Terror Haven in Mali Feared After French Leave

With France planning to start withdrawing its troops from Mali next month, Western and African officials are increasingly concerned that the African soldiers who will be relied on to continue the campaign against militants linked to Al Qaeda there do not have the training or equipment for the job.

Kenzo Tribouillard/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A helicopter arrived Sunday while French troops waited in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains near Mali’s border with Algeria.

The heaviest fighting so far, which has driven the militants out of the towns and cities of northeastern Mali, has been borne by French and Chadian forces, more or less alone. Those forces are now mostly conducting patrols in the north, while troops sent by Mali’s other regional allies, including Nigeria and Senegal, have been slow to arrive and have focused on peacekeeping rather than combat, prompting grumbles from Chad’s president, Idriss Déby Itno.

Mali only waited months, why has Darfur suffered for a decade?

Hussain Begira

Editor's note: Hussain Begira was born in Darfur and lived there for most of his life. He is a human rights activist and campaigner against the genocide in Darfur. Since 2011 he has been Chairman for Darfur Union in the UK & Ireland.

Energy, Imperial Geostrategy in Africa, and the Deep Politics of the Mali Crisis - Letter in the Evening Standard

Nabila Ramdani's endorsement of France's Mali intervention, supposedly "aimed at ridding Mali of particularly sinister insurgents," overlooks key factors which have now made themselves manifest in last night’s hostage seizures in Algeria.

France action in Mali is real war, says Le Drian

French forces are embroiled in a "real war" with "terrorists" around the Malian town of Gao, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said.

Islamist militants were swept from Gao last month, but Mr Le Drian said clashes were continuing in the area.

U.S. expands aid to French mission in Mali

The United States is significantly expanding its assistance to a French assault on Islamist militants in Mali by offering aerial refueling and planes to transport soldiers from other African nations, the Pentagon announced Saturday night.

The gesture comes amid a debate within the Obama administration about how deeply it should engage in the French effort to prevent Islamists from wresting control of the West African nation. French requests for more robust support from Washington raised a legal dilemma because U.S. law forbids foreign assistance funds to leaders that came to power through a coup. Mali’s military leaders, including some trained by U.S. troops, seized power last year by force.

Mali's Ansar Dine Islamists 'split and want talks'

Alghabass Ag Intalla is an ethnic Tuareg from the strategic town of Kidal

One of the Islamist groups fighting in northern Mali has split and wants dialogue, a statement from the faction seen by the AFP news agency says.

Islamic Movement for Azawad said it was splitting from Ansar Dine, and "rejects all forms of extremism and terrorism".

French forces seize control of 2 key Mali towns, patrol streets after Islamist rebels flee

French troops in armored personnel carriers rolled through the streets of Diabaly on Monday, winning praise from residents of this besieged town after Malian forces retook control of it with French help a week after radical Islamists invaded.

The Islamists also have deserted the town of Douentza, which they had held since September, according to a local official who said French and Malian forces arrived there on Monday as well.

The militants’ occupation of Diabaly marked their deepest encroachment into government-held territory, and Monday’s retaking of the town is a significant victory for the French-led intervention.

Mali is about to have a refugee crisis

The refugees fleeing Mali tell aid agencies that they have seen executions and amputations, have had family members “disappear” and have seen rebel armies recruiting children.

A Mali gendarme directs traffic on the military side of Bamako’s airport Wednesday. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Mali has seen an increase in both internal and external refugees over the past year — ever since Islamists moved into the northern regions and imposed harsh sharia law, with forced marriages, amputations and public whippings. But after the French military entered Mali to try to drive out the Islamists, there’s been an uptick in the number of people crossing into neighboring countries – almost 1,500 have crossed into Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso since last week, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Germany's Mali Predicament: Trapped Between France and War

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Matthias Gebauer and Philipp Wittrock

Germany is eager to prove it is a reliable ally, particularly after it snubbed France and stayed out of Libya. Wary of getting pulled into the violence in Mali, it has instead offered two planes to transport troops.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is an extremely disciplined politician. Even when speaking off the record, she weighs her words carefully and avoids strong language. But a few weeks ago, during a classified meeting of the Federal Security Council, Gerhard Schindler, head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), gave a presentation on the situation in Mali. The chancellor exclaimed: "What a crap region."

How bad are the bad guys in Mali? The answer, in four powerful paragraphs

As the French military expands its campaign to halt the Islamist rebels who have already seized half of Mali, it’s worth asking: what makes these guys so bad that France intervened against them? 

One of Mali’s Islamist rebels, a member of extremist group Ansar al-Dine, gestures to the camera. (AHMED OUOBA/AFP/Getty Images)

Mali’s Islamist rebels have earned a record for cruelty and barbarity since seizing the northern half of the country. That’s probably not the only reason France intervened (more on this in a later post), but it’s an important – and disturbing – part of the picture.

The Post’s Sudarsan Raghavan visited Mali recently, where he discovered just how brutal the Islamists’ rule had become. Here, from his December 11 story, is a glimpse into life under their rule:

UN approves military action to oust al-Qaida in Mali, but not before political progress

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday approved an African-led military operation to oust al-Qaida-linked extremists from northern Mali, but not before the training of the country’s security forces and progress on political reconciliation and elections.

The resolution, passed unanimously, stresses that there must be a two-track plan, political and military, to wrest control of the turbulent north —an area the size of Texas — and successfully reunite the west African nation.

Pentagon planning for multinational military operation in Mali

U.S. military planners have begun to help organize a multinational proxy force to intervene next year in Mali, the famine-stricken, coup-wracked African country that has become a magnet for Islamist extremists, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

STRINGER/STRINGER - Fighters from the Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group MUJWA stand guard in Gao, northern Mali, on Aug. 7, 2012. U.S. military planners have begun to help organize a multinational proxy force to intervene in Mali.

The international force would be led on the ground by several thousand Malian and West African troops but would receive extensive support from the Pentagon and the State Department, which would help train, equip and transport the troops, Obama administration officials said.