Wüstenschiff

Les djihadistes d'Aqmi menacent la France de représailles si elle participe à une intervention armée pour les déloger du Mali.

Islamists destroyed Saturday another tomb of a Muslim saint in a northern Mali region under their control, witnesses said. "I saw the Islamists in Goundam destroy the mausoleum of Alfa Mobo, beside the cemetery," local municipal councillor Mamadou Cisse told AFP. Another witness, who declined to be identified, said, "They smashed the mausoleum down to the level of the tomb." He added that "there were 11 of them and someone was filming it." The witnesses said the Islamists were armed with axes and other tools. Goundam, 90 kilometres (55 miles) from Timbuktu, is in the hands of the Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith), which with other radicals has been destroying local Muslim shrines since seizing northern Mali in April.

Le changement c'est pas vraiment pour maintenant. La politique extérieure de la France est là pour témoigner sur la continuité. La fièvre belliqueuse qui s'est aggravée en Occident depuis 2001 avec une chasse effrénée et tout azimut aux terroristes islamistes devenus prétexte à presque toutes les interventions armées occidentales de ces 10 dernières années ne semble toujours pas étanchée, bien au contraire.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's (AQIM) Shura council named Al Vourghan brigade chief Jemal Oukacha, alias Yahya Abou El Hammam, as its new Sahara emir, ANI reported Thursday (October 4th). Citing an AQIM leader, ANI reported that Abdel Mejid Abou Zeid was appointed Abou El Hammam's deputy. The news came one month after former Sahara emir Nabil Makloufi, alias Nabil Abu Alqama, was killed in a car crash between Gao and Timbuktu. Abou El Hamame, an Algerian national, is one of the most prominent al-Qaeda leaders in northern Mali, and is close to AQIM chief Abdelmalek Droukdel (alias Abou Moussaab Abdelouadoud). Earlier this year, Abou El Hammam was appointed Timbuktu governor.

IRIN hat geschrieben:
MALI: Whatever happened to Azawad?
10.10.2012

"What we want now is self-determination. Self-determination is not the same as secession," explained a senior representative from the Tuareg-dominated Mouvement national pour la libération de l'Azawad (MNLA) while in Ouagadougou for talks with Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré.

However the MNLA chooses to frame its goals, the movement is in no position to dictate terms on what should happen in northern Mali. The rebellion it launched in January 2012 delivered a string of early victories against a demoralized Malian army and enabled the MNLA to proclaim an "independent Azawad" on 6 April, setting up a Conseil Transitoire de l'Etat de l'Azawad (Transitional Council of the State of Azawad - CTEA).

But it was the radical Islamic movements Ansar Dine, the Mouvement pour l'Unicité et le Jihad en Afrique de l'Ouest (the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa - MUJAO) and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) which rapidly asserted themselves in Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. Despite tortuous negotiations and implausible hints of an eventual "fusion" with its rival, the MNLA lost out badly to the Islamists.

According to its own version of events, the MNLA made a tactical decision to remove itself from the north in the face of repeated provocation from the Jihadists, arguing that it could have taken the fight to AQIM and its allies, but wanted to avoid civilian casualties. In an interview with the pro-MNLA Toumast Press in late July, the Movement's spokesman, Mossa Ag Attaher, denied reports of internal rifts and a loss of direction, pledging that cities like Gao and Timbuktu would be "liberated from narco-traffickers, thieves and rapists".

Northern Mali has long been a hub for drug, arms and human trafficking, with Islamist groups implicated alongside Tuareg facilitators.

Attaher said "the independence of Azawad remains the only basis of discussion with Mali," while criticizing Mali itself as being "a state in decomposition". [ http://en.toumastpress.com/ ]

A two-day meeting in Ouagadougou in July - backed by the Burkinabe government, the Economic Community of West African States and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs - was supposed to outline a political programme for the Transitional Council of Azawad and a platform for negotiation, and restore some coherence after a rash of contradictory statements.

On the eve of the UN-backed meeting on the Sahel in New York on 26 September, MNLA sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, warning that "without the open and direct implication of the MNLA in everything which concerns the crisis, it is an illusion to hope for a definitive solution and a lasting peace." The letter hinted at the likelihood of the Malian army and its loyalist militias carrying out pogroms against Tuareg communities, and stressed the MNLA's readiness to rid the north of "narco-traffickers".

But the MNLA featured little in most of the communiqués and speeches in New York. To critics, including some Tuaregs, the movement has become a victim of its own hype and naivety (or cynicism) in aligning itself with movements that did not share its agenda. Timbuktu parliamentary representative Sandy Haïdara said his early suspicions had been confirmed. "Where is the MNLA? From what we hear, they are nowhere in the north? They turn up in the media outside Mali, that's all, or on the Internet. That's all."

Ansar Dine

While MNLA has been engaged in a new round of diplomacy in Ouagadougou, representatives of Ansar Dine were allegedly in Algiers, meeting a Malian government representative. Ansar Dine's leader, Iyad ag Ghali, a key figure in the Tuareg insurgencies of the 1990s, lobbied for a leading role in the MNLA when it launched in 2011, was snubbed and then used his longstanding contacts with AQIM operatives to help found Ansar Dine.

Reportedly converted to radical Salafism (a fundamentalist form of Islam) during his time as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia, Ag Ghali's activities and agenda in northern Mali have been much discussed since before the crisis began. Malian envoys to the north confirm his commitment to the imposition of Sharia and his apparent loss of interest in the Azawadian cause.

But unlike the leadership of AQIM and MUJAO, Ag Ghali is a Malian national, a highly influential figure in Tuareg circles, particularly around Kidal, with longstanding connections to military, political and religious elites. "This is not somebody who wants to be tarred as a terrorist because of the company he keeps," a diplomat in Bamako who preferred anonymity, pointed out. "This is someone who values his reputation in Mali, particularly his status within the Tuareg community."

Algeria and others have hinted that talking to Ansar Dine may offer a still weakened Malian administration its best point of entry in establishing dialogue with the occupiers of the north. Sections of the Malian press have hinted that Ag Ghali could be "bought off" and has even named a fee to demobilize his fighters.

Mate hat geschrieben:Ich glaube um die Zusammenhänge zu sehen und zu erkennen muß man den Horizont etwas erweitern man kann wohl die Probleme nicht einzeln sehen im Sahel die meisten stehen in Zusammenhang mit anderen . Ich kann nur empfhelen die Artikel von J.H. Keenan zu lesen verlinkt im anderen Beitrag ...

Kuno hat geschrieben:Ich mag auch nicht mehr lesen, dass ich lernen muss zu "verstehen", damit ich danach "akzeptieren" kann