David,

I don't think any serious analyst should be talking about the Maghreb.

The big population centers of the Maghreb may be far removed from Mali, but what about the large population centers of Nigeria?

Unlike Northern Mali, Northern Nigeria is not arid or flat. Unlike Southern Mali, Northern Nigeria has practiced a more austere, rigid form of Islam for a couple of centuries.

I want you to consider this: there are at least 70 million people in Northern Nigeria, 9 million street kids (Almajiri) and extremely porous borders.

What will the fall out from Mali be? The French, ECOWAS and drones cannot prevent militants from sneaking in and out of Nigeria/Niger/Mali and AQIM/Boko Haram will be extremely short sighted if they don't seize the opportunity to expand operations in Nigeria.

There are many factors that would make Islamic militants popular a few are the heavy handedness of security operatives & anger at the corruption of local administrators.

I can see it happening, this could be worse than Pakistan/Afghanistan. Unlike Af/Pak, the Sahel does not have a combination of India, Russia, China and yes, Iran to prevent the contagion from spreading. The only semi-competent military is the Nigerian Army - and the Nigerian Army isn't half as competent as the Pakistani Army.

So I guess we've opened Pandora's box.