A man collects cartridge cases at a damaged police station after Islamist gunmen battled French and Malian troops. Source: PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images[/caption]Since the March 2012 military coup that toppled former president Amadou Toumani Touré, Mali has been in the throes of its worst political crisis. The West African country, which once prided itself on being a model state with a relatively well-functioning democracy, is falling apart. After the suspension of the constitution and dissolution of all state institutions, the country plunged deep into chaos. The legal vacuum, the constitutional abyss, and the absence of a clear road map for the future has allowed the Islamist group Ansar Dine, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and other African and Arab mercenaries to exploit the situation to their full advantage.
The shockwaves after the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi added to the gravity of the situation in Mali. Many Tuareg fighters—who used to fight for the late colonel—were suddenly jobless, and returned home armed to the teeth. They joined other criminal networks in the desert frontier between Mali and Algeria, where lucrative trade in smuggled drugs and cigarettes and human trafficking is booming. Whoever these groups are—whether Jihadists, human traffickers, drug lords, or criminals—and whatever their objectives, they have created a very worrying reality in the region. For ten months, they managed to control Mali’s mostly desert northern half, and on April 6, 2012, Azawad (the Tuareg name for their homeland) was declared an independent north Malian state.
The situation became more alarming when those armed groups began encroaching on the south, toward the capital Bamako, which triggered the French-led military offensive in response to a request from the Malian government. French and Malian forces managed to enter major towns and are now depending on the help of the African intervention force. An excess of eight thousand troops are expected to be deployed in Mali in order to hunt down and eradicate the fugitive insurgents in the north.
What next?
The French-led military raids were met with little resistance as rebel fighters vanished from the region’s towns and villages, hastily retreating into hideouts in the complicated and huge Saharan area, which is difficult to reach or control. These groups are said to be well-trained and familiar with the Sahara, and to flush them out will be a tough, long-term and costly challenge.
France has made it clear that it will not get dragged into any messy guerrilla war in its former Sahel colony. It is also unclear whether the Malian and the African intervention force (AFISMA) can succeed in wiping out retreating Al-Qaeda-allied insurgents from their lairs that remain in the north, or whether they will able maintain control of this area. Even if they succeed, what will be the destination of those fugitives if pushed out of Mali?
The crisis of the north is not the only headache for the Malians. The atmosphere in the capital, Bamako, has also been tense following the army coup d’état that toppled President Amadou Toumani Touré just weeks before general elections were due. The coup revealed that the political situation in this West African country is not healthy, given the fact that the ousted president was not even running for another term. This raises the question about the reality of alleged claims of corruption of Malian politicians and whether Mali was indeed a model of growing democracy. It also raises fears that Mali is projected to fall into a lingering guerrilla war, with shockwaves that will spill over with disastrous consequences into all of its neighboring countries.
Algeria remains the most affected country; it cannot be immune to repercussions of the crisis in Mali even if it tries not to get involved in this quagmire. The civil war that gripped Algeria for decades is still fresh in the minds of Algerians, and in spite of the government’s success in establishing relative calm, the situation inside the country is still tense and volatile. Algerians are now worried about what will happen on their country’s southern border—and fear the return of violence in its territories, especially if the fleeing armed groups managed to infiltrate Algeria and joined ranks with the active Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb there.
The United Nations has also warned that the current war in Mali could consequently be another aggravation to the serious security challenge in Libya. This country remains unstable and fragile and has been the scene of power struggles between various armed factions, some of which are said to enjoy good relations with Al-Qaeda and Tuareg affiliates who were involved in the war that led to the fall of Gaddafi and his regime. Tarek Mitri, head of the UN mission in Libya, told the UN Security Council late last month, “The opposition of armed radical groups to the military intervention in Mali may exacerbate the situation given ideological and/or ethnic affiliations as well as porous bordering in Libya.” Libyans fear that these groups, who were angered by the French military operation in Mali, may return to Libya and further destabilize the country.
It is important to note that this war has many key players, which makes it difficult to understand its objective. These key players include Malian politicians who fell to the mercy of the military leaders, Tuareg nationalists who fight for what they call their usurped rights, Islamists who want to impose their own ideology, human traffickers and criminals with their mobster ambitions, neighbouring countries who fear the spillover of violence, and finally, France and its hidden intentions. All the pieces of this puzzle come with a price. The question is: who will pay?
