Developments in North Africa in the War on Terrorism: Mali, Somalia and Algeria

Mali and Somalia

France has led an international intervention in Mali to fight Islamist militants who hold the northern part of that sub-Saharan West African state and who threaten to expand their territory.  The French intervention came after the repeated requests of the Malian government and the U.N. Security Council and after there had been delays in establishing an African force to assist Mali.  France is the former colonial power and has forces in a number of places nearby in Africa. 

The United Kingdom and several West African countries are supporting the military effort.  The United States is lending intelligence support.  Other European states expressed political support for the intervention, which is supported across the French political spectrum.  The French suffered a wave of Islamist terrorist attacks in the 1990s.

I explained in a post to this blog in April of 2012, Foreign Digest, Mali, Sudan, Burma, Cuba,

http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2012/04/foreign-digest-mali-burma-sudan-cuba.html

about the military coup d’etat that removed the democratically-elected government that was perceived as weak versus the separatist Tuareg and Islamist (including al-Qaeda) rebellions in northern Mali, and how the coup unintentionally created a power vacuum that allowed the united rebels to take over the entire northern part of the state, from the Sahara to the Sahel, including Timbuktu, a World Heritage Site, and other important towns before a democratic regime could be empowered.  Meanwhile, the rebels have literally dug in to their defensive positions in northern Mali where they have established a harsh, Taliban-style Islamist rule under Shariya. 

The French responded to the immediate threat of twin advancing columns of Islamist rebels toward the rice-growing part of the Sahel near Malian towns that were the last government-held garrisons before the capital of Bamako.  They were able to drive the rebels from one of the major towns they had occupied.  The French suffered some losses, as did the enemy, in the fight.  Without international aid for Mali, not only would the northern part of the state remain a safe haven for al-Qaeda and other Islamists, like Afghanistan before 2001 or much of Somalia before recently, but it would continue to represent a threat to neighboring states and even to Europe itself.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of France’s military operation in Mali, the French simultaneously launched a commando raid in Somalia to rescue a French hostage from Islamists there, but the hostage was killed in the attempt, along with some of the enemy. 

Algeria

Islamist rebels captured a foreign-owned natural gas facility in a remote part of the Sahara, capturing and killing many foreign workers, including some Americans.  The Algerians launched a series of bloody rescue missions to end the siege of the facility.  Some Algerian and foreign hostages were released or escaped before the rescues.  Algeria has been putting down an Islamist rebellion for decades.  The perpetrators of the siege of the gas facility are affiliated with Al-Qaeda in North Africa. 

The al-Qaeda terrorists claimed to have carried out the attack in Algeria in retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali.  However, the raid must have been planned well beforehand.  Thankfully, this timing was noted by the media in dismissed the claim of retaliation, unlike its usual practice of reporting such claims by the terrorists uncritically.  As I noted in my post from July of 2011, Terrorism Is Never Committed out of “Revenge,” http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2011/07/terrorism-is-never-for-committed-out-of.html, terrorist like al-Qaeda or other Islamists do not need any excuse to carry out their unjustifiable evil deeds.  They strike at will, but use claims of retaliation or revenge only to intimidate the populace further into giving into their specific political demands.