Friday, June 15, 2012
EGYPT: The military versus the Islamists
By Elizabeth Kendal
Updating Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 163
EGYPT: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 16-17 JUNE
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In April 2012, the Islamist-dominated parliament passed the Political Isolation Law which disqualified senior officials of Mubarak's regime from holding political posts. The law would have prevented Ahmed Shafiq (former air-force chief and Mubarak's last Prime Minister) from contesting the presidency had he not won an appeal against the law. At that point the Political Isolation Law was deferred to Egypt's Mubarak-appointed Supreme Constitutional Court.
On Wednesday 13 June, the day before the Constitutional Court was due to hand down its decision, Egypt's Justice Ministry issued a decree giving military police and intelligence officers permission to arrest civilians suspected of "crimes" such as activities deemed "harmful to the government", destruction of property, "obstructing traffic" and "resisting orders". The decree restores some of the powers of the decades-old emergency law which expired just two weeks ago. Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, "said Egyptian activists see the current order as 'much worse than the [previous] emergency law', in that it is seen as expanding the military's power".
Then, on Thursday 14 June, the Constitutional Court -- an institution in which the military maintains significant leverage -- unsurprisingly deemed the Political Isolation Law unconstitutional, thereby freeing Ahmed Shafiq to contest the presidential run-off this weekend.
In what activists and academics have described as a "soft military coup", the Constitutional Court also ruled the country's parliament illegitimate, paving the way for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) -- the military body that ruled after the first military coup ousted Mubarak -- to resume legislative powers.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the court found "that part of the law under which the parliament was elected was illegal, as it allowed parties to field nominees for [the one third of] seats earmarked for independent candidates. That ruling is irreversible and means the entire legislature is illegitimate, court spokesman Maher Sami said. . . . The court said parliament has no 'standing under law'."
Former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, an independent Islamist, decried the two court rulings, saying they amount to "a complete coup". Writing on his Facebook page, Fotouh raged, "Keeping the military candidate [in the race] and overturning the elected parliament after granting the military police the right to arrest is a complete coup and whoever thinks that millions of youth will let it pass is deluding themselves,"
See: Egypt Court Dissolves Parliament in 'Soft Coup'
By Tarek El-Tablawy, Abdel Latif Wahba and Mariam Fam
Bloomberg News, 14 June 2012
Egypt supreme court calls for parliament to be dissolved
BBC, 14 June 2012
At this point in time, the Islamists are refusing to dissolve the parliament and have vowed to win the presidency. And despite the threat posed by the Justice Ministry's repressive decree, protests have begun and are expected to intensify after Friday prayers and across the weekend.
See: Egyptians protest as court dissolves parliament, confirms Shafiq candidacy
Mohammed Morsi: Millions over the weekend will say 'no' to tyrants
14 June 2012
Stratfor sees strategy
In a report entitled "Egypt's Military Delivers Ultimatum to Muslim Brotherhood" (14 June 2012), Stratfor Global Intelligence surmises that the legal manoeuvres are part of a military strategy to intimidate and contain the Muslim Brotherhood.
"Egypt's military has the least amount of control when the country goes to the polls. Through parliamentary elections the MB, together with Egypt's Salafist faction, the al-Nour Party, came to dominate parliament. And MB candidate Mohammed Morsi had a strong chance of beating Shafiq at the presidential election polls.
"The military's authority instead comes from its institutional leverage. The MB may have had nominal control over the parliament, but the military's influence over the judiciary effectively has nullified any parliamentary move the MB attempted. Similarly, the military is using its institutional strength to keep the drafting of the country's constitution out of the MB's control.
"The SCAF [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] could not be confident that its preferred candidate, Shafiq, would beat Morsi in the presidential runoff. The SCAF may be contemplating that the best way to protect its authority in the system is to back the MB [Muslim brotherhood] against a wall, first by pushing ahead Shafiq as a legitimate candidate, then by threatening to dissolve the MB-controlled parliament and finally by establishing itself as the final arbiter in the constitution-drafting process.
"The main question moving forward is whether the MB is ready for the grand bargain that the SCAF is trying to impose on the Islamist party. The SCAF appears willing to risk an MB presidency, so long as the MB cedes primary authority to the military in drafting the constitution, which will ultimately decide the balance of power among the military, parliament and presidency. The dissolution of parliament is a threat directed at the MB: If the MB accepts the military's demands on the constitution, then the SCAF could allow the parliament to remain as is; if not, it could dissolve parliament and schedule another round of parliamentary elections. In another round of elections, the MB would likely come out with another strong win. Only this time, the elections would theoretically take place within a constitutional framework shaped by the SCAF."
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The first military coup -- in which military power was leveraged to oust Mubarak -- rode on the back of youth-driven pro-democracy protests in Tahrir Square. In this second military coup, military-controlled legal instruments are being leveraged against the parliament while military power will be leveraged against the street with the aim of asserting military control over the Islamists as they stand on the threshold of controlling both the parliament and the presidency.
The battle between the military and the Islamists has begun in earnest, leaving Egyptians who had dreamed of progress and liberty lamenting what might have been and questioning why it was not achieved.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
MALI: Islamist's weapons seizure will greatly boost AQIM's striking power
The trend across Mali's rebel-held north is towards forced Islamisation, Arabisation, escalating hardship and persecution.
Writing for New Straits Times, 5 June 2012, Adam Nossiter, describes the situation in the historic city of Timbuktu:
"Women are now forced to wear full, face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the ancient mud-brick town is changing.
"An ancient monument, the shrine of a 15th-century saint, has been defaced, bars have been demolished and black flags have been hung around town to honour Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith, the radical Islamist movement that emerged from the desert and turned life upside down.
"'There is no liberty,' said Abdoulaye Ahmed, a tailor who fled Timbuktu and came to Mali's capital, Bamako, last week. He added that the Islamist rebels 'are constantly circulating with their guns. This is scaring people. The town is sinister'."
"The situation is said to be especially troubling for women in Timbuktu.'Women are living in terrible fear,' said Baba Aicha Kalil, a well-known civic activist who still lives in the town. . . 'They want to put a veil on everything,' Kalil said. 'They are everywhere with their guns'."
On 5 June around 50 women and children courageously demonstrated against the Islamist presence in Kidal. Marching from the stadium to the main Kidal market, they chanted in their local language, "We don't want strangers here", and "We don't want Islamists here", until men in three pick-ups bearing the Ansar Dine flag intervened and beat the demonstrators, violently dispersing their protest.
On 22 May, Christian Today published an Appeal for Christians in Mali (22 May) in which the Christian charity Worldshare claims that the Islamic jihadists who have seized control of northern Mali have conducted house to house searches hunting for Christians, and that people have been tortured into revealing their Christian relatives. Confirming earlier reports, Worldshare, which has been working with a ministry in Timbuktu since 2001 and with the Gao Evangelical Church since 2004, also said that church and Christian property in Timbuktu and Gao has either been looted or destroyed.
All across northern Mali, the humanitarian situation is dire (ICRC 25 May 2012). Many Christians have fled south to Bamako, the capital, where they are living as refugees. Food stocks are low.
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An agreement, A Split and The Reality
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An Agreement
On 26 May, the avowedly secular Tuareg nationalist group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), signed a protocol agreement with Islamic jihadists Ansar Dine, to join forces for the implementation of an independent Islamic state.
CNN reports: "The agreement between the secular Tuareg and the Islamists comes after weeks of sometimes heated discussions between two movements, separated both in their objectives and ideologies. While the MNLA is fighting for an independent Azawad, Ansar Dine's main objective is to impose Sharia law in all of Mali.
"In the besieged towns, drinking, smoking, listening to music, watching soccer on TV and playing video games have been banned in what now seems to be a preparation for the creation of an Islamic state."
See: Mali rebel groups join forces, vowing an Islamic state
From Katarina Höije, For CNN, 27 May 2012
A Split
Only 48 hours after the protocol was signed, the deal collapsed, allegedly because the parties could not agree on how strictly to impose Sharia (Islamic) Law.
"We have refused to approve the final statement because it is different from the protocol agreement which we have signed," said Ibrahim Assaley, representing the MNLA. "It is as if they want us to dissolve into Ansar Dine," he complained. "That is unacceptable." (Al Jazeera 31 May)
Moussa Ag Asherif, a fighter close to the leadership of the Ansar Dine, told reporters that Iyad Ag Ghaly -- the shadowy leader of Ansar Dine who is known to have ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) -- would travel to Gao on Tuesday morning 29 May "to solve the problem".
The confusion has exposed a split in the MNLA, allegedly between the MNLA's French and Arabic speaking factions.
A statement issued by Hama Ag Mahmoud, a senior MNLA political figure read: "The political wing, the executive wing of the MNLA, faced with the intransigence of Ansar Dine on applying sharia in Azawad and in line with its resolutely secular stance, denounce the accord with this organisation and declare all its dispositions null and void."
Reuters reports: "In an open letter posted on Berber website Tamazgha.fr, the MNLA's communication director Mossa Ag Attaher acknowledged 'a growing malaise' in the ranks of the group linked to a feud between its French-speaking and Arab-speaking factions.
"While Attaher did not elaborate, the linguistic split could partly reflect divisions between those rebels who have remained in the former French colony and those who were based in Libya until the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
"'The application of sharia and the Arabisation of our people is a grave violation of our culture and identity,' he said of a region in which nomadic Tuaregs have co-existed with other ethnic groups and where moderate Islam is widely practised.
"But a senior military official for Ansar Dine contacted in the northern city of Gao said the well-armed group continued to apply the agreement.
"The pact signed by the MNLA and Ansar Dine is irrevocable", Oumar Ould Hamama told Reuters by telephone from the northern city of Gao."The views of a few individuals within the MNLA cannot put this fusion in doubt. In any case, [the reality is] we are the majority in control of all three of Mali's northern regions."
See: Mali Tuareg leaders call off Islamist pact
Reuters, Friday 1 June 2012.
According to the most recent news, the rebels are working towards establishing a ruling council and a government of national unity.
The MNLA issued a statement in the northern city of Gao that said: 'The NMLA will put in place a provisional council that will lead the country in the coming period and will work to put in place a government of national unity'."
The statement said that the agreement signed between the two groups on May 26 "is being studied by the two parties and a commission is going to be appointed in order to treat the points of divergence." (Associated Press, 4 June)
The Reality
The reality on the ground is that al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine is stronger and in control; Sharia is being forcefully applied; and Northern Mali threatens to become a safe-haven for terrorist and a launch-pad for jihad.
In late May, the rebels seized a key underground weapons and ammunition depot of the Malian Army in Gao. A regional security source confirmed the seizure, saying the vast cache of weapons will greatly boost al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's (AQIM's) striking power, adding that the group "is today more armed than the combined armies of Mali and Burkina Faso".
See: Al-Qaeda branch seizes key Mali arms depot as crisis deepens
By Serge Daniel (AFP) 27 May 2012
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, a Mauritanian diplomat who has been a United Nations envoy in both West Africa and Somalia comments on the situation in Northern Mali: "We are in an early stage of Afghanistan and Somalia. There is no doubt in my mind."
Reporting for Reuters from Dakar, Senegal, David Lewis writes: "Ould-Abdallah and a swelling chorus of security experts point to an influx of foreign fighters, a debilitating rivalry between neighboring states, and steady flow of illicit funds as making Mali and the wider Saharan zone the next one to watch.
"In former colonial power France, the new defense minister warned last week of a 'west African Afghanistan' in Mali.
"The rebels' seizure of three major airstrips in the north - near the towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Tessalit - means that, in the absence of a functioning Malian air force, they can ferry in everything from drugs and weapons to yet more foreign fighters. . .
"Witnesses say the Islamists are better-resourced and more heavily armed than the Tuareg separatists . . . [a reality that is] allowing them to shunt the MNLA aside and take effective control on their own of towns across northern Mali."
See: Analysis: Mali: the world's next jihadi launchpad?
By David Lewis
DAKAR | Mon Jun 4, 2012
One wonders, what Al Qaeda's strategic priorities might be now that it has a solid foothold in Northern Mali through the extremely well armed Ansar Dine. Of one thing we may be certain: that jihad in Africa is about to go up a notch to become far more threatening and far more destructive.
Writing for New Straits Times, 5 June 2012, Adam Nossiter, describes the situation in the historic city of Timbuktu:
"Women are now forced to wear full, face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the ancient mud-brick town is changing.
"An ancient monument, the shrine of a 15th-century saint, has been defaced, bars have been demolished and black flags have been hung around town to honour Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith, the radical Islamist movement that emerged from the desert and turned life upside down.
"'There is no liberty,' said Abdoulaye Ahmed, a tailor who fled Timbuktu and came to Mali's capital, Bamako, last week. He added that the Islamist rebels 'are constantly circulating with their guns. This is scaring people. The town is sinister'."
"The situation is said to be especially troubling for women in Timbuktu.'Women are living in terrible fear,' said Baba Aicha Kalil, a well-known civic activist who still lives in the town. . . 'They want to put a veil on everything,' Kalil said. 'They are everywhere with their guns'."
On 5 June around 50 women and children courageously demonstrated against the Islamist presence in Kidal. Marching from the stadium to the main Kidal market, they chanted in their local language, "We don't want strangers here", and "We don't want Islamists here", until men in three pick-ups bearing the Ansar Dine flag intervened and beat the demonstrators, violently dispersing their protest.
On 22 May, Christian Today published an Appeal for Christians in Mali (22 May) in which the Christian charity Worldshare claims that the Islamic jihadists who have seized control of northern Mali have conducted house to house searches hunting for Christians, and that people have been tortured into revealing their Christian relatives. Confirming earlier reports, Worldshare, which has been working with a ministry in Timbuktu since 2001 and with the Gao Evangelical Church since 2004, also said that church and Christian property in Timbuktu and Gao has either been looted or destroyed.
All across northern Mali, the humanitarian situation is dire (ICRC 25 May 2012). Many Christians have fled south to Bamako, the capital, where they are living as refugees. Food stocks are low.
------------------------------------------
An agreement, A Split and The Reality
------------------------------------------
An Agreement
On 26 May, the avowedly secular Tuareg nationalist group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), signed a protocol agreement with Islamic jihadists Ansar Dine, to join forces for the implementation of an independent Islamic state.
CNN reports: "The agreement between the secular Tuareg and the Islamists comes after weeks of sometimes heated discussions between two movements, separated both in their objectives and ideologies. While the MNLA is fighting for an independent Azawad, Ansar Dine's main objective is to impose Sharia law in all of Mali.
"In the besieged towns, drinking, smoking, listening to music, watching soccer on TV and playing video games have been banned in what now seems to be a preparation for the creation of an Islamic state."
See: Mali rebel groups join forces, vowing an Islamic state
From Katarina Höije, For CNN, 27 May 2012
A Split
Only 48 hours after the protocol was signed, the deal collapsed, allegedly because the parties could not agree on how strictly to impose Sharia (Islamic) Law.
"We have refused to approve the final statement because it is different from the protocol agreement which we have signed," said Ibrahim Assaley, representing the MNLA. "It is as if they want us to dissolve into Ansar Dine," he complained. "That is unacceptable." (Al Jazeera 31 May)
Moussa Ag Asherif, a fighter close to the leadership of the Ansar Dine, told reporters that Iyad Ag Ghaly -- the shadowy leader of Ansar Dine who is known to have ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) -- would travel to Gao on Tuesday morning 29 May "to solve the problem".
The confusion has exposed a split in the MNLA, allegedly between the MNLA's French and Arabic speaking factions.
A statement issued by Hama Ag Mahmoud, a senior MNLA political figure read: "The political wing, the executive wing of the MNLA, faced with the intransigence of Ansar Dine on applying sharia in Azawad and in line with its resolutely secular stance, denounce the accord with this organisation and declare all its dispositions null and void."
Reuters reports: "In an open letter posted on Berber website Tamazgha.fr, the MNLA's communication director Mossa Ag Attaher acknowledged 'a growing malaise' in the ranks of the group linked to a feud between its French-speaking and Arab-speaking factions.
"While Attaher did not elaborate, the linguistic split could partly reflect divisions between those rebels who have remained in the former French colony and those who were based in Libya until the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
"'The application of sharia and the Arabisation of our people is a grave violation of our culture and identity,' he said of a region in which nomadic Tuaregs have co-existed with other ethnic groups and where moderate Islam is widely practised.
"But a senior military official for Ansar Dine contacted in the northern city of Gao said the well-armed group continued to apply the agreement.
"The pact signed by the MNLA and Ansar Dine is irrevocable", Oumar Ould Hamama told Reuters by telephone from the northern city of Gao."The views of a few individuals within the MNLA cannot put this fusion in doubt. In any case, [the reality is] we are the majority in control of all three of Mali's northern regions."
See: Mali Tuareg leaders call off Islamist pact
Reuters, Friday 1 June 2012.
According to the most recent news, the rebels are working towards establishing a ruling council and a government of national unity.
The MNLA issued a statement in the northern city of Gao that said: 'The NMLA will put in place a provisional council that will lead the country in the coming period and will work to put in place a government of national unity'."
The statement said that the agreement signed between the two groups on May 26 "is being studied by the two parties and a commission is going to be appointed in order to treat the points of divergence." (Associated Press, 4 June)
The Reality
The reality on the ground is that al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine is stronger and in control; Sharia is being forcefully applied; and Northern Mali threatens to become a safe-haven for terrorist and a launch-pad for jihad.
In late May, the rebels seized a key underground weapons and ammunition depot of the Malian Army in Gao. A regional security source confirmed the seizure, saying the vast cache of weapons will greatly boost al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's (AQIM's) striking power, adding that the group "is today more armed than the combined armies of Mali and Burkina Faso".
See: Al-Qaeda branch seizes key Mali arms depot as crisis deepens
By Serge Daniel (AFP) 27 May 2012
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, a Mauritanian diplomat who has been a United Nations envoy in both West Africa and Somalia comments on the situation in Northern Mali: "We are in an early stage of Afghanistan and Somalia. There is no doubt in my mind."
Reporting for Reuters from Dakar, Senegal, David Lewis writes: "Ould-Abdallah and a swelling chorus of security experts point to an influx of foreign fighters, a debilitating rivalry between neighboring states, and steady flow of illicit funds as making Mali and the wider Saharan zone the next one to watch.
"In former colonial power France, the new defense minister warned last week of a 'west African Afghanistan' in Mali.
"The rebels' seizure of three major airstrips in the north - near the towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Tessalit - means that, in the absence of a functioning Malian air force, they can ferry in everything from drugs and weapons to yet more foreign fighters. . .
"Witnesses say the Islamists are better-resourced and more heavily armed than the Tuareg separatists . . . [a reality that is] allowing them to shunt the MNLA aside and take effective control on their own of towns across northern Mali."
See: Analysis: Mali: the world's next jihadi launchpad?
By David Lewis
DAKAR | Mon Jun 4, 2012
One wonders, what Al Qaeda's strategic priorities might be now that it has a solid foothold in Northern Mali through the extremely well armed Ansar Dine. Of one thing we may be certain: that jihad in Africa is about to go up a notch to become far more threatening and far more destructive.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
MALI: Christians flee as jihadists seize control of north
What started out as a violent, destructive and bloody Tuareg rebellion in pursuit of an independent Tuareg homeland has ended in Islamic conquest and the spectre of al Qaeda.
On Thursday 5 April, after three months of fighting, the main ethnic Tuareg rebel group -- the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (NMLA) -- announced a ceasefire. Having seized the capitals of the three main northern provinces in three days -- Kidal, on 30 March; Gao, on 31 March; and Timbuktu, on 1 April (see map) -- the NMLA declared it had achieved its military goal.
See: Tuareg rebels in Mali declare cease-fire, end of military operations
By Associated Press, Published: April 5
Despite having fought alongside the professedly secular and nationalistic NMLA supposedly in support of Tuareg independence, Ansar Dine -- an Islamist group led by Iyad ag Ghali, a Tuareg who led a major rebellion in the 1990s -- has since supplanted the NMLA, hoisted the black flag of al-Qaeda and declared the imposition of Sharia law.
In a video filmed in Timbuktu and obtained by the AFP news agency and France 2 television, Ansar Dine military chief Omar Hamaha declared: "Our war is a holy war. It’s a legal war in the name of Islam. We are against rebellions. We are against independence. We are against revolutions not in the name of Islam."
See: Tuaregs claim 'independence' from Mali
6 April 2012, Al Jazeera
Film footage on Al Jazeera shows well armed Ansar Dine mujahideen driving a column of machine-gun mounted military vehicles each flying the black flag of al Qaeda. Ansar Dine is also exploiting the chaos of the Tuareg rebellion, of which they were a part, and re-inventing themselves as enforcers of law and order, offering hope to a traumatised people.
See: Tuareg groups disagree on objectives
-- a 2.35minute video news clip by Al Jazeera, 9 Apr 2012
Separatist MNLA declares Azawad independence, while Ansar Dine group wants to impose Islamic law.
According to reports, some 100 Nigerian Boko Haram militants who assisted in the capture of Gao have also established a presence there. Sources report that there are four distinct flags flying in Gao: the NMLA, Boko Haram, Ansar Dine, and Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and while the NMLA are nowhere to be seen, having been pushed to the periphery, there are plenty of armed, bearded Salafis.
See: Mali rebels declare independence in north as fears grow over extremist links
by Afua Hirsch, West Africa correspondent, the Guardian, 6 April 2012
DEVASTATION WIDESPREAD
IRIN, a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reports (3 April), "Malians in the northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu are hiding in their homes in fear following the weekend takeover by rebel groups, during which hospitals, health clinics, government buildings, and most NGO and UN offices and warehouses were looted, and in some cases destroyed, leaving the bulk of humanitarian operations suspended."
"Issa Mahamar Touré, president of the youth association in Gao, said total chaos reigned after widespread looting of government offices, NGOs, banks and hospitals in his town. 'People are hiding at their homes unable to leave… no trucks are arriving with further supplies... What will we do when our stocks run out? The hospital is closed and doctors have fled… It is complete desolation, despair… We can only turn to the international community for help.'"
Julia McDade, head of the Malian office of Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), which works with partners on agriculture projects and women’s rights in Timbuktu and Gao, told IRIN: "'Everyone [in Gao] is in hiding, everyone's vehicles have been stolen… every single office has been ransacked.'
"All the aid agencies IRIN spoke to have had their equipment stolen and have been forced to suspend operations, in the middle of a food emergency. Offices of the World Food Programme (WFP), which provides the bulk of food aid in the north were looted, and the organization has halted its activities in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, as well as the central town of Mopti, according to its head, Nancy Walters.
"Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Oxfam, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) all repeated the same story. 'Our cars, aid materials, offices and staff residences were all looted [in Gao],' Jurg Eglin, head of ICRC for Niger and Mali told IRIN. 'We are still trying to take stock of what we have lost.'
Caritas Mali reported that its local office in Gao in northern Mali was destroyed along with the local church which served Gao's 200-strong Catholic community.
IRIN also reports that according to sources, rapes are taking place in Timbuktu and Gao. "An NGO trainer in Gao, Adama Konipo, told IRIN he had seen rebels taking women away from the health centre, 'to who knows where', in recent days. After seeing one young woman in tears in the street, family members told him she had been raped by five MNLA soldiers. Others reported two rebels raping a young woman in the market place, firing their guns when anyone dared to approach them. 'It is impossible for any young women to leave their houses for fear,' Konipo told IRIN."
See also: Islamist Rebel Faction Imposes Sharia In The North Of Mali
by Soumaila T. Diarra (Bamako), April 06, 2012, Inter Press Service
ANSAR DINE TO THE RESCUE
Reporting from Bamako, Mali, for Associated Press (AP), Martin Vogl and Rukmini Callimachi spoke to Dramane Maiga, an employee of a transport company. He told them that the Islamists have been handing out a hotline number and encouraging residents to call if they are in trouble, apparently in an effort to instil confidence in the local population.
Maiga told AP that on Sunday 8 April he was on a bus loaded with residents attempting to flee Gao when it was ambushed by Tuareg fighters from the NMLA intending to rob the passengers. The passengers, however, got busy calling the Ansar Dine hotline and in less than 30 minutes, Ansar Dine mujahideen had arrived. The bus passengers then watched on in horror as the jihadists slit the throat of one Tuareg gunman, to cries of "Allahu Akbar".
See: Witness: Islamist fighters execute Tuareg in Mali
By Martin Vogl and Rukmini Callimachi in Bamako, Mali,
Associated Press, 9 April 2012
But according to IRIN -- and contrary to the footage on Al Jazeera -- the Islamists do not have widespread support amongst the population. “'We are against this takeover', said Amouhani Touré, a teacher who had just fled the town [of Timbuktu]. 'These Islamists want to impose their rules on us… We’re in the 21st century, you can’t impose Sharia on peaceful citizens. The authorities, if we have any still, must fight these Islamists with all their might… Timbuktu is a holy site, a tourist town; UNESCO-protected, we will say no to all forms of separatism.'”
The representative for Timbuktu in Mali’s Parliament, El Hadji Baba Haidara, also lamented the takeover. “Why do they want to Islamize us?” he said, observing that the city has been Muslim since the 12th century. “And now these Islamists want to teach us to pray! In fact, Timbuktu is a victim of its name and celebrity: for the rebels, it’s a symbol that must be taken in order to be seen. I am not O.K. with Sharia in Timbuktu. For us, it’s extremism."
CHRISTIANS FLEE AFTER BEING TARGETED
Driven out by the devastating violence, but especially by the Islamic threat, virtually the entire Christian population of northern Mali has been forced to flee for their lives.
The Guardian reports: "A source who fled the rebel-held town of Gao said that extremists were heavily involved in the advance and were now targeting the Christian minority in northern towns.
"'The rebels have sacked the church in Gao, burning the contents whilst crying Allah Akhbar,' the source told the Guardian. 'At a rebel barricade outside Gao, the bodies of people who have been slaughtered were laid out on the ground.'
"In a further report, which could not be verified, the Guardian learned that the Christian prefect of the town of Bourem had also been killed along with his relatives. 'The prefect was slaughtered at a checkpoint along with his family,' a source said. 'Christians here are now living in real fear.'"
See: Mali rebels declare independence in north as fears grow over extremist links
by Afua Hirsch, West Africa correspondent, the Guardian, 6 April 2012
Reporting from Bamako, Mali, Rukmini Callimachi reports for Associated Press that more than 90 per cent of Timbuktu's roughly 300 Christians have fled. Baptist Pastor Nock Ag Info Yattara, who has fled to Bourem, reports that not one of the 205 people in his congregation, which has worshipped in Timbuktu since the 1950s, remains. While Ansar Dine, which has established itself in the city's principle military camp, is controlling downtown Timbuktu, , the NMLA is being forced to camp out at the airport.
"'What I deplore,' laments Ousmane Halle, the mayor of Timbuktu, 'is the departure of the Christian community. Many said to me that they are obliged to leave. And they are right. I cannot guarantee their safety. And these are people that have lived side by side with us for centuries.'
See: Islamists impose sharia in Mali's Timbuktu
By Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press, 4 April 2012
NO EASY FIX
This is a situation for which there will be no easy fix.
(For prayer points see: RLPB 154. Mali: Christians flee imposition of Sharia, 11 April 2012)
Background:
The nomadic Tuareg controlled the caravan trade routes through the Sahara for thousands of years until recent trends reversed their fortunes.
Firstly, when Mali and Niger declared independence in 1960 they claimed territory that until that time had been the Tuareg's domain. At that point, the Tuareg began rebelling against the governments of Mali and Niger.
Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, drought accelerated the process of desertification, forcing many Tuareg to migrate north into Libya and Algeria. At the same time, the trends of rapid population growth and urbanisation changed the landscape considerably with the Tuareg powerless to stop their traditional lands being acquired by non-Tuareg farmers and developers. Further to this, as maritime trade increased in prominence the Tuareg were robbed of their traditional livelihood, forcing the nomadic Tuareg to diversify -- mostly into arms, drugs and hostage trafficking, activities that have brought them into contact with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Meanwhile, many Tuareg in Libya received military training and were incorporated into Gaddafi's Islamic Legion. (These were purely business arrangements and had nothing to do with ideology.)
In the late 1980s, the governments of Mali and Niger seduced many Tuareg back home with promises of assistance. Those who returned were now well armed, well trained militarily and linked through "business" (not ideology) to AQIM. When the promised assistance did not materialise and the northern regions remained as poor, under-serviced and marginalised as ever, the Tuareg rebelled again -- in Mali in 1992; and in Niger in 1995. French and US-mediated talks promised decentralised government and real assistance, including the incorporation of Tuareg fighters into the military. But once again, the assistance never materialised and resources remained concentrated in the south. Tensions rose.
From around the turn of the century, in order to prevent the impoverished northern regions becoming an al Qaeda sanctuary, France and the US launched anti-terrorism initiatives, offering advanced military training to Tuaregs so they could combat Islamic jihadists, including al Qaeda. Consequently, when the Tuareg rebelled again in 2007, they were more sophisticated than ever. Peace was brokered in 2009, but it was fragile. The rebellion's leader, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, fled to Libya.
In August 2011, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga re-emerged in northern Mali. He vowed over satellite phone to renew the Tuareg rebellion. Without hours he was dead -- most probably assassinated by a US-trained Malian counterterrorism unit. Ibrahim Ag Bahanga had been among some 800 Tuaregs who fought as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries in the Libyan conflict. As Gaddafi's fortunes reversed, the Tuareg, aware their salaries would soon end, simply packed up and returned to Mali bringing with them large quantities of weapons, ammunitions and military vehicles stolen from Gaddafi's arsenals.
It was this influx of a large number of cashed-up, well-armed and well-trained fighters, led by a former Libyan army colonel, Ag Mohamed Najem, that re-energised the long-simmering Tuareg insurgency against the Malian government. These are the Tuareg who formed the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and met with the government of Mali in November to let them know they were rejecting the authority of the parliamentarians and intending to have their own state.
And as Stratfor Security Weekly reports (2 Feb), Najem is not the only NMLA leader with significant military experience. "Experienced defectors from the Malian army including Lt. Col. Ag Mbarek Aky and Col. Ag Bamoussa reportedly have bolstered the organization. The presence of experienced military leaders gives the MNLA an increased ability to organize and mobilize its units across a broad swath of territory in northern Mali."
See: Mali Besieged by Fighters Fleeing Libya
By Scott Stewart, February 2, 2012
Stratfor, Security Weekly
For more background, see also:
The Tuaregs: From African Nomads to Smugglers and Mercenaries
Stratfor 2 Feb 2012
Other helpful and interesting articles:
Who are the Tuareg rebels conquering northern Mali?
3 April 2012 France 24
Tribulation in Timbuktu
The Tuareg people are profiting from the post-Gaddafi power shifts across the Saharan sands, contends Gamal Nkrumah
Al-Ahram, 5 - 11 April 2012, Issue No. 1092
Tuaregs 'all about securing power' in Mali's north
Deutsche Welle spoke with Dr. Julia Leininger, the Africa coordinator in the "Governance, Statehood, Security" department at the German Development Institute (DIE) about the Tuaregs and their aims. 6 April 2012
The Tuareg Denominator
By Jay Radzinski, Middle East Online 16 Feb 2012
New north Mali Arab force seeks to "defend" Timbuktu
Bate Felix and Adama Diarra, Reuters April 10, 2012
BAMAKO | Mon Apr 9, 2012
Foreign Policy: The Mess In Mali
by Gregory Mann, NPR 10 April 2012
On Thursday 5 April, after three months of fighting, the main ethnic Tuareg rebel group -- the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (NMLA) -- announced a ceasefire. Having seized the capitals of the three main northern provinces in three days -- Kidal, on 30 March; Gao, on 31 March; and Timbuktu, on 1 April (see map) -- the NMLA declared it had achieved its military goal.
See: Tuareg rebels in Mali declare cease-fire, end of military operations
By Associated Press, Published: April 5
Despite having fought alongside the professedly secular and nationalistic NMLA supposedly in support of Tuareg independence, Ansar Dine -- an Islamist group led by Iyad ag Ghali, a Tuareg who led a major rebellion in the 1990s -- has since supplanted the NMLA, hoisted the black flag of al-Qaeda and declared the imposition of Sharia law.
In a video filmed in Timbuktu and obtained by the AFP news agency and France 2 television, Ansar Dine military chief Omar Hamaha declared: "Our war is a holy war. It’s a legal war in the name of Islam. We are against rebellions. We are against independence. We are against revolutions not in the name of Islam."
See: Tuaregs claim 'independence' from Mali
6 April 2012, Al Jazeera
Film footage on Al Jazeera shows well armed Ansar Dine mujahideen driving a column of machine-gun mounted military vehicles each flying the black flag of al Qaeda. Ansar Dine is also exploiting the chaos of the Tuareg rebellion, of which they were a part, and re-inventing themselves as enforcers of law and order, offering hope to a traumatised people.
See: Tuareg groups disagree on objectives
-- a 2.35minute video news clip by Al Jazeera, 9 Apr 2012
Separatist MNLA declares Azawad independence, while Ansar Dine group wants to impose Islamic law.
According to reports, some 100 Nigerian Boko Haram militants who assisted in the capture of Gao have also established a presence there. Sources report that there are four distinct flags flying in Gao: the NMLA, Boko Haram, Ansar Dine, and Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and while the NMLA are nowhere to be seen, having been pushed to the periphery, there are plenty of armed, bearded Salafis.
See: Mali rebels declare independence in north as fears grow over extremist links
by Afua Hirsch, West Africa correspondent, the Guardian, 6 April 2012
DEVASTATION WIDESPREAD
IRIN, a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reports (3 April), "Malians in the northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu are hiding in their homes in fear following the weekend takeover by rebel groups, during which hospitals, health clinics, government buildings, and most NGO and UN offices and warehouses were looted, and in some cases destroyed, leaving the bulk of humanitarian operations suspended."
"Issa Mahamar Touré, president of the youth association in Gao, said total chaos reigned after widespread looting of government offices, NGOs, banks and hospitals in his town. 'People are hiding at their homes unable to leave… no trucks are arriving with further supplies... What will we do when our stocks run out? The hospital is closed and doctors have fled… It is complete desolation, despair… We can only turn to the international community for help.'"
Julia McDade, head of the Malian office of Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), which works with partners on agriculture projects and women’s rights in Timbuktu and Gao, told IRIN: "'Everyone [in Gao] is in hiding, everyone's vehicles have been stolen… every single office has been ransacked.'
"All the aid agencies IRIN spoke to have had their equipment stolen and have been forced to suspend operations, in the middle of a food emergency. Offices of the World Food Programme (WFP), which provides the bulk of food aid in the north were looted, and the organization has halted its activities in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, as well as the central town of Mopti, according to its head, Nancy Walters.
"Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Oxfam, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) all repeated the same story. 'Our cars, aid materials, offices and staff residences were all looted [in Gao],' Jurg Eglin, head of ICRC for Niger and Mali told IRIN. 'We are still trying to take stock of what we have lost.'
Caritas Mali reported that its local office in Gao in northern Mali was destroyed along with the local church which served Gao's 200-strong Catholic community.
IRIN also reports that according to sources, rapes are taking place in Timbuktu and Gao. "An NGO trainer in Gao, Adama Konipo, told IRIN he had seen rebels taking women away from the health centre, 'to who knows where', in recent days. After seeing one young woman in tears in the street, family members told him she had been raped by five MNLA soldiers. Others reported two rebels raping a young woman in the market place, firing their guns when anyone dared to approach them. 'It is impossible for any young women to leave their houses for fear,' Konipo told IRIN."
See also: Islamist Rebel Faction Imposes Sharia In The North Of Mali
by Soumaila T. Diarra (Bamako), April 06, 2012, Inter Press Service
ANSAR DINE TO THE RESCUE
Reporting from Bamako, Mali, for Associated Press (AP), Martin Vogl and Rukmini Callimachi spoke to Dramane Maiga, an employee of a transport company. He told them that the Islamists have been handing out a hotline number and encouraging residents to call if they are in trouble, apparently in an effort to instil confidence in the local population.
Maiga told AP that on Sunday 8 April he was on a bus loaded with residents attempting to flee Gao when it was ambushed by Tuareg fighters from the NMLA intending to rob the passengers. The passengers, however, got busy calling the Ansar Dine hotline and in less than 30 minutes, Ansar Dine mujahideen had arrived. The bus passengers then watched on in horror as the jihadists slit the throat of one Tuareg gunman, to cries of "Allahu Akbar".
See: Witness: Islamist fighters execute Tuareg in Mali
By Martin Vogl and Rukmini Callimachi in Bamako, Mali,
Associated Press, 9 April 2012
But according to IRIN -- and contrary to the footage on Al Jazeera -- the Islamists do not have widespread support amongst the population. “'We are against this takeover', said Amouhani Touré, a teacher who had just fled the town [of Timbuktu]. 'These Islamists want to impose their rules on us… We’re in the 21st century, you can’t impose Sharia on peaceful citizens. The authorities, if we have any still, must fight these Islamists with all their might… Timbuktu is a holy site, a tourist town; UNESCO-protected, we will say no to all forms of separatism.'”
The representative for Timbuktu in Mali’s Parliament, El Hadji Baba Haidara, also lamented the takeover. “Why do they want to Islamize us?” he said, observing that the city has been Muslim since the 12th century. “And now these Islamists want to teach us to pray! In fact, Timbuktu is a victim of its name and celebrity: for the rebels, it’s a symbol that must be taken in order to be seen. I am not O.K. with Sharia in Timbuktu. For us, it’s extremism."
CHRISTIANS FLEE AFTER BEING TARGETED
Driven out by the devastating violence, but especially by the Islamic threat, virtually the entire Christian population of northern Mali has been forced to flee for their lives.
The Guardian reports: "A source who fled the rebel-held town of Gao said that extremists were heavily involved in the advance and were now targeting the Christian minority in northern towns.
"'The rebels have sacked the church in Gao, burning the contents whilst crying Allah Akhbar,' the source told the Guardian. 'At a rebel barricade outside Gao, the bodies of people who have been slaughtered were laid out on the ground.'
"In a further report, which could not be verified, the Guardian learned that the Christian prefect of the town of Bourem had also been killed along with his relatives. 'The prefect was slaughtered at a checkpoint along with his family,' a source said. 'Christians here are now living in real fear.'"
See: Mali rebels declare independence in north as fears grow over extremist links
by Afua Hirsch, West Africa correspondent, the Guardian, 6 April 2012
Reporting from Bamako, Mali, Rukmini Callimachi reports for Associated Press that more than 90 per cent of Timbuktu's roughly 300 Christians have fled. Baptist Pastor Nock Ag Info Yattara, who has fled to Bourem, reports that not one of the 205 people in his congregation, which has worshipped in Timbuktu since the 1950s, remains. While Ansar Dine, which has established itself in the city's principle military camp, is controlling downtown Timbuktu, , the NMLA is being forced to camp out at the airport.
"'What I deplore,' laments Ousmane Halle, the mayor of Timbuktu, 'is the departure of the Christian community. Many said to me that they are obliged to leave. And they are right. I cannot guarantee their safety. And these are people that have lived side by side with us for centuries.'
See: Islamists impose sharia in Mali's Timbuktu
By Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press, 4 April 2012
NO EASY FIX
This is a situation for which there will be no easy fix.
(For prayer points see: RLPB 154. Mali: Christians flee imposition of Sharia, 11 April 2012)
Background:
The nomadic Tuareg controlled the caravan trade routes through the Sahara for thousands of years until recent trends reversed their fortunes.
Firstly, when Mali and Niger declared independence in 1960 they claimed territory that until that time had been the Tuareg's domain. At that point, the Tuareg began rebelling against the governments of Mali and Niger.
Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, drought accelerated the process of desertification, forcing many Tuareg to migrate north into Libya and Algeria. At the same time, the trends of rapid population growth and urbanisation changed the landscape considerably with the Tuareg powerless to stop their traditional lands being acquired by non-Tuareg farmers and developers. Further to this, as maritime trade increased in prominence the Tuareg were robbed of their traditional livelihood, forcing the nomadic Tuareg to diversify -- mostly into arms, drugs and hostage trafficking, activities that have brought them into contact with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Meanwhile, many Tuareg in Libya received military training and were incorporated into Gaddafi's Islamic Legion. (These were purely business arrangements and had nothing to do with ideology.)
In the late 1980s, the governments of Mali and Niger seduced many Tuareg back home with promises of assistance. Those who returned were now well armed, well trained militarily and linked through "business" (not ideology) to AQIM. When the promised assistance did not materialise and the northern regions remained as poor, under-serviced and marginalised as ever, the Tuareg rebelled again -- in Mali in 1992; and in Niger in 1995. French and US-mediated talks promised decentralised government and real assistance, including the incorporation of Tuareg fighters into the military. But once again, the assistance never materialised and resources remained concentrated in the south. Tensions rose.
From around the turn of the century, in order to prevent the impoverished northern regions becoming an al Qaeda sanctuary, France and the US launched anti-terrorism initiatives, offering advanced military training to Tuaregs so they could combat Islamic jihadists, including al Qaeda. Consequently, when the Tuareg rebelled again in 2007, they were more sophisticated than ever. Peace was brokered in 2009, but it was fragile. The rebellion's leader, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, fled to Libya.
In August 2011, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga re-emerged in northern Mali. He vowed over satellite phone to renew the Tuareg rebellion. Without hours he was dead -- most probably assassinated by a US-trained Malian counterterrorism unit. Ibrahim Ag Bahanga had been among some 800 Tuaregs who fought as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries in the Libyan conflict. As Gaddafi's fortunes reversed, the Tuareg, aware their salaries would soon end, simply packed up and returned to Mali bringing with them large quantities of weapons, ammunitions and military vehicles stolen from Gaddafi's arsenals.
It was this influx of a large number of cashed-up, well-armed and well-trained fighters, led by a former Libyan army colonel, Ag Mohamed Najem, that re-energised the long-simmering Tuareg insurgency against the Malian government. These are the Tuareg who formed the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and met with the government of Mali in November to let them know they were rejecting the authority of the parliamentarians and intending to have their own state.
And as Stratfor Security Weekly reports (2 Feb), Najem is not the only NMLA leader with significant military experience. "Experienced defectors from the Malian army including Lt. Col. Ag Mbarek Aky and Col. Ag Bamoussa reportedly have bolstered the organization. The presence of experienced military leaders gives the MNLA an increased ability to organize and mobilize its units across a broad swath of territory in northern Mali."
See: Mali Besieged by Fighters Fleeing Libya
By Scott Stewart, February 2, 2012
Stratfor, Security Weekly
For more background, see also:
The Tuaregs: From African Nomads to Smugglers and Mercenaries
Stratfor 2 Feb 2012
Other helpful and interesting articles:
Who are the Tuareg rebels conquering northern Mali?
3 April 2012 France 24
Tribulation in Timbuktu
The Tuareg people are profiting from the post-Gaddafi power shifts across the Saharan sands, contends Gamal Nkrumah
Al-Ahram, 5 - 11 April 2012, Issue No. 1092
Tuaregs 'all about securing power' in Mali's north
Deutsche Welle spoke with Dr. Julia Leininger, the Africa coordinator in the "Governance, Statehood, Security" department at the German Development Institute (DIE) about the Tuaregs and their aims. 6 April 2012
The Tuareg Denominator
By Jay Radzinski, Middle East Online 16 Feb 2012
New north Mali Arab force seeks to "defend" Timbuktu
Bate Felix and Adama Diarra, Reuters April 10, 2012
BAMAKO | Mon Apr 9, 2012
Foreign Policy: The Mess In Mali
by Gregory Mann, NPR 10 April 2012