Yesterday, Mali made the news when the State Department donated over $5 million in military equipment to assist in the fight against AQIM. As the BBC notes, this support supplements the military assistance Mali receives from Algeria and Libya.
US officer during training mission in Bamako, Mali (2007)
The picture suggests that Washington as well as regional governments are increasingly concerned about AQIM activity in the Sahara. In fact, the BBC writes that this move may be a way for Washington to prod Mali’s government into mounting a major campaign against AQIM.
[This summer] Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Toure promised a “total war” against the Islamists and has claimed several successes.
The government recruited members of the nomadic Tuareg people – themselves former insurgents – to battle the Islamists.
But the BBC’s Martin Vogl in the capital, Bamako, says there has been little action over the past few months.
He says the gift from the US and talk of co-operation with other countries in the region may mean the battle is about to begin in earnest.
In many ways, this donation does not represent anything new. Systematic American counterterrorist efforts in the Sahel such as the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI), which launched in 2002, have included Mali. These efforts expanded after 2005 with the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Program (TSCTP), from which Mali received around $37 million in funding (.pdf) from 2005 to 2008. TSCTP is supposed to last at least into 2010. I am assuming that yesterday’s $5 million donation augments, and does not replace, whatever Mali’s TSCTP share is for this year – especially because the $5 million comes from State, not the Pentagon.
The Globe and Mail calls this development “the latest sign of the deepening U.S. military presence in West Africa,” and notes that “the Pentagon deployed 300 Special Forces advisers to three bases in Mali from April to June of this year to give training and instruction to Mali’s army.” The article ends by questioning whether the Malian army, even with assistance from Washington, has the drive to take on AQIM, and whether regional efforts at coordination will bear fruit.
To anyone paying close attention, Washington has signaled that it has substantial confidence in Bamako. Will that close relationship give rise to a serious military offensive in the Sahara? We’ll have to see.
Thanks Alex for this excellent summary. I read carefully the article from The Globe & Mail and it is a good description of the issue although I can’t understand what is the differenvce between the State Department or the army providing the military equipment to Mali. The US army wants to be seen as development-oriented in line with the paradigm shift described by Jeremy Keenan in his article of the other day?
I am not certain that the Malian army will be able to do much against AQMI, if AFRICOM does not help with surveillance from the air with drones, surveillance satellites and listening devices. Very easy to locate AQMI. The Malian army not moving can be understood that AQMI is much more equiped and probably supported from somewhere. Mysterious why the countries complaining about AQMI cannot agree to meet in Bamako. The big question is: why they do not agree and what is the problem?
The captation below from your post or the Globe raaised once again my attention:
“Despite the U.S. assistance, the Sahara nations have been unable to prevent AQIM’s increasingly deadly attacks in Mali, Niger, Algeria and Mauritania. In addition to the abduction of the Canadian diplomats, the terrorist group has kidnapped European tourists, killed an American aid worker and a British tourist, bombed the French embassy in Mauritania, assassinated a senior Malian intelligence chief and killed scores of people in Algeria in dozens of attacks there, including a car-bomb attack on employees of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the Montreal-based engineering and construction company”
Interesting points and questions. You’ve got me paying attention to Canada’s role in the Sahara, and I will have to look into what kinds of military cooperation they have with Sahelian countries, especially Mali. At the very least, seems the issues get real play in the Canadian press.
As for the US, I do think that Washington wants to emphasize the development side of efforts in Sahel. I would repeat, though, it’s very interesting that this latest donation comes from State and not the army. I don’t know if that says anything about the (alleged) power struggle between State and the Pentagon, but it could. US policy in the region so often seems self-contradictory to me, especially because different government agencies have different approaches.
As for the lack of coordination between regional governments, I thought there had already been some summits. But perhaps other diplomatic tensions are impeding efforts in this arena.
The only summit I can recall was the one organized in Libya at the margins (before or after?) of the 40th anniversary of Gadhafi’s staying in power. It was UA’s led, but spoke of othr things besides the security situation in the Sahara-Sahel. Algeria and Libya refused to give Mali’s ATT the opportunity to hold that Bamako summit he has been asking for 2 years now. Why? Only the four countries (Algeria, Libya, Mali and Niger) know. This is not to mention Mauritania, Morocco (never invited) and Burkina. None of them will tell us one day why. So, we have to do some inferences with lots of guesses (educated ones).
I wanted to re-read the article from The Globe and mail. It has gone completely, replaced by a shorter one from the associated Press. Glad I read it before it went into the thin air. If this is not a mistake, then the article has seen things right.
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Alex,
I have just seen this. The mayor of Tarkint where the plane crashed is Mr. Ould Sheikh, the famous go-between in the release of the two canadian hostages, according to one of the articles from Globe & Mail you and I were refering to. Was the cargo transporting drug or arms? You can’t have planes landing and taking off in an area under surveillance. Is the war against terrorism a real thing or a joke?
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Crash d’un cargo au nord de Gao
06/11/2009
Un avion gros porteur s’est écrasé mercredi 4 novembre dans la région de Gao.Cargo militaire américain ou aéronef affrété par les narco-trafiquants, se demande le journal malien «L’Indépendant» dans son édition du 6 novembre.
«L’Indépendant» rapporte qu’un avion de type gros porteur s’est écrasé dans la matinée…
…du mercredi 4 novembre, à 180 km au nord de la commune rurale de Tarkint du mercredi 4 novembre, à 180 km au nord de la commune rurale de Tarkint, cercle de Bourem, région de Gao.
Le crash a été confirmé par le maire de Bourem, Ibrahim Touré, joint au téléphone par «L’Indépendant».
” L’appareil était largement calciné et seules les ailes et la partie arrière étaient identifiables. Des sources sécuritaires contactées à Bamako ont confirmé le crash tout en écartant l’hypothèse qu’il puisse s’agir d’un appareil américain venu apporter du matériel militaire aux forces armées maliennes, comme on a pu le penser. A les croire, il s’agirait plutôt d’un appareil appartenant aux narco-trafiquants” , ajoute «L’Indépendant ».
“La piste de Almoustras est un point de passage très prisé par les narco-trafiquants en route vers le Maghreb et l’Europe en raison de la très faible présence, voire l’inexistence des forces sécuritaires maliennes dans cette localité. L’avion y a effectué une escale de 30 minutes. C’est après avoir redécollé qu’il a explosé”,
lit-on également dans l’article publié par le journal malien.
Il est à noter que le crash s’est produit dans une zone abritant parfois des salafistes armés, entre autres, de «Douchkas» russes , qui sont des mitrailleuses lourdes anti-aériennes.
Toute reprise totale où partielle de cet article doit inclure la source : http://www.journaltahalil.com
Tidinit, thanks for posting this. I agree, it’s hard to tell what happened. I wonder if there were any casualties. Please keep me posted if you see more on this.
Tidinit, your comment on Moor Next Door today led me back to this. I never heard that the landing strip was at Tarkint. I was already skeptical about the Venezuela connection (this is quoted, but nowhere is any evidence given), but this stinks to high heaven. Thanks for pointing out that fascinating detail.
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