movement.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-ro...i-and-next-war

Paul takes a pessimistic view on the "blow-back" Western involvement:

....a "shadow war" involving drones, special forces and private military contractors will rapidly develop, backing up regional troops whose main functions will focus on garrisoning regained land.

This key western involvement is likely to have a definite untoward impact. Jihadist propaganda may appear shadowy and opaque to those beyond its reach; but it will persistently and effectively represent such involvement in Mali as yet another western assault on Islam, and link the phenomenon with the suppression of Boko Haram in Nigeria...

Having tried to follow what has happened and the policy options for external parties I have yet to see any mention of:

a) external, non-coercive options
b) internal Mali options

[KingJaja]

Before another season of folly starts, please take a look at the Sahel - it is vast.

There are too many unemployed young men in that part of the World. Too many for us to promote an aggressive "military only" solution.