Category Archives: France

Wild Boars and Black Tigers: The French Commandos of North Vietnam, 1951-54

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Andrew McGregor

AIS Military History

October 12, 2025

Sampans glide silently in the darkness over an inland waterway in north Vietnam’s Red River delta. Five Frenchmen and 120 Vietnamese commandos are on their way to make a deep behind-the-lines raid on Ho Chi Minh’s communist Viet Minh guerrillas. Their mission involves intelligence collection, seizing prisoners for interrogation and sowing confusion behind enemy lines. Among these nocturnal predators are many former Viet Minh prisoners; the lone French officer and his NCOs operate in the knowledge they may be killed by their own men at any time. This is life in the “Commandos of North Vietnam” (1951-54), a French precursor to the American Green Berets.

When General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny became commander-in-chief of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps in December 1950, French forces had been struggling for nearly six years to re-establish control over the Indochina colonies. Japanese forces destroyed the French occupation army in 1945, leaving a post-war power void exploited by Ho Chi Minh’s communist Viet Minh. The arrival of de Lattre, a legendary French soldier known to his men as “King Jean,” reinvigorates the badly demoralized Expeditionary Corps.

De Lattre, realizing the futility of following the old rules of combat, clears out incompetent officers and introduces new ideas, weapons and tactics, including a plan to create a series of new commando groups for use in northern Vietnam (“Tonkin”). These units, composed almost entirely of Vietnamese troops with a few French officers or NCOs in command, take the war to the Viet Minh using their own methods and intimate knowledge of the terrain. It is a war of no quarter, fought almost exclusively at night by men disguised as the enemy, men with a special gift for killing in the dark.

Origins

Even before the liberation of Paris, Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle was planning to re-establish French control of the Indochina colonies of Laos, Cambodia and the three regions of Vietnam – Cochin China in the south, the central region of Annam and the northern region of Tonkin. In 1944, the first Free French commando groups, officially the Corps Léger d’Intervention (C.L.I.), but better known as Gaurs (wild buffalo), are dropped into Japanese-occupied Laos. Torture is inevitable if captured and cyanide pills are regular issue. [1] Some of the commandos are highly trained veterans of the Free French companies of the British Special Air Service (SAS) and continue to wear the regiment’s green berets.

On March 9, 1945, the Japanese Army depose the French Vichy government in Indochina, slaughtering entire garrisons in surprise attacks. Two French Gaur groups are dropped into Tonkin by British planes to assist the fighting withdrawal to China of a column of starving and bloodied French colonial troops. Few of the Gaurs survive, most dying in suicidal attempts to delay the Japanese.

These early commandos are reliant on British training, transport and equipment, as the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS – predecessor to the CIA) initially supports Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist guerrillas over the French. This preference is in line with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vision of a post-war world where national self-determination will replace European imperialism.

Battle of the Day River

After years of bitter fighting in Vietnam’s jungles and mountains, it is the performance of mixed groups of French and Vietnamese commandos at the Battle of the Day River (May 28-June 18, 1951) that convinces General de Lattre to make the commandos a formal part of the French Expeditionary Corps.

The Limestone Crags at Ninh Binh

When the Viet Minh’s 320th Division launches an offensive along the Day River, they are opposed by small French units holding two limestone crags at Ninh Binh. One of the peaks is held by “King Jean’s” son, Bernard de Lattre, who is following his father’s order to hold the French position at all costs. A mostly Vietnamese commando led by a massive young French NCO, Roger Vandenberghe, is called upon to reinforce the young lieutenant by climbing the crag under heavy fire. Machine-gun fire sends climbers plummeting down the cliff, and eventually finds Vandenberghe. Wounded, he signals his second-in-command, Sergeant Tran Dinh Vy, to finish the assault. The slight but formidable sergeant is a former seminarian who has become a master of guerrilla tactics.

During the attack, the bleeding Vandenberghe retrieves the body of his friend, Bernard, a victim of Viet mortar fire. The recovery ingratiates Vandenberghe to General de Lattre, who is deeply disturbed by the loss of his only child. [2] From this point, de Lattre acts as a patron to Vandenberghe, whose savage way of war is bringing him close to dismissal by French commanders alarmed by his methods. “King Jean,” who will declare Vandenberghe “the greatest soldier in Indochina,” authorizes the creation of formal French Army commando units on July 2, 1951.

Elsewhere at Ninh Binh, two battalions of Viet Minh, the lead elements of Giap’s offensive, run into a naval commando unit on May 28, 1951, the 76-man Commando François led by Lieutenant Albert Labbens. Cornered in an abandoned church, the commandos hold off an overwhelming communist force for 24 hours, allowing the French to rush forces to the area and stop the offensive. The end of Commando François comes when 29 mostly wounded survivors make a sally from the church after running out of ammunition. To honor their sacrifice, the commando was never reconstituted. [3]

The Battle of the Day River ends three weeks later as a disaster for Giap, who leaves 12,000 dead behind. It is a tactical lesson for the communist general, but cements the reputation of the French commandos.

Training

Responsibility for organizing the commandos is handed to Louis Fourcade, commander of the 1st Battalion of Colonial Paratroopers. Fourcade spent WWII as an officer in the Vichy colonial army in Indochina, with secret contacts to Free French agents working across the border in China. He was involved in the desperate fighting against the Japanese in the last months of the war.

Louis Fourcade

The new commando units normally include 120 Vietnamese under a European officer or, more commonly, a senior NCO, aided by four other NCOs and at least one European radio operator. Viet Minh prisoners are given the chance to avoid heavy labor by volunteering to join the new commando groups. This is a highly dangerous practice; while it brings on board men who are intimately familiar with the enemy and his methods, it also hands arms to men who might wait months before suddenly turning on their leaders. Sleeping becomes as precarious for the commando leaders as a fire-fight with the enemy. To let one’s guard down for a minute is to invite death.

Yvan Tommasi

Training is carried out at the Vat Chay commando school by SAS veteran Captain Michel Legrand. Later training of the commandos is undertaken by one of the hardest men in the French Army – Yvan Tommasi, an Algerian-born officer of the Colonial Paratroops and a Free French veteran of fighting in Africa and Europe. In 1950, he loses his right hand while seizing a bomb from the hands of a trainee who had mistakenly set it to explode. Rather than retire, Tommasi continues to jump and is appointed trainer of the commandos in February 1952. Captured leading a raid in January 1953, Tommasi spends six months in a Viet Minh prison camp. There, he is singled out by French communist and turncoat Georges Boudarel, who tries to break him by forcing him to dig all the graves for the camp with his left arm and the stump of the right. Tommasi is kept busy; 85% of the prisoners in Camp 113 die from torture and mistreatment while being forced to sing the praises of Ho Chi Minh. [4] Tommasi survives and continues to serve in the colonial paratroops in Africa until 1966. [5] Amazingly, the unrepentant Boudarel is hired as a professor by a Paris university after the war.

The commandos are taught to fight at night. As Captain Delayen of Commando 13 recalled:

After having overcome the visceral fear of the night, and the completion of special training requiring the greatest discipline, the [Vietnamese] auxiliaries were convinced that, lightly armed as they were, only night action could allow them to dominate an adversary unaccustomed to not be the only ones operating at night. [6]

Internal cohesion is achieved by recovering commando families living in Viet Minh-occupied zones, building schools, pagodas and married quarters beside the commando base, and forming the atmosphere of “a big family” through the cultivation of vegetables and the raising of chickens and pigs.

Operations

The commandos do not perform normal military duties such as routine patrols or guarding military posts. When necessary, they operate in conjunction with regular troops on larger military operations. [7] The commandos use weapons supplied by the English and Chinese weapons captured from the Viets, including Thompson machine-guns and WWII-era Sten guns. Grenade launchers and small 50- or 60-mm mortars complete the light armament of these highly mobile units. Many wear the black cotton uniform of the Viet Minh, complete with sneakers, palm helmets and a Red Star insignia.

To gather intelligence, the commandos venture deep into enemy territory to observe movements, take prisoners and disrupt communist political networks. Attendees at Viet Minh meetings live in fear of French commandos bursting in, firing their Thompson machine-guns from the waist. The commandos are taught to aim at the feet of their targets in close combat, as the Thompsons tend to jump up when fired.

In his memoir, Sergeant Bernard Gaudin of 25 Commando describes a night ambush during a deep raid on the Viet Minh. Ambushes mean hours of silent misery, uniforms soaked by an endless drizzle. Nerves are on a razor edge as eyes strain to detect movement in the inky darkness. The torment of mosquitoes is unrelenting but must be endured noiselessly:

Canh, my faithful corporal, whispers in my ear: “Chief, there are a lot of Viets.” (…) Here we go, all the Commandos who are waiting for this break loose. We can finally cough, yell – it’s recommended. The bursts and explosions of grenades tear the night apart. Immediately, there is a pack of Viets on the mat. We hear them shouting orders to try a maneuver but we shoot at everything that moves. [8]

With prisoners taken and the Viet Minh column destroyed, Gaudin leads his men back by a different route. The waiting Viet Minh begin to rain down grenades as they cross a rice paddy. Two of his men are killed before fire rakes the Commando from sharpshooters in the trees. A Dinassaut (armored landing craft) makes a welcome appearance on the river and lays down heavy fire until the shooting stops. The Commando returns to camp, where a blazing fire enables the start of “Operation Leech,” as the men burn off blood-engorged parasites with a cigarette, dropping them to sizzle in the flames. [9] Gaudin’s raid yields a treasure-trove of intelligence documents, including the cipher to the Viet Minh code. At other times, it is the commandos who are the victims; when Commando 34 operates in Laos in support of the besieged French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, Sergent-Chef Müller leads it into a devastating ambush, losing 68 of its 107 men, including Müller.

Dinassaut with a Mixed French/Viet Crew

The Dinassaut are surplus American shallow-draft LCMs (Landing Craft Mechanized), modified to bring heavy firepower to support infantry and commando operations in the shallow waterways of the Red River Delta. For this, the Dinassaut deploy heavy machine guns, 81mm mortars and even tank turrets welded onto the crafts. They save more than one commando group and are effective enough to serve as a model for later American river operations in the south.

The physical challenges alone are daunting on operations and exacerbated by a shortage of medicines and medical personnel. In the infernal heat, unbearable prickly heat is enough to drive a man mad. Clothing is little better than a curse; damp clothes and web gear rubbing on skin creates raw patches that quickly become infected before the flesh begins to rot. Boils, warts and the festering lumps provided by stinging and biting insects complete the assault on the skin. Internally, the body is host to large worms that have a disconcerting habit of popping out through the mouth as well as the anus; externally, the body sustains legions of leeches, mindless and ubiquitous creatures devoted to bleeding a man dry. Eye diseases that deprive a man of sight are rife; malaria and a multitude of tropical ailments make delirious fever an almost normal condition. Amoebic dysentery, endemic in the polluted rice paddies and streams that double as toilets for the locals, provides a slow and demoralizing death.

Despite these challenges, it is necessary for the leaders of the commandos to continually demonstrate physical and mental strength or risk losing the men under them. For officers of the French regular army, this dirty, stressful and highly dangerous work is commonly viewed as more likely to lead to an early death than promotion. Leadership roles are thus opened to audacious NCOs who may not have graduated the French St. Cyr military academy, but are capable of innovation, independent action and, most of all, killing Viet Minh. Contrary to expectations, the experience of the surviving commando leaders propels them rapidly through the ranks after the French withdrawal from Indochina. Men who understood the “new warfare” developed in Indochina would be needed in Algeria.

In response to the pressure of the commandos, the ever-adaptive Viet Minh create a counter-commando force, the Dich Van. This covert unit is assigned the task of infiltrating native troop formations aligned with the French Expeditionary Corps, often by intimidating the families of pro-French fighters. [10]  Dich Van propaganda teams recruit Foreign Legion deserters to persuade French Expeditionary Corps prisoners in French, German and other European languages to adopt Marxist ideology and take up arms against their former comrades.

The Wild Boar

Several French commanders achieve fame in this highly unconventional form of fighting, one fought with knives as much as sub-machine guns. One of these is a solid, thick-set Corsican lieutenant, Charles Alphonse Rusconi. For his ferocious fighting style, the Corsican is known as Le Sanglier, “the wild boar.”

Fanion of Commando 24

Rusconi begins his military career in 1936 by joining the Colonial Army’s 10th Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs (riflemen). He leads several daring commando raids behind German lines in 1940 before being wounded and captured. Escaping only two months later, he joins the French forces in Indochina in 1948, forming Commando 24 from Viet Minh prisoners and Black Colonial Army troops from Mali. The latter, mostly large men, say their commander is “small, but cunning.” Through unrelenting attacks that shatter Viet Minh morale, his group forces a significant decline in communist activity in his zone of operations.

The 33-year-old Rusconi, survivor of four wounds, is killed in February 1952 when one of his commandos, a former Viet Minh officer influenced by the Dich Van, opens a way into the camp for a company of Viet Minh. Rusconi and most of his command fall in vicious hand-to-hand fighting, knives, fists and boots flailing to the last.

The Black Tigers

Childhood for Roger Vandenberghe and his brother Albert is extremely difficult. Born in a Paris slum, their father dies from tuberculosis in 1939. Their mother, a Spanish Jew, is sent by Vichy authorities to a Nazi death camp. With little education, the boys join the French Resistance as mere teenagers, followed by service as commandos in General de Lattre’s First French Army in Alsace and Germany.  After the war, Vandenberghe and his brother arrive in Vietnam as part of the 6th Colonial Infantry regiment. Roger is immediately taken with the country, a place far different from the crowded tenements of Paris. Already decorated with the Croix de Guerre for his Resistance work, Vandenberghe quickly makes sergeant in command of a unit of Vietnamese auxiliaries that becomes Commando 24, “The Black Tigers.”

Roger Vanderberghe

Vandenberghe’s nemesis in Vietnam is Chapuis, a former French paratrooper who deserted to the communists. In June 1948, Chapuis kills Vandenberghe’s younger brother, his only family in the world. The deserter is captured by Vandenberghe in 1951 and sent to the French post at Nam Dinh, where he escapes and returns to the Viet Minh.

Vandenberghe’s most famous exploit comes when one of his turned commandos reveals the location of a Viet Minh command post. Vandenberghe allows himself to be bound as a prisoner and carried along by his men in Viet Minh uniform, passing through checkpoints by insisting they are going to collect the reward on Vandenberghe’s head.  Once inside the command post, Vandenberghe is released; he and his men slaughter everyone there, seizing a treasure trove of documents and weapons. [11]

Vanderberghe Meets an Astonished General De Lattre at Phu Ly

This fearsome NCO has little use for the officers of the French army, but is impressed by the leadership of General De Lattre, his former commander in France. He leads his men 12 miles through enemy territory to see the general at a gathering in Phu Ly. The general is astonished to see this towering European in a Viet Minh uniform and helmet. Vandenberghe explains his appearance as necessary while operating almost exclusively behind enemy lines. De Lattre is taken by this odd but unforgettable warrior, remarking a few days later: “It’s a bit as if a tiger, in addition to its fangs and claws, received a hunting license…” [12]

The French commandos fight brutal, no-quarter battles in a tropical darkness where the normal conventions of war hold no sway. Even in these conditions, Vandenberghe stands out for waging a vicious and pitiless war using methods the French command find disturbing. He drives his men hard; complaints are met with a reminder that, without him, his turncoat troops “would be in jail or eaten by maggots.” [13] Desertions are frequent and Vandenberghe is shot in the back by one of his own men in 1949. After returning from medical treatment in France he becomes even more unrestrained, his NCOs struggling to keep him in check, especially in his dealings with the civilian population.  Vandenberghe pays little heed to the criticism of his methods by French officers, insisting that war was about killing, so they were best to leave him to it. [14]

Vanderberghe and Rusconi in Hanoi, February 7, 1952

Paratrooper Phillipe de Pirey recalled a parade held in honor of General de Lattre that featured the Vandenberghe and Rusconi commandos, “most striking” in Viet Minh-style black shorts and shirts, topped with Latanier (palm) helmets with red stars on a yellow background. Beside their Sten-guns with fifty round magazines, numerous knives and grenades hung from their belts. Once onlookers managed to overcome the shock of witnessing these former Viet Minh warriors parading in the streets of Hanoi in the uniforms of the enemy, it was possible for de Pirey to admit “the men in these units looked rather splendid.” [15]

Tran Dinh Vy – Tiger and Legionnaire

On January 6, 1952, at a time when most of Commando 24 is on leave, Vietnamese sentries who had managed to infiltrate the unit allow a Viet Minh team that may include the deserter Chapuis to enter the camp. The assassins move silently and Vandenberghe is butchered in his sleep by a former Viet Minh officer under his command. Ten others are killed; the few wounded who survive include Sergeant Tran Dinh Vy, who goes on to serve in the army of South Vietnam.  Arriving in France after the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975, this exceptional soldier joins the French Foreign Legion, attaining the rank of colonel.

Commando 24 in Viet Minh Uniforms

Wounded seven times by bullets, grenades and mines before his death, Vandenberghe becomes the most highly decorated French NCO of the 20th century. An obituary in a leading Paris newspaper notes that the war enabled Vandenberghe to “find in the combats of the jungle the blossoming of his barbaric personality.” [16] Five days after Vandenberghe’s death, General de Lattre dies of cancer in Paris and is laid to rest alongside his son, Bernard, marking the end of the short but eventful relationship between the king, his prince and the tiger who served them.

End of the North Vietnam Commandos

After the fall of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, the French command decides to evacuate the southern half of the Red River Delta. Hundreds of Vietnamese begin to desert the French forces. Two sections of Commando 35 murder their French commander, Lieutenant Nedelec, and two French NCOs before joining the enemy in July 1954. [17]

Général Salan and the Commando Yatagan in Algeria

With the French war over, the native remnants of the commando groups assemble at Haiphong and are sent to South Vietnam to form the 1st Battalion de Marche des Commandos (BMC). Their French officers and NCOs find themselves in demand and are sent to Algeria to continue French experiments in counter-insurgency. Commando 13’s Captain Jean-Louis Delayen forms the Yatagan Commando in Algeria, a French-led unit of Algerian Muslims operating along the lines established by the North Vietnam commandos. A second-generation member of the French colonial infantry, Delayen finishes his career in 1978 as one of the most decorated soldiers in the French army.

Tomb of Roger Vanderberghe, Pau, France (Joel Herbez)

Vandenberghe’s remains are repatriated to France from the Nam Dinh cemetery in 1989, where they are interred in a monument honoring the “Black Tiger” at the National NCO Academy in Pau.

By the end of the war in 1954, Viet Minh losses to the Nord Viet-Nam commandos include 3,664 dead, 481 wounded and 4,649 taken prisoner. European commando losses include 73 dead, 25 wounded and 6 missing. Losses of Vietnamese commandos in French service appear not to have been recorded but could only be described as substantial. [18]

Louis Fourcade, who had organized the commandos, honors them after the war: “Thanks to their ardor, their contempt for danger, the initiative of their leaders, the courage and undeniable devotion of their men, the North Vietnam commandos acquired and deserved their reputation of being always into the breach.” [19]

NOTES

 [1] Jean le Morillon, p.134.

[2] Bernard Fall, p. 45.

[3] Groizeleau.

[4] Yves Beigbeder, p. 73.

[5] Denizot.

[6] Captain Delayen (later General Delayen), quoted in Pissardy, p.251.

[7] LeBreton.

[8] Gaudin, Reprinted in Pissardy, p.266.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Colonel Michel Reeb.

[11] LeBreton.

[12] Forum La Guerre d’Indochine.

[13] Bergot, 1997.

[14] Favrel, 1952.

[15]  De Pirey, p.159.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Pissardy, p.51.

[18] LeBreton

[19] Reeb

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beigbeder, Yves: Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions,  Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006.

Bergot, Erwan: Commando Vandenberghe, Pygmalion, Paris, 1997.

Denizot, Jean-Jacques: L’épopée des trois Capitaines. Jean Claveranne – Henri Morin – Yvan Tommasi. Trois vies, un destin, 2000, https://www.monsieur-legionnaire.org/images/epopee-des-trois-capitaines.pdf

Fall, Bernard: Street Without Joy, Pall Mall Press, London, 1961.

Favrel, Charles: “La Mort d’un Baroudeur,” Le Monde, January 9, 1952, https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1952/01/09/la-mort-d-un-baroudeur_1993178_1819218.html

Forum La Guerre d’Indochine: “L’Adjutant-Chef Roger Vandenberghe,” April 9, 2009, https://laguerreenindochine.forumactif.org/t541p1-l-adjudant-chef-roger-vandenberghe

Gaudin, Bernard, Commando 25, Paris, 1990.

Groizeleau, Vincent: “Un ancien du commando François arrive en P-51 sur la BAN d’Hyères,”
Mer et Marine, June 16, 2014, https://www-meretmarine-com.translate.goog/fr/defense/un-ancien-du-commando-francois-arrive-en-p-51-sur-la-ban-d-hyeres?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=op,sc

Kennedy, Paul J.: Dinassaut Operations in Indochina: 1946-1954, Unpublished MA Thesis, Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico VA, 2001.

LeBreton, A.: “Commandos Nord Vietnam,” Versailles, July 31, 2007, http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acuf.fr%2FArticle%2FCommandos%2520Nord%2520Vietnam.htm

Le Morillon, Jean: Un Breton en Indochine, Paris, 2000.

de Pirey, Philippe, Operation Waste, Arco, London, 1954.

Pissardy, Jean-Pierre: Commandos Nord-Vietnam, 1951-1954, Indo Éditions, Paris, 1999.

Reeb, Colonel Michel: “Commando Nord Viet-Nam,” La Charte, December 2003.

 

Russia in Niger – A Military Junta Walks Away from the West

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

Eurasia Daily Monitor 21 (56), April 11, 2024

Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC

Executive Summary

  • Russia is actively expanding ties with Niger’s military junta to consolidate control over resource-rich assets and to push out Western influence.
  • Moscow has now signed multiple agreements to provide security guarantees to Abdourahamane Tchiani and potentially take over the rights to several Nigerien gold mines.
  • Kremlin propaganda relies on “anti-colonial” narratives that have played a role in pushing the French and US military presence out of the country.

Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown by his own Garde Présidentielle on July 26, 2023. The Army backed the coup a day later, enabling former Garde leader Brigadier General Abdourahamane Tchiani to proclaim himself Niger’s new head-of-state. Bazoum was detained and coup supporters flooded the streets of the capital, Niamey, many of them waving Russian flags. The display raised suspicions of Russian/Wagner involvement in the coup.

Brigadier General Abdourahamane Tchiani (Reuters)

President Bazoum was known for his support of Ukraine at the UN and joined a diplomatic initiative to return rule of Crimea to Ukraine, though there were other factors at work in the coup besides pro-Russian sentiment in the military, including Bazoum’s Arab ethnicity in a Hausa-majority country (Arabs form less than 1% of the population) (AfricaNews, February 19, 2021). A stagnant economy, growing insecurity and the presence of Western troops were other factors, but the spark for the coup appears to have been Bazoum’s intention to shake up the ineffective military leadership. Like many other regional coup leaders, General Tchiani (a Hausa) and his armed forces chief-of-staff General Moussa Salaou Barmou received American military training.

Ukraine insisted Russia was behind the coup as part of its “scenario for provoking instability to undermine the global security order”​​​​​​​ (Anadolu Agency, August 1, 2023). Perhaps putting a damper on the idea that Russia had orchestrated the coup was Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s initial condemnation of the putsch as “an anti-constitutional undertaking” (Vedomosti, January 17).

Protesters in Niger’s capital Niamey hold a Russian flag and banner with images of coup leaders in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea (AFP)

Moscow nonetheless came to the defense of the junta when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) indicated it was planning a military intervention to restore President Bazoum (BBC, August 11, 2023). The military dictatorships of Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea (all ECOWAS members) signalled their intent to oppose any ECOWAS action against Niger and its new rulers, the Conseil Supérieur pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (CNSP – National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland).

With 1500 French troops in Niger, the French military was the junta’s first target with the cancellation on August 3, 2023 of all five military cooperation agreements with France (signed between 1977 and 2020). The French force was assisting in the struggle against Islamic State militants and jihadists of al-Qaeda-related Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimeen (JNIM) but was no longer having the impact it once did, providing fertile ground for anti-French Russian media manipulation. As ordered by the junta, French troops began evacuating Niger on October 10 (RIA Novosti, October 10, 2023). The last French troops left on December 22. Several weeks after their departure, Niger Defense Minister General Salifu Modi said the evacuations had already provided a “positive impact on our fight against terrorism” (RIA Novosti, January 17).

There were initial concerns that the coup in Niger might interrupt the flow of uranium to French nuclear reactors, but these concerns appear to have been overstated. Shortly after the coup, France’s Ministry of Energy Transition insisted: “The situation in Niger does not present any risk to France’s security of supply of natural uranium” (TV5Monde/AFP, July 31, 2023).. Niger is one of France’s top three uranium suppliers, supplying 20% of French needs  (TV5Monde/AFP, July 31, 2023). France maintains a strategic stockpile of strategic uranium equal to a two-year supply and is actively seeking to diversify its supply, including a long-term deal with Mongolia in October 2023 and the construction of a uranium recycling plant (Portail de l’IE [Paris], January 9; La Tribune [Paris], January 9).

A speaker believed to be Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin used a Wagner-associated Telegram channel to make a pitch to Niger’s new rulers to engage Wagner while employing the anti-colonial rhetoric now pervasive in West Africa: “What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their [French and American] colonizers… who are trying to foist their rules of life on them,,, and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago” (Meduza, July 28, 2023; al-Jazeera, July 31, 2023).

Following Prigozhin’s death last August and the subsequent reformation of the Wagner Group, Nigerien minister of state for defense Lieutenant General Salifou Modi joined Russian deputy minister of defense Colonel General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in signing an agreement on December 4, 2023 providing for the deployment of Russia’s new GRU-directed Africa Corps in Niger (Izvestia, March 13).

Generals Yevkurov and Modi Sign a Defense Agreement (ANP)

According to General Modi, the cost would be significant: “A large part of our military budget will be allocated directly to our Russian partner.” Niger’s minister of mines added that some gold mines might be ceded to the Russians as well (Agence Nigérienne de Presse, December 4, 2023). In an interview a few days later, General Tchiani thanked Russia’s soldiers and mercenaries, but noted “we are paying them very dearly… Certainly, the security guarantees provided by Moscow have a high price and will require significant sacrifices, but it is a reliable partner” (Agence Nigérienne de Presse, December 10, 2023).

The tempo of reciprocal visits and meetings increased after this agreement, culminating in a March 26 phone call with President Putin in which General Tchiani expressed his gratitude for Moscow’s support and discussed stronger security cooperation (AFP, March 26).

A diplomatically disastrous visit to Niger by American officials in mid-March convinced the junta to cancel its “status of forces” agreement with the US on March 17 (ActuNiger, March 16; Al-Jazeera, March 17). The move forces the closure of a $100 million American drone facility and a separate CIA drone facility.

In another post-coup development, the junta repealed 2015 legislation outlawing migrant trafficking through Niger, claiming it had been implemented “under the influence of certain foreign powers” (AFP, January 23). Imprisoned traffickers were released and military escorts provided for migrant convoys. These measures were applauded both by traffickers and NGOs. The move raises the possibility of Russian manipulation of migrant flows to Europe.

Russia alone is unlikely to be able to provide all the assistance Niger needs in the economic, technical and financial fields. For these, Niger must be open to regional and international partnerships that might be jeopardized by an armed Russian presence following its own agenda. Niger has missed four debt payments in a row and is now $519 million in default (al-Jazeera, February 19).  With foreign aid accounting for half its budget, Niger can hardly afford to abandon all other partners in favor of Russia.

The junta will be taking a gamble with a relatively unknown partner like Russia, which has had few dealings with Niger since the Soviet era. On the other hand, Niger’s army has suffered numerous setbacks in trying to contain the jihadist insurgency and will require a new partner to replace the French.

This article was first published as “Niger Cozies Up to Russia and Walks Away From the West,” EDM, April 11, 2024.

French Troops Kill JNIM Military Leader Colonel Bah Ag Moussa Diara: What are the implications?

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

AIS Militant Profile

November 20, 2020

Colonel Bah Ag Moussa Diara (Le Combat, Bamako)

French forces deployed in the Sahel under the “Operation Barkhane” banner scored a notable triumph on November 10, 2020 when they eliminated one of the region’s leading Islamist militants.

The French airstrike in Mali took out Colonel Bah Ag Moussa Diara “Abu Shari’a,” a prominent military leader of the Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-allied Islamist militant formation active in the African Sahel. Two others were killed in the strike, including Ag Moussa’s aide and his son Hamza. The attack took place as the targets were travelling in a 4×4 seven kilometers from Tadamakat, near Ménaka in the Gao region (one of the three territories of Mali’s arid and sparsely populated north-east, the others being Kidal and Timbuktu).  Ag Moussa’s death is of some significance, as his military leadership had helped score a series of successes in the Sahel that demoralized local troops and pushed Mali’s government towards talks with JNIM terrorists led by veteran Islamist Iyad Ag Ghali. The move towards talks with the Islamists was a major factor in the August 2020 military coup in Mali; it should be recalled that it was a 2012 military coup that enabled the launch of an Islamist occupation of northern Mali and the creation of the ongoing Islamist insurgency, which has spread to neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Wreckage of Ag Moussa’s Vehicle (Walid la Berbere)

Two drones, fighter jets, four helicopters and 15 commandos were involved in the operation, suggesting the French had acquired intelligence aforehand regarding Ag Moussa’s itinerary for November 10. A French military spokesman declined to say whether American intelligence sources were involved in the operation (AP, November 13, 2020). According to French sources, the men ignored warning shots, fighting back with small arms and machine guns before they were hit directly by French fire. The bodies of the three dead were buried on the spot; there was no word regarding the fate of two other occupants of the vehicle (Le Monde, November 13, 2020; Kibaru [Bamako], November 15, 2020),

Ag Moussa was one of the main drivers behind efforts to push the Sahelian jihad into southwestern Mali. A two-time deserter from the Forces Armées Maliennes (FAMA), Ag Moussa’s father was a Bambara from Mali’s populous southwestern region (Diara, or Diarra, is a common Bambara name). Ag Moussa assumed a Tuareg identity through his mother, who came from the aristocratic Ifoghas Tuareg clan in the north-eastern Kidal region (Defense Post/AFP, March 18, 2019; Africa Times, March 24, 2019). Ag Moussa was considered to be very close to JNIM leader Iyad Ag Ghali, with whom he is reported to have received military training in Libya (RFI, March 18, 2019). Most recently, Ag Moussa had a leading role in violent clashes with JNIM’s Islamist rivals in the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). If not the military commander of JNIM (this point is uncertain), he was at least an important and influential military leader with responsibility for training new recruits in weapons and tactics.

Approximately 50-years of age, Ag Moussa was known as a clever strategist and capable tactician whose inside knowledge of the workings and capabilities of the Malian army played a large role in his battlefield successes. The colonel had a special role in training recruits at a camp in the Nara rural commune in the Koulikoro Region of southern Mali. (RFI, March 18, 2019). The base is close to Mali’s northern border with Mauritania and the Wagadou Forest, a traditional zone of jihadist operations.

Ag Moussa deserted the Malian Army to join Tuareg insurgents in the 2007-09 rebellion in northern Mali and Niger. He rejoined the Army through the re-integration protocols of the Algiers Accords that ended the rebellion. As a newly-appointed colonel, he was put to work combatting banditry and recalcitrance in his native Kidal.

With the launch of a new Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali in late 2012, Ag Moussa deserted once again, briefly joining the secular rebel Mouvement national de libération de l’Azawad (Azawad National Liberation Movement) before defecting to their Islamist rivals, Iyad Ag Ghali’s Ansar al-Din (Supporters of Religion). Ag Moussa was accused of being the military commander of Ansar al-Din forces who brutally slaughtered 128 FAMA prisoners at Aguelhoc in January 2012 after the poorly supplied garrison ran out of ammunition (L’indicateur du Renouveau [Bamako], January 26, 2016).

Victims of the Aguelhoc Massacre

He also took part in several battles in northern Mali before the French military intervention in the Spring of 2013. Like many Tuareg militants, Ag Moussa then joined the newly-formed Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad (HCUA) as a means of publicly disassociating himself from the extremists being pursued by French and Chadian forces, though he continued working for Iyad Ag Ghali and recruited for Ansar al-Din. According to the UN, his half brother, Sidi Mohammed Ag Oukana, serves as Iyad Ag Ghali’s advisor on religious affairs (UN Security Council, August 14, 2019).

After taking charge of most of JNIM’s military operations in 2017, Ag Moussa increased the tempo of JNIM operations in central Mali, the region at the physical center of Mali’s ethnic and cultural divide. In 2019, the UN reported that Ag Moussa was the new commander of JNIM’s Katibat Gourma (Gourma Brigade) following the death of its Tuareg founder, Almansour Ag Alkassoum.

FAMA insisted that Ag Moussa directed the major attack on a Malian military post at Dioura in the Mopti region of south-central Mali in March 2019. Twenty-six Malian soldiers died in the strike, with 17 men wounded and an additional loss of several armored vehicles. JNIM admitted three dead.

Amadou Koufa (Jeune Afrique)

However, JNIM’s media arm, the Zallaqa Foundation, insisted the raid was carried out by the Fulani Katiba Macina, led by Fulani jihadist Amadou Koufa and part of the JNIM coalition since 2017. The JNIM statement said the attack was retribution for the government’s “heinous crimes” against the Fulani. The message also cited the lack of international support for the Fulani and the presence of French military forces in the Sahel as reasons for the attack (Kibaru [Bamako], March 23, 2019). Ag Moussa was known to work very closely with the Katiba Macina, so it is possible that Ag Moussa may have taken part in the operation without actually being its official leader. Since then, Ag Moussa was credited with leading the November 1, 2019 attack on the FAMA base at Inelimane, in which 50 soldiers were killed. The former colonel became a US specially designated terrorist in July 2019, followed by the imposition of UN sanctions as an al-Qaeda associate the next month.

Morale, pay and equipment in FAMA are all poor. Real fighting is carried out by the French, with the Malian military still indulging in politics, struggling to take control over a state they have no means or training to run. The French military presence has become increasingly unpopular, with President of Mali Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta resigning on August 19, 2020 amidst large anti-French street demonstrations in Bamako.

(AFP)

The multinational Task Force Takuba, intended to relieve pressure on the French military which has lost over 50 men in combat operations in the region since 2013, is still in its early stages. Some 50 members of the Estonian Special Forces began operating alongside French troops in October; they are expected to be joined in the coming months by 60 Czechs and 150 Swedes, with the latter also deploying three Blackhawk helicopters. A small Greek deployment is expected soon, though this has been held up by growing tensions with Turkey. Other European states have committed to joining TF Takuba or are exploring the idea, including the UK, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Ukraine and Italy, but deployment has been held up by COVID-19 and, in some cases, failure to obtain parliamentary approval (Greek City Times, November 24, 2020; FranceTVInfo, November 9, 2020; AFP, November 5, 2020).

French forces go from victory to victory over the jihadists, but they are only a strike force, no longer a colonial force of occupation. In this sense, they have become an independent arm of the Malian state, operating without reference to the putschists in Bamako. Yet killing jihadists and their leaders cannot end the jihad, which is ultimately a political problem. The political instability generated by the military coup and the promised creation of a new civilian government pushes military and diplomatic progress back to the starting point, though the putschists have at least vowed to honor their alliances with the G5 Sahel, Takuba, MINUSMA and France’s Operation Barkhane (FranceTVInfo.fr, August 19, 2020).

Perhaps most importantly, France has likely succeeded in derailing the continued pursuit of unwanted negotiations between the terrorists and the new regime in Bamako. On the other hand, the French attack is yet another example of the ever-growing reliance of Mali’s military on French forces to conduct successful anti-terrorist operations that enable the nation’s continued survival and avoid a new descent into the political chaos surrounding the Islamist occupation of the north in 2012-13.

The day before the strike on Ag Moussa, Operation Barkhane commander Major General Marc Conruyt noted that JNIM had been taking advantage of a recent French focus on targeting Islamic State personnel and assets, adding that JNIM was still “the most dangerous enemy for Mali and the international forces” (AFP, November 9, 2020). Ag Moussa’s carefully engineered death was a potent reminder to JNIM and its supporters of France’s determination to restore regional stability by ridding the Sahel of religious extremists.

Against Déby and France: Tollimi’s Rebellion

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Andrew McGregor

February 1, 2019

Formed mostly from the tiny Zaghawa minority to which its president belongs and notorious for its corruption, the Chadian regime nonetheless presents itself to the West as an essential partner in the military struggle against Islamist extremism in the Lake Chad region and beyond. Twenty-eight years after taking power by force, Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno faces extremely difficult economic and security challenges. Chadians form one of the most impoverished populations in the world, relying on agro-pastoral pursuits for survival despite being an oil-producing nation. For nearly a decade, a once powerful but deeply divided armed opposition has been forced to operate as mercenaries and bandits in Darfur and southern Libya. However, last summer they began to make cross-border raids into northern Chad with the eventual goal of toppling the Déby regime.

Dr. Abakar Tollimi as Secretary General of the UFDD (YouTube)

One of the most important rebel leaders is Dr. Abakar Tollimi. Unlike many of the rebel leaders, Tollimi is not a fire-breathing desert guerrilla, but rather the polished, well-mannered, French-educated face of the Chadian rebellion. Equipped with a doctorate in law, Tollimi is also distinguished locally by his lineage as part of the family of a chief of the Burogat Zaghawa clan of northern Chad (Le Point Afrique, July 17, 2017). [1] Having already played an important role in uniting and organizing the fractious Chadian opposition, it is likely that Tollimi will try to use the recent return of armed rebels to northern Chad to build a new coalition capable of tackling President Déby and the powerful Armée National Tchadienne —ANT.

Early Life

Abakar Tollimi was born on August 5, 1964 in the town of Fada in the Ennedi region of north-eastern Chad. After attending secondary school in the Chadian capital of N’Djamena, Tollimi graduated from Morocco’s National School of Administration and pursued further studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he obtained a doctorate in law in 2005.

Beginning in 1991, Tollimi spent 14 years in public administration in Chad, including work as an adviser on administrative affairs to President Déby (a Bidayat Zaghawa) (Khabar Tchad, June 3, 2016). While serving in that role in 2003, Tollimi angered the president by objecting to Déby’s planned response to the rebellion that had just broken out in neighboring Darfur. His relationship with Déby continued to deteriorate in 2006 when the president learned Tollimi was forming a political party of his own, the Popular Rally for Progress (Rassemblement Populaire Pour la Justice—RPJ). According to Tollimi, Déby warned him to “stay quiet, or I am capable of making you quiet” (Le Point Afrique, July 17, 2017). Tollimi took the advice seriously, and departed Chad the next year to join the armed opposition operating out of camps in Darfur with the connivance of the Sudanese government. According to Tollimi:

I had no intention until 2005 to take up arms. When it is no longer possible to resort to a peaceful form of struggle, when one’s own life is in danger and that one aspires to change the political life of his country, one must resort to other means… Faced with the absence of a credible civilian opposition, rebellion, the armed struggle, is the only way for possible change in Chad if we want the development of this country which is in debt in unimaginable proportions. (Afrik.com, July 7, 2010).

From the Sorbonne to the Battlefield

At a time of growing tensions between N’Djamena and Khartoum (fueled in large part by the conflict in Darfur), rebel groups formed largely from ANT deserters attacked the border town of Adré in the Ouaddaï region of Chad in December 2005. That sparked a proxy war in which N’Djamena sponsored Darfuri rebels against Khartoum while the latter sponsored Chadian rebels against N’Djamena. Tollimi’s RPJ, with its Burogat Zaghawa core, was one of the beneficiaries of Sudanese assistance. [2]

In March 2006, the RPJ was the target of a government offensive in the movement’s operational zone along the border with Sudan (BBC, March 21, 2006). The following month Tollimi was part of an attempt by the Front uni pour le changement (FUC) coalition to overthrow Déby’s regime by driving 800 kilometers from their bases near the border to attack N’Djamena. [3] The bold operation was repulsed inside the capital by government forces on April 13, 2006.

President Idriss Déby

The FUC signed a peace agreement with Déby’s government in December 2006 that called for the rebels to be integrated into the ANT, but many factions of the movement, including Tollimi’s, chose to remain in the field. By 2006, the FUC had joined the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement—UFDD) led by dissident general Mahamat Nouri, the former Chadian defense minister. Like General Nouri, the core of the UFDD was largely Gura’an Tubu. [4] Tollimi became the movement’s general secretary and led the UFDD delegation that helped negotiate the October 25, 2007 Libyan-hosted Sirte Accords intended to end the rebellion.

The agreement collapsed almost immediately and, in late November 2007, the UFDD fought three battles with the ANT in the Hadjer Marfain (Hyena Mountain) region of eastern Chad. The rebels were forced to withdraw through the difficult terrain with heavy losses. Angered by alleged French intelligence and logistical support to the ANT during the operation, the UFDD declared it was in “a state of belligerence” with France and “other foreign forces,” a reference to EUFOR, a European peacekeeping force that was about to be deployed in Darfur (AFP, December 2, 2007). The UFDD feared EUFOR interference with its bases along Chad’s border with Darfur. Tollimi threatened the French reconnaissance planes and helicopters he claimed were overflying UFDD positions, saying the movement would soon be “obliged to respond to this intervention” (RFI/AFP/Reuters, November 30, 2007).

On February 2, 2008, 300 pickup trucks carrying UFDD fighters arrived in N’Djamena after crossing the 800 km from their Darfur bases. Tollimi told reporters via satellite phone that the rebels controlled everything except the presidential palace, which would be stormed imminently (AFP, February 2, 2008; AFP/Reuters, February 2, 2008). This attack, like its predecessor two years earlier, was again unexpectedly repulsed at the last moment. Much of the blame was assigned to Tollimi, who failed to fully commit his forces even as the regime tottered on the precipice. Tollimi would later claim he was busy trying to act as an interlocutor with the 1,100-strong French garrison in N’Djamena, which the rebels feared might intervene on Déby’s side (Le Point Afrique, July 17, 2017). Soon after loyal ANT armored units arrived to defend the palace, the rebels were driven back into the bush in retreat. [5]

N’Djamena, 2008 (Tchadinfos.com)

Afterwards, Tollimi explained his part in the attempt to overthrow the president:

I am one of those for whom the key is to put an end to the dictatorship of Idriss Déby. If we could have done it otherwise, we would have done it. Unfortunately, this man understands only the language of force. For him, everything is a balance of power and he respects only those who confront him with weapons (Tchadvision, April 2008).

Tollimi, who appears to dwell in continual political flux, became secretary general of the Union of Resistance Forces (Union des Forces de la Résistance—UFR) in 2009. An alliance of eight rebel movements based in Darfur, the UFR began operations in the Salamat region of southeastern Chad in May 2009. A series of counter-attacks by government forces failed to eliminate the movement.

Exile in France

N’Djamena and Khartoum came to an agreement to end their proxy war in early 2010, neither having benefited from it. Rebel leaders who had once been given aid and shelter were now invited to pack up their bags in both countries. As the UFR collapsed without Sudan’s support, Tollimi was deported from Sudan to France, where he was given political refugee status (RFI, July 18, 2010).

Not all was bleak, however; in 2010, a prominent French publishing house published an adaptation of Tollimi’s doctoral thesis. Entitled La Résolution des Conflits Frontaliers en Afrique (Éditions L’Harmattan), the work examines prevailing (and largely Western-based) methods of conflict resolution used in Africa while analyzing how more traditional African methods of conflict resolution could assist in solving outstanding territorial disputes, a process Tollimi refers to as “the inculturation of international law” (Afrik.com, July 7, 2010). Asked in an interview in 2008 which African politician or thinker he felt close to, Tollimi named Thabo Mbeki (president of South Africa, 1999-2008), Blaise Compaore (president of Burkina Faso, 1987-2014), Paul Kagame (president of Rwanda, 2000 to present) and, most of all, Kwame Nkrumah, “the father of pan-Africanism” (Tchadvision, April 2008).

In the meantime, Chad’s rebel movements relocated to Libya, where political chaos and rivalries provided work for mercenaries. Fighting for both of the main sides of the conflict, the rebels were able to obtain funds, arms and combat experience. Tollimi remained in France, preparing for the day the rebels might be able to return to Chad and confront Déby’s security forces. Tollimi noted at the time that the international community typically condemns armed opposition to recognized governments. This “reinforces dictatorships. The seizure of power by arms is condemned, but not the possession and maintenance of power by these same means” (Tchadenligne.com, May 5, 2011).

When the National Council of the Resistance for Democracy (Conseil Nationale de la Résistance pour la Démocratie— CNRD) was founded in March 2017, Tollimi became its president. The movement’s founding statement accused the Déby regime of establishing “nepotism, clientelism, mismanagement and state kleptomania as a system of governance” (CNRD-Tchad, March 31, 2017). The movement also made efforts to include Chadian expatriate communities in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and Dakar (Senegal) (Africa Intelligence, April 19, 2017).

Declining oil prices led to protests against government austerity measures, which rocked the capital in February 2018. Déby responded by suspending 10 Chadian opposition parties while Tollimi called, unsuccessfully, for a national dialogue involving all political factions, including expatriate Chadians, civil society groups and the military (Jeune Afrique, February 16, 2018; al-Wihda [N’Djamena], March 4, 2018).

As head of the CNRD, Tollimi used an interview to criticize the Chadian government’s mismanagement of the economy and the oil revenues that never seemed to lift the greater population from poverty and despair. He said that no one in the administration could “explain what we have done with the $2 billion in revenue that the sale of oil has brought in every year… When a country does not pay the civil servants at the end of the month or closes the end of the month by resorting to loans, we are in a state of bankruptcy.” According to Tollimi, the president has deployed the Chadian military in various military interventions as a “red rag he waves to the international community” to prove his essential role in regional security efforts:

When we listen to speeches by Chad’s leaders, we gain the impression that Chad is a haven of peace, but in reality, the socio-political situation is explosive. Chad is the country with the highest risk of implosion in the sub-region and this is likely to engulf all of Central Africa if the international community and friends of Chad do nothing about it (Tchadhanana.info, March 12, 2018).

Tollimi turned down amnesty offered in May 2018, citing a continued lack of democracy (Le Monde/AFP, May 8, 2018). Recently, Tollimi has allegedly been playing a leading role in the National Front for Democracy and Justice in Chad (Front de la Nation pour la Démocratie et la Justice au Tchad—FNJDT, created in July 2018), yet another rebel coalition consisting mainly of Chadian fighters operating out of southern Libya. A video released by the new Front named Tollimi as the FNJDT chairman, though Tollimi did not confirm the appointment (TchadConvergence, July 27, 2018). The largest component of the coalition was provided by the Military Command for the Salvation of the Republic (Conseil de Commandement Militaire pour le Salut de la République —CCMSR), which was involved in battles against Chadian government forces in the Tibesti region of northern Chad from August to October 2018. [6]

FNDJT Rebels (TchadConvergence)

On September 26, 2018, the FNJDT claimed to have surprised and captured a team of 60 Chadian Arab and Tubu commandos in Murzuk (southwestern Libya). The commandos were allegedly sent by Chad’s secret police, the National Security Agency (Agence Nationale de Sécurité —ANS), to assassinate the leaders of the various Chadian rebel movements based in Libya (al-Wihda [N’Djamena], September 29, 2018).

Tollimi and the Oil Industry

Oil production in southern Chad provides over 60 percent of the national budget, but a large proportion of these funds is lost to corruption or military spending, leaving the rest of the nation in dire poverty. Tollimi has pledged to honor commitments made by Chad in the oil sector (operated by both Western and Chinese firms), but believes a re-examination and “rectification” of certain clauses in the existing agreements is “indispensable” (Tchadvision, April 2008).

Tollimi sees a future in closer economic relations with China, possibly in an expanded role in Chad’s southern oilfields:

Beijing is the economic power of tomorrow, and China already allows us to no longer be offside on the chessboard of globalization. What African would complain? China is a partner that does not pose as a donor of lessons, and that is why it breaks with the old and hypocritical practices of some other partners (Afrik.com, July 7, 2010).

French material and political support have, despite occasional friction between Paris and N’Djamena, played a large role in maintaining the Déby regime in power. While Tollimi resents French arms deliveries to government forces and the use of French aircraft for military reconnaissance, he still maintains that a common history and cultural and economic links to France must ultimately strengthen Franco-Chadian relations, though “this must be done in a climate of neutrality and mutual respect” (Tchadvision, April 2008).

Conclusion

In early January 2019, Tollimi was one of 22 Chadians for whom Libyan arrest warrants were issued in connection to attacks on the Sidra and al-Lanuf oil terminals on Libya’s Mediterranean coast and the May 2017 Brak al-Shati attack that left 140 dead (see Terrorism Monitor, June 2, 2017). Nine Sudanese and six Libyans were also included in the warrants with Libya appealing for international assistance in apprehending these individuals (al-Wihda [N’Djamena], January 9). [7]

The CNRD protested Tollimi’s inclusion in the arrest warrants on the grounds that Tollimi had not set foot in Libya since signing the Sirte Accords in 2007 and had been conducting “peaceful political activity” in France, where the CNRD is a legal political organization (Makaila.fr, January 6). The warrants are a clear signal that legal options will now accompany the growing military pressure intended to force the Chadian rebels from Libyan soil.

Tollimi and his fellow rebels have failed to convince Paris of the necessity for regime change in Chad, resulting in reports of French intelligence and logistical support of Chadian government forces during the October and November fighting last year against the CCMSR around the Tibesti region town of Miski (Al-Wihda [N’Djamena], January 5). France and the rest of Europe are not seeking further instability along the Chad-Libya border region, part of the route taken by sub-Saharan African migrants headed for Europe.

N’Djamena hosts the military headquarters of France’s counter-terrorist Operation Barkhane, and Chad’s military plays a leading role in the battle against Boko Haram and in the French-sponsored counter-terrorist Sahel Group of Five coalition (which also includes Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger). Under these circumstances, Tollimi will likely find Western support for regime change in N’Djamena is minimal at present, regardless of misgivings regarding Déby’s seemingly endless rule and accusations of human rights abuses. If the regime can continue to find the funds to pay ANT salaries in a timely fashion, Tollimi may discover future attempts to overthrow Chad’s president from outside the country will be ultimately futile so long as Déby is intent on holding power.

Notes

  1. The Burogat Zaghawa is a Zaghawa sub-clan that resulted from intermarriage between the Gura’an Tubu and the Zaghawa.
  2. “They Came Here to Kill Us”: Militia Attacks and Ethnic Targeting of Civilians in Eastern Chad,” Human Rights Watch, 2007, p.69.
  3. In English-language literature on the movement, the FUC is often referred to by the alternate name United Front for Democratic Change (UFDC).
  4. “Alliance nationale pour le changement démocratique/ National Alliance for Democratic Change (ANCD),” Small Arms Survey, Geneva, March 2011, http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/fileadmin/docs/archive/other/armed-groups/HSBA-Armed-Groups-ANCD-March-2011.pdf
  5. See “Dr Abakar Tollimi SG UFDD à la tête de colonne1,” YouTube, March 21, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVMhyDpl0mE
  6. See “War in the Tibesti Mountains – Libyan Based Rebels Return to Chad,” AIS Special Report, November 12, 2018, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=4308
  7. Other Chadian rebels cited in the warrants for mercenary offenses, murders and kidnappings in Libya include Mahamat Nouri, Ali Ahmat Abdallah, Adoum Hissein, Hassan Hissein, Timan Erdimi, Hassan Bouloumaye, Ali Oumar, Michelet Detapol, Mahamat Hakimi, Hamid Djorou Margui, Hassan Moussa Kelley, Mahamat Moussa Margui, Mahamat Mahdi Ali and Bichara Hadjar Erdi.

Nikolai Ivanovich Ashinov and the Russian Occupation of Djibouti, 1889

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Andrew McGregor

Military History, March 1, 2018

Freebooter Nikolai Ashinov sought a foothold for Mother Russia in the Red Sea – but his African misadventure only caused embarrassment.

Imperial Russia’s 19th century struggle with the British Empire for control of Central Asia left it out of the division of Africa and its resources by the other European powers. However, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 focused the attention of some Russians on establishing a warm water port that would control access to the Red Sea’s southern entrance in the region now known as Djibouti. However, Russia’s Foreign Ministry had little interest in a Russian expansion to Africa, leaving its execution to an unlikely and roguish adventurer, Nikolai Ivanovich Ashinov (1856 – 1902), a member of the Terek Cossack Host of the Chechen lowlands.

Nikolai Ivanovich Ashinov

Though poorly educated, the determined Ashinov possessed enough energy to attract support for the establishment of a Russian base that would offer an entry point to Christian Ethiopia while overseeing the shipping lanes that transported India’s wealth to Britain. Ashinov, however, had failed to notice one vital detail – his projected base in Tadjura (northern Djibouti) was already claimed by France. Joined by an unlikely force of Cossack warriors and Russian Orthodox priests, Ashinov’s attempted occupation of an abandoned fort there in 1889 led to what Tsar Alexander III described as “a sad and stupid comedy” that ignited an international crisis.

Ethiopia barely registered on the Russian consciousness until 1847, when Lt. Colonel Igor Petrovich Kovalevsky led a two-year Russian expedition from Cairo up the Blue Nile into eastern Gojam (north-west Ethiopia) in search for gold deposits. A year later, Russian monk Porfiry Ouspenski claimed (incorrectly) that the rites of the Russian and Ethiopian Orthodox churches were nearly identical after meeting Ethiopian monks in Jerusalem. He suggested sending a religious mission to the Ethiopian emperor in order to unite the churches with the ultimate goal of sending Orthodox missionaries (and Russian influence) to Sudan, Darfur and Somalia. Nothing came of the plan, but in 1855, Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II sent a letter to the Tsar suggesting a joint effort to wrest Jerusalem from Ottoman control. The timing was bad, with Russia just having suffered defeat in the Crimean War.

Meanwhile, the French were taking interest in the physically challenging Gulf of Tadjura region. In 1856, Henri Lambert, the French Consul in Aden, became the first European to visit the Gulf port of Obock and negotiated trading rights with the local Sultan. Lambert was murdered three years later after inserting himself into a local political dispute, but a treaty of alliance was signed by the Sultan of the Danakil in 1862 and Obock purchased for French use. The French found little use for Obock at first and even considered selling it to the Egyptians, who were expanding their African Empire with a modernized military heavily reliant on Western mercenaries, including many veterans of the American Civil War. In 1874 Egyptian troops began occupying the coast southwards from Tadjura. By 1882 French ships observed Egyptian forces moving into the French holdings in the Gulf region. French interest in the area grew the next year after French naval ships were refused re-coaling in the British-held port of Aden for the second time in 13 years. By now the Egyptian military presence was pervasive in Obock, which France had still made no effort to occupy.

The Ethiopian destruction of the Egyptian Army at the Battle of Gura in March 1876 was the beginning of the end of Egypt’s efforts to expand its influence in the Horn of Africa. By 1884 they agreed to abandon their bases along the Ethiopian and Somali coasts, a withdrawal several European powers were ready to exploit. France despatched the energetic Léonce Lagarde, Count of Rouffeyroux, to take care of its interests in the region. Fresh from colonial service in Cochin-China and Senegal, Lagarde established himself on the south side of the Tadjura Gulf before expanding French rule into the rest of the region, building the basis for an eventual French colony. Though the Italians and British were successful in occupying some of the abandoned Egyptian garrisons, Lagarde beat Royal Navy warships to Tadjura by only a few hours, adding the area to the newly established French protectorate by agreement with the local Sultan. The territory included the old fort of Sagallo. Evacuated by the Egyptian garrison, the decaying fort was temporarily occupied by French troops from the cruiser Seignelay.

The Bay at Sagallo by German landscape artist Johann Martin Bernatz (1802-78)

Ashinov began his career in the caravan trade to Persia and Turkey before volunteering for service in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, in which large numbers of the Terek Host fought on the Balkan and Caucasus fronts. Ashinov claimed to be an ataman, or Cossack leader, but others denounced him as an imposter. During a visit to Constantinople, Ashinov encountered two Circassian Muslims returning to the North Caucasus from Egypt who told him of a fertile land to the south of Egypt whose inhabitants practiced an ancient form of Christianity.

The Gulf of Tadjura

Ashinov’s first trip to Africa was in 1885, landing at the Red Sea port of Massawa, which Italy had only just occupied as Egypt’s rule in the region collapsed. The Cossack quarrelled with the Italians (who were also attempting to assert control over Ethiopia) before heading inland.  Though accounts differ on whether Ethiopian emperor Yohannes IV met with Ashinov or not, the Cossack claimed to have obtained a geographically vague permit to create a Cossack settlement on the Gulf of Tadjura. He met Ras Alula, an Ethiopian general and one of the most important figures on the Red Sea coast, and made a reconnaissance of Tadjura, where French poet turned gunrunner Arthur Rimbaud ran arms to local warlords.

To a large degree Ashinov was a product of Russian Slavophilism, an intellectual movement grounded in traditional Russian culture. It emphasized the role of the Orthodox Church, rejected Westernism and sought further expansion of the Russian Empire into new territories. Ethiopia and the Red Sea coast caught the eye of the expansionists, attracted by the region’s strategic value and Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church, which seemed to offer some common ground between the two nations. The preferred base for such efforts, the Gulf of Tadjura, was claimed but not yet fully consolidated by the French. Nonetheless, leading merchants and administrators (including the Tsar’s brother) began to line up behind Ashinov in the hope that when the Cossack colony became a reality, the Tsar would step in and make it an official Russian overseas territory. Despite concerns about Ashinov’s character, Alexander III appears to have toyed with the idea in the face of protests from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which was attempting to cultivate France as an ally. In the end, the Tsar neither supported nor prevented the African initiative, preferring to see how events unfolded.

Ashinov failed to raise support in Paris in 1887 by selling his idea as a joint Russo-French venture, but a lack of overt opposition may have convinced him that he had the tacit support of both France and Russia. Ashinov returned to Tadjura in 1888, where he collected two Ethiopian priests sent by Yohannes to attend the 900th anniversary of the Russian Orthodox Church. Ashinov brought the priests to celebrations in Kiev and then St. Petersburg. They met the Tsar at the insistence of Alexander’s leading advisor, who informed Alexander, “In such enterprises the most convenient tools are cutthroats of the likes of Ashinov.”

Russian Gunboat Mandjur

Depending upon whose backing was being sought, Ashinov represented a Russian mission to Tadjura as strategic, commercial or religious in intent. Russian scholars began to produce detailed analyses of the Tadjura region, but Ashinov’s project was vigorously opposed by the Foreign Ministry, which did not care to put Russia’s international relations in the hands of a rogue Cossack. Nonetheless, support was found, including that of Russian naval commander Admiral Ivan Shestakov, who sent the Russian gunboat Mandjur to Aden to support the Cossacks. Unfortunately for Ashinov, the ship was recalled after the admiral’s sudden death in December 1888.

As part of its religious cover, the mission was joined by Father Païsi, an Archimandrite of the Orthodox Church. Païsi, formerly a monk at Mount Athos in Greece, was also an Orenburg Cossack with military experience in Central Asia. A popular figure in Russia, Païsi, as official head of the mission, gave it credibility and popularity at home.

With roughly 150 armed men of the Terek Cossack Host and a number of monks, women and children, the mission left Odessa on December 10, 1888 and landed at Tadjura on January 18, 1889 after taking a circuitous route on three different ships to avoid observation. The last ship, the Austrian Amphitrite, was followed through the Suez Canal by the Italian gunboat Agostino Barbarigo before slipping the Cossacks past a patrolling French sloop, the Météore.

Emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia

Once ashore, the pretense of a religious mission to Ethiopia was quickly abandoned as Ashinov revealed his intention to settle permanently in the Gulf of Tadjura. Italian protests that it had sovereignty over Ethiopia were largely ignored by Russia, which had never recognized the Italian claims. Emperor Menelik II, who had succeeded Yohannes after the latter was killed by Mahdists at the Battle of Gallabat, was surprised to learn of the Italian claim to his realm, but believed an Italian envoy’s assertions that Italy had no designs on Ethiopia. The Italian press began describing the Cossacks in the worst light possible – Ashinov was uneducated, a pirate and a rapist, while his wife Sofia Ivanovna, a highly educated woman who had accompanied Ashinov, was a hysterical individual and the real leader of the expedition.

The Flag of New Moscow

Meanwhile, Commandant Lagarde dispatched an officer from the Météore to warn Ashinov and his men that any abuse of the local Danakil population would be met with a harsh response. Ashinov’s group settled into the abandoned Egyptian fort at Sagallo on January 28. Renaming the position “New Moscow,” the Cossacks fashioned a makeshift chapel (“The Church of St. Nicholas”) and raised a specially designed flag in which the Russian white, blue and red tricolor was overlaid with a yellow Saltire cross. Four of the Russian monks were former Russian military engineers who had joined the clergy to escape some type of scandal; these individuals were responsible for building any necessary fortifications. Ashinov, Païsi, and the handful of Cossack families took refuge in the fort’s blockhouse while the rest used temporary shelters outdoors. Even though it was “winter,” a daily average high temperature of 84˚ F under a relentless sun made the work of rebuilding the fort a taxing effort for the northern intruders. Discipline dissolved quickly and Ashinov was forced to distribute cash to his followers to dissuade them from raiding passing caravans.

Ashinov, Father Paiisi and others at Fort Sagallo

The colonial ambitions of Italy and Britain were threatened by the possibility of Russian arms being delivered directly to indigenous groups in Africa. France was thus urged to assert its claims in the Tadjura region and bring a quick end to the Cossack occupation. The problem was that France was not necessarily hostile to the Russian incursion and was ready to consider the usefulness of cooperative efforts in the Horn region to interrupt Britain’s dominance of the approaches to the Suez Canal, purchased by Britain in 1875.

The French and Cossacks engaged in a brief propaganda war, with Ashinov trying to convince the Danakil that the French were but a minor power while Lagarde gave the tribesmen the impression that the Russians were only there with French permission. Lagarde sent emissaries to Ashinov to demand he turn over his group’s “excess weapons,” lower his flag and raise the French flag. None of this was done, Ashinov claiming he could do nothing without the permission of the local ruler, Muhammad Leita, who was conveniently away fighting the Somalis. Never a diplomat, Ashinov failed to recognize he was being offered an opportunity to remain so long as he observed certain formalities.

Ashinov’s Cossacks at Sagallo

Eventually the Cossacks began raiding the Danakil, stealing their animals and raping their young women. All the noble religious rhetoric surrounding the purpose of the expedition came crashing down. Not all the Cossacks were pleased with the chaotic conditions and lack of leadership. Some deserters were caught by the Danakil and turned over to the French in Obock, where they were able to give a true picture of the disorder prevailing in “New Moscow.” Angered that Ashinov was discrediting Russia abroad, Tsar Alexander publicly disavowed any involvement with Ashinov’s mission.

Tsar Alexander III

Once the French government was satisfied that Ashinov’s expedition had no official backing in Russia, orders were delivered to Admiral Orly, commander of the French Levant squadron, to expel the intruders. The cruisers Primauguet and Seignelay steamed for Tadjura, picking up Governor Lagarde at Obock, where they were joined by the gunboats Météore and Pingouin.

By now, the Tsar was heeding the counsel of the Foreign Ministry and demanded that “this beast Ashinov” be removed from Tadjura as soon as possible. After Paris learned that the Russians had decided to send the gunboat Manchuria from Aden to deal with Ashinov themselves, orders were sent to Orly’s squadron to stand down. Due to the poor communications of the day the new orders were not received in time.

French Cruiser Le Seignelay

On February 5, 1889 the French cruisers arrived offshore. An officer was sent to bring Ashinov to his senses, if the sight of the warships lining up in battle formation had not already done so. Some 20 Cossacks understood the implications and swam out to the French ships to surrender. The French lieutenant informed Ashinov that Lagarde wished to see him on board immediately. Ashinov replied that he didn’t especially feel like going anywhere at the moment, but helpfully suggested that if Lagarde really wanted to speak to him, he could come to the fort.

Panic gripped the Russians when the French naval guns opened a fifteen-minute barrage. Ashinov ordered some of the Cossacks to create a line of defense on the beach, but this suicidal command was ignored. Though eleven larger shells were fired, most of the French fire came from the newly introduced 47 mm rapid-firing Hotchkiss cannon. Cossack skill in arms and horsemanship provided no defense for naval guns, and the group had little alternative but to run for the nearby woods or hide behind the fort’s ruined walls and pray.

By the time the shelling was over, two women, three children and one Cossack were dead, with 22 more wounded. The women and children had taken refuge in the fort’s main building, a useful target for the French guns. The fight had been pounded out of the Russians, who were now more than ready to surrender. The survivors began to carry the wounded down to the beach. The Ataman’s arrogance had taken a shocking beating, and it was left to Father Païsi to deal with the French, Ashinov’s wife serving as interpreter. Païsi angrily protested the French action but found little sympathy; French opinion was that the Cossacks had brought it on themselves after passing up numerous opportunities to stand down.

Russian Cruiser Zabiyaka

French troops collected all the Russian weapons and oversaw the embarkation of the Russians to Obock. To prevent any re-occupation of the site, Admiral Orly ordered the remaining fortifications to be destroyed with explosives. After transport to Suez, the surviving Cossacks were put aboard the Russian cruiser Zabiyaka on March 4 for a depressing trip back to the naval base at Sebastopol, though some sources indicate that four monks were allowed to proceed on a “religious mission” to the Ethiopian court.

Ashinov found himself treated like a bad odor back in Russia. Given the Tsar’s anger with him, Ashinov was perhaps lucky to be punished with only three years exile in the Volga River region; the Foreign Ministry had recommended five years in Siberia. The Cossack tried to flee to Paris and London, but eventually obeyed an order from the Tsar to return home in 1891. His new sentence was ten years’ exile to his wife’s estates in Chertigov in the northern Ukraine. After this, his trail grows cold, though one account claims Ashinov flourished in Chertigov as late as 1906. Ashinov’s antagonist, Commandant Lagarde, went on to become French ambassador to Ethiopia and was made Duke of Entotto by Menelik in 1897.

Commandant Lagarde

Even as Ashinov was engaged in his failed effort to create an African “New Moscow,” the Russian Minister of War was busy developing his own mission to the Ethiopian court using a trusted and far less erratic officer, Lieutenant Vasiliev Federovich Mashkov, an Anglophobe and strategic thinker. In October 1889, Mashkov arrived in the court of Menilek II with the apparent support of Lagarde. French and Russian interests were converging so far as challenging British control of the sea routes passing the Horn of Africa. Mashkov’s second visit in 1891 led to the eventual formation of a Russian military advisory mission and the delivery of Russian arms that helped Menelik defeat the Italian Army at Adowa in 1896. France and Russia viewed Italy as an ally of Britain in the contest for the Horn.

Nikolai Leontiev

Captain A.V. Eliseev visited Tadjura and the nearby Sultanate of Rahayta in 1895 with an eye to establishing relations. Eliseev was accompanied by a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church as the idea of uniting the Russian and Ethiopian churches persisted to the end of the 19th century. The Cossack connection continued as Eliseev’s visit was followed up by Kuban Cossack Captain N.V. Leontiev (who alarmed the British with his plans to contact the Mahdist regime in Omdurman) and a mission led by Colonel Leonid Artamonov, who became military advisor to Menelik II.

Artamanov with Cossacks Shedrov and Archipov

Artamanov and two Cossack soldiers accompanied the military expedition of Ethiopian commander Tessema Nadew to the White Nile in 1898 in advance of both Kitchener’s British forces and the French Marchand expedition, but the diseased and exhausted Ethiopians were compelled to withdraw after raising the Ethiopian flag near Fashoda. In the same year, Russia established formal relations with Ethiopia and built an impressive embassy in Addis Ababa, guarded by forty Cossacks. France meanwhile consolidated its territories and protectorates in the Tadjura Gulf region in 1896 as the Côte française des Somalis.

In the end, the Ashinov adventure failed to cause a breach in the warming Franco-Russian relations. In the face of growing British might, no mere Cossack could significantly influence geo-political imperatives. Russia had suffered an embarrassment, but France had suffered little – if anything, its local prestige in the Horn had been raised by the firmness with which it had dealt with the Russian challenge.

Despite Russian attempts to become a player in the Horn, its inability to establish a permanent presence on the coast was to have devastating consequences in 1905, when Japan’s devastation of Russia’s Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur forced Russia to send its outdated Baltic Fleet to tackle Admiral Tojo’s British-built battleships. London denied use of the Suez Canal after the Russians fired on British fishing boats in the North Sea, mistaking the trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats. After an 18,000-mile journey round the Cape of Good Hope, the exhausted Russian fleet was destroyed by the Japanese at the Battle of Tsushima. Ashinov and his backers had grasped the strategic importance of a Russian base in the Horn of Africa, but the Cossack’s erratic behavior unwittingly contributed instead to Imperial Russia’s military decline.

Dr. Andrew McGregor is director of Aberfoyle International Security and writes on military, security and terrorism issues. For further reading he recommends The Russians in Ethiopia: An Essay in Futility, by Czeslaw Jesman, and Russia and Black Africa before World War II by Edward Thomas Wilson.

 

This article first appeared as “The Half-Cocked Cossack: Nikolai Ivanovich Ashinov and the Russian Occupation of Djibouti, 1889,” Military History 34(6), March 2018, pp. 32-39.

Operation Bayard and the Death of Ansar al-Islam Leader Malam Ibrahim Dicko

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Andrew McGregor

AIS Special Report, July 18, 2017

The death of Malam Ibrahim Dicko, the radical Islamist leader of Burkina Faso’s Ansar al-Islam movement, marks a major success for combined French-Burkinabé security operations in the volatile region alongside the northern border with Mali. Dicko’s movement, composed largely of Muslim Fulani and Rimaïbe tribesmen, had created havoc in the area with several fierce assaults on military and police bases in the region in December 2016 and February 2017. [1]

French Mirage 2000 Jets during Operation Bayard  (© Emmanuel Huberdeau)

Dicko’s death appears to be a direct consequence of Frances’s “Operation Bayard.” This operation used intelligence gathered in late March 2017’s “Operation Panga,” a joint French- Burkinabé effort to clear the region of the border with Mali in Soum Province of Islamist militants. Operation Bayard began on April 29 with strikes by French Mirage 2000 jet fighters on suspected Ansar al-Islam bases along the border in the Foulsaré Forest.

Tigre HAD (Hélicoptère Appui Destruction – Helicopter Support Destruction) attack helicopters armed with Hellfire AGM-114 missiles secured the perimeter to inhibit the militants’ escape before French commandos were inserted by NH90 Caïman helicopters. Over April 29-30 the initial team was joined by French para-commandos and combat engineers to defuse the mines the militants were in the habit of deploying to prevent infiltration of their bases (a French military engineer was killed by a mine during Operation Panga). The commandos killed 20 militants and wounded many more before seizing twenty motorcycles (an important element in Ansar al-Islam’s surprise attacks), two vehicles, and a large quantity of arms, ammunition, computer gear and bomb components.

Malam Ibrahim Dicko and his bodyguard were reported to have come under attack from one of the Tigre helicopters before the surviving militants scattered to escape the French commandos (Jeune Afrique, July 12, 2017). Unable to settle in one place for long due to constant pressure from pursuing security forces, Dicko is believed to have died sometime in June from complications due to diabetes.

French Tigre HAD Attack Helicopter

A vague posting on Ansar al-Islam’s little-used Facebook page (no longer available) suggested that Dicko’s “grave circumstances” had led to his replacement as Ansar al-Islam leader by his brother, Jafar Dicko, the “new commander of the believers and guide of Ansar al-Islam” (Fasozine.com, June 28, 2017).

The expiry of the charismatic Ibrahim Dicko and the death of 20 of his fighters (with many more incapacitated out of roughly 150 members) in Operation Bayard may deal a death blow to Ansar al-Islam, which is less than a year old. The group has already lost two of Dicko’s most valued lieutenants. One, Amadou Boly, was assassinated on Dicko’s orders when he objected to the growing extremism of the movement; the other, Harouna Dicko (Dicko is a very common name in the area), was killed in late March by the Burkinabé Groupement des forces anti-terroristes (GFAT), a joint army/gendarmerie anti-terrorist formation. Jafar Dicko, an unknown quantity, will be hard-pressed to revive the movement as an independent military threat. Surviving members are more likely to join one of the other militant groups operating in the region with similar aims, such as Amadou Koufa Diallo’s largely Fulani Force de libération du Macina, now part of the larger Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin (JNIM – Group for the Defense of Islam and Muslims) led by Iyad ag Ghali.

Note

  1. For Dicko’s biography, see Andrew McGregor, “Islamist Insurgency in Burkina Faso: A Profile of Malam Ibrahim Dicko,” Militant Leadership Monitor, April 30, 2017, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=3908

French Foreign Legion Operation in the Strategic Passe de Salvador

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Andrew McGregor

Tips and Trends: The AIS African Security Report, May 2015

The Passe de Salvador runs past the northwest side of north-eastern Niger’s Plateau du Manguéni, near the frontier between Libya, Algeria and the Agadez region of Niger. On the Niger side, the pass connects to the smugglers’ route running across the Ténéré du Tafassâsset desert parallel to the Algerian border in northern Niger, a route used by veteran Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar when he withdrew his forces from northern Mali to southern Libya in early 2013. The Passe de Salvador has traditionally been controlled by Adrar Tuareg centered on the south-western Libyan town of Ubari, unlike the Passe de Toummo on the southern side of the Plateau du Manguéni, which is controlled by the Tuareg’s traditional nomad rivals, the Tubu, who operate on both sides of the Libya-Niger border.

Salvador Pass 2Passe de Salvador, top left; Fort Madama, bottom right.

The 2e Régiment étranger de parachutistes (2e REP) was originally raised from Foreign Legion troops in 1948 for use in the French colonies of Indochina. Few members of the regiment survived the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (in which the “paras” played a prominent role) and the subsequent imprisonment of the survivors by the Viet Minh. Since then, the rebuilt airborne unit has served on numerous operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan and across a host of Middle Eastern and African countries. Now based in Corsica, 2e REP is likely to be the first unit deployed in foreign operations as the lead unit of France’s Rapid Reaction Corps and is kept at a stage of alertness that allows it deploy within 24 hours of receiving orders.

In a world where helicopter-borne air assault operations have largely replaced airborne operations and there is criticism in some Western nations that paratroopers are expensive and little-used, France continues to be an exponent of airborne operations, though it has not carried out such an operation during hostilities for over 35 years (the last being at Kolwezi, Zaïre, in 1978). Since that time, two French airborne divisions have been reduced to a single brigade, the 11e Brigade Parachutiste, consisting of roughly 8500 men organized into eight regiments, only one of which is composed of Legionnaires. Participation in hard fighting in Afghanistan helped sharpen the combat skills of the 11th Brigade and other French military units. [1]

2e REP arrived in northern Mali from a French base in Côte d’Ivoire in dramatic fashion on January 28, 2013 with a parachute drop of a company-size unit into the region just north of Timbuktu to cut off retreating jihadists being pushed north by French armor, marine infantry and Chadian forces during Operation Serval (in the event, no jihadists were encountered by the 2e REP). [2] An unidentified French Special Forces unit (possibly elements of the Commando parachutiste de l’air n°10 (CPA 10 – No. 10 Air Parachute Commando) carried out another drop on northern Mali’s Tessalit Airport on the evening of February 7, 2013 as part of a complex land-air operation involving Chadian troops and helicopter-borne French troops of the 1er régiment de chasseurs parachutistes (1er RCP) and the 21e Régiment d’Infanterie de Marine (21e RIMa – actually a light armored unit despite its name) as well as elements of other units formed into a combined-arms tactical battle group (L’Express, February 21, 2013). [3] Since then, 2e REP has continued operations in northern Mali as part of France’s military strategy for northern Africa, Operation Barkhane.

Operation Kunama II

In mid-April, perhaps as much in an attempt to engage in high-level training in oppressive conditions as from operational concerns, 2e REP made a daring night jump into the unfamiliar terrain of the Salvador Pass linking Libya to Niger, a desolate but strategically important site frequently used by Saharan smugglers, terrorists and insurgents. [4] There are unconfirmed reports that French Special Forces were inserted into the Pass in the early days of Operation Serval and even mounted cross-border operations against jihadists who had fled to the ungoverned regions of south-western Libya.

Rather than drop the paras into the Pass itself, it was decided to land them on the adjacent Manguéni Plateau five kilometers from the Pass. There they were met by their operational partners, 50 men of the much lower-budget Nigerien Army who were forced to drive rather than fly to the rendezvous. Food and water were supplied to the French troops on pallets dropped by C-130 cargo aircraft.

After consolidating control of the Salvador Pass, the French and Nigerien troops left on a long and challenging drive to the old colonial-era Legion fort at Madama on the Djado Plateau, near which French forces set up a forward operating base and airstrip in October 2014.  The fort still has a garrison of Nigerien troops tasked with controlling the smuggling and trafficking routes that run through the area, some of which are used by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the related al-Murabitoun.

Salvador Pass 1French Legionnaires and Nigerien Troops at Fort Madama

The drive to Fort Madama exposed some weaknesses in the six-wheeled Panhard ERC 90 Sagaie armored all-terrain vehicles used by the French in northern Mali, as they began to quickly break down in the harsh conditions and terrain; according to the unit’s colonel, “Our vehicles are designed for Europe. Here, we are left with temperatures rising to 40-45 degrees maybe even 50 degrees. Our tanks are not designed for that and also suffer from the sand. It creeps everywhere and everything deteriorates” (RFI, April 23, 2015).

While no contact was made with jihadist forces or the region’s elusive smugglers during Operation Kunama II, it provided necessary field experience, training opportunities and logistical support practice for French military forces in some of the world’s most hostile terrain. Though jihadist activities were not interrupted by the operation, it nevertheless sent a clear signal to jihadis and smugglers alike that powerful French forces can be deployed in the Niger-Libya border region within hours if the presence of armed groups in the area is detected by French Harfang drones based in the Nigerien capital of Niamey.

Notes

  1. Pp. 38-39, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR700/RR770/RAND_RR770.pdf
  2. Footage of the drop shot from a Harfang drone can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ElySEd8MOw . Footage of an airdrop of heavy equipment the next day at Timbuktu Airport by the 17e Régiment du Génie Parachutiste (17e RGP – 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment) can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8vDElXEMWw
  3. These improvised formations with integrated fire support are known in the French Army as Groupement tactique interarmes (GTIA). French troops typically train and operate in such formations.
  4. Video of 2e REP in the Passe de Salvador can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/user/FORCESFRANCAISES

Operation Barkhane: France’s New Military Approach to Counter-Terrorism in Africa

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Andrew McGregor

July 24, 2014

With several military operations underway in the former colonies of French West Africa, Paris has decided to reorganize its deployments with an eye to providing a more mobile and coordinated military response to threats from terrorists, insurgents or other forces intent on disturbing the security of France’s African backyard.

France will redeploy most of its forces in Africa as part of the new Operation Barkhane (the name refers to a sickle-shaped sand dune). Following diplomatic agreements with Chad, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania (the “Sahel G-5”), over 3,000 French troops will be involved in securing the Sahel-Sahara region in cooperative operations involving G-5 troops. Other assets to be deployed in the operation include 20 helicopters, 200 armored vehicles, 200 trucks, six fighter-jets, ten transport aircraft and three drones (Le Figaro [Paris], July 13).

Operation BarkhanePresident Hollande made a tour of Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Chad between July 17 to 19 to discuss the new security arrangements with political leaders, but also to promote French trade in the face of growing Chinese competition (Economist, July 19). In Niger, Hollande was met by a group protesting French uranium mining operations in that country (AFP, July 18). In a speech given in Abidjan, French president François Hollande declared that the reorganization of French military assets in Africa would enable “quick and effective responses to crisis… Rather than having heavy and unwieldy crisis bases, we prefer to have facilities that can be used for fast and effective interventions” (Nouvel Observateur [Paris], July 19).

The official launch of Operation Barkhane will come in the Chadian capital of N’Djamena on August 1. The operation will be commanded by the highly-experienced Major General Jean-Pierre Palasset, who commanded the 27e Brigade d’Infanterie de Montagne (27th Mountain Infantry Battalion, 2003-2005) before leading Operation Licorne in Côte d’Ivoire (2010-2011) and serving as commander of the Brigade La Fayette, a joint unit comprising most of the French forces serving in Afghanistan (2011-2012).

The initiation of Operation Barkhane brings an end to four existing French operations in Africa; Licorne (Côte d’Ivoire, 2002-2014), Épervier (Chad, 1986-2014), Sabre (Burkina Faso, 2012-2014) and Serval (Mali, 2013-2014). Licorne is coming to an end (though 450 French troops will remain in Abidjan as part of a logistical base for French operations) while the other operations will be folded into Operation Barkhane. Operation Sangaris (Central African Republic, 2013 – present) is classified as a humanitarian rather than counter-terrorism mission and the deployment of some 2,000 French troops will continue until the arrival of a UN force in September (Bloomberg, July 21). Some 1200 French soldiers will remain in northern Mali (Guardian [Lagos], July 15). Existing French military deployments in Djibouti, Dakar (Senegal) and Libreville (Gabon) are expected to be scaled back significantly, a process already underway in Dakar (Jeune Afrique, July 19).

8 RPIMaSoldiers of the 8th Regiment of Marine Infantry Paratroopers (8e RPIMa), deployed in Gabon and Côte d’Ivoire

The force in Chad has been boosted from 950 to 1250 men. Chad will play an important role in Operation Barkhane – N’Djamena’s Kossei airbase will provide the overall command center, with two smaller bases in northern Chad at Faya Largeau and Abéché, both close to the Libyan border. Zouar, a town in the Tubu-dominate Tibesti Masif of northern Chad, has also been mentioned as a possibility (Jeune Afrique, July 19). Kossei will provide a home for three Rafale fighter-jets, Puma helicopters and a variety of transport and fuelling aircraft. Chadian troops fought side-by-side with French forces in northern Mali in 2013 and are regarded as the most effective combat partners for France in North Africa despite a recent mixed performance in the CAR. Four Chadian troops under UN command died in a June 11 suicide bombing in the northern Mali town of Aguelhok (AFP, June 11). Chadian opposition and human rights groups are dismayed by the new agreement, which appears to legitimize and even guarantee the continued rule of President Idriss Déby, who has held power since 1990 (RFI, July 19).

Intelligence operations will be headquartered in Niamey, the capital of Niger and home to French unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations in West Africa. There are currently about 300 French troops stationed in Niger, most of them involved in protecting, maintaining and operating two unarmed General Atomic MQ-9 Reaper drones and an older Israeli-built Harfang drone (Bloomberg, July 21). The French-operated Harfang drones are being gradually phased out in favor of the MQ-9s, though the Harfangs saw extensive service during French operations in northern Mali in 2013. Three Mirage 2000 fighter-jets will be transferred from N’Djamena to Niamey. A French Navy Dassault Atlantique 2 surveillance aircraft has been withdrawn from Niamey with the conclusion of Operation Serval.

Small groups of French Special Forces will continue to be based in Ougadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, and at Atar, a small settlement in northwestern Mauritania. Other small bases are planned for Tessalit in Mali, which controls the road running between the rebellious Kidal region and southern Algeria, and in Madama in Niger, a strategic post near the Malian border that was the site of a French colonial fort. There are reports that French troops have already occupied the nearby Salvador Pass, an important smuggling route between Niger and Libya that appears to have acted as a main transit route for terrorists passing through the region (Libération [Paris], July 16).

French forces in the Sahel-Sahara region will continue to be targeted by Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Murabitun group, which claimed responsibility for the death of one Legionnaire and the wounding of six others in a suicide bomb attack in northern Mali on July 15 (al-Akhbar [Nouackchott], July 16; RFI, July 17). Much of the ground element for Operation Barkhane is likely to be drawn from the French Légion étrangère and the Troupes de marine, the successor to the French Colonial Infantry.

The implementation of Operation Barkhane, an apparently permanent defense agreement with five former French colonies, raises a number of important questions, not least of which is what attitude will be adopted by Algeria, the most powerful nation in the Sahara-Sahel region but one that views all French military activities there with great suspicion based on Algeria’s 132-year experience of French occupation. There is also a question of whether the new defense agreements will permit French forces in hot pursuit of terrorists to cross national borders of G-5 nations without obtaining permission first. The permanent deployments also seem to present a challenge to local democracy and sovereignty while preserving French commercial and political interests in the region. For France, Operation Barkhane will enhance French ability to fend off Chinese commercial and trade challenges and allow France to secure its energy supplies while disrupting terrorist networks and containing the threat from southern Libya.

This article first appeared in the July 24, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Al-Qaeda Responds to Sectarian Clashes in the Central African Republic

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Andrew McGregor

March 6, 2014

In a statement entitled “Central African Tragedy… Between Crusader Deceit and Muslim Betrayal,” al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has taken note of the ongoing reprisals against Muslims in the Central African Republic (CAR) being carried out by Christian “anti-balaka” militias, referring to the attacks as “a new episode in the series of spiteful crusades against Islam and its people.” [1] Over 15,000 Muslim civilians live in improvised camps where they are surrounded by armed militias intent on killing them for their alleged support of the largely Muslim Séléka rebel movement that briefly seized power last year (Reuters, February 25).

Troops of the French 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade secure Bangui Airport (MilitaryPhotos.net)

AQIM describes the international peacekeeping forces being sent to the CAR as arriving “only to increase the suffering of Muslims.” France comes in for special attention as “a malevolent colonial crusader… [that] continues to play the role of guardian of the African continent” while fueling conflict and looting wealth “in order to preserve their interests and satisfy their arrogant whims.” AQIM concludes by warning France: “Your crimes will not go unpunished and the war between us and you continues.”

The Islamist movement also condemns the “shameful silence” of the Islamic community, “a nation of one billion.” Noting that some conflicts involving Muslims gain the attention of the Muslim world while others do not, AQIM asks: “Why differentiate between a persecutor and a persecutor and a tragedy and a tragedy?”

The African Union peacekeeping mission in the CAR, the Mission internationale de soutien à la Centrafrique sous conduite africaine (MISCA), has some 6,000 troops from Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  There are an additional 600 police officers from the same countries engaged in training local police forces. Part of MISCA’s difficulty in restoring order to the CAR lies in the fact that the mission is trusted by neither the ex-Séléka rebels nor the anti-balaka militias. It has already become clear that the combined forces of the 2,000 man French deployment (locally referred to as “Sangaris” after the name of the French operation in the CAR) and MISCA are far from sufficient to restore order and security in a large nation with little infrastructure or road systems.

MISCA raided the Boy Rab quarter of Bangui, a base for anti-balaka militias, on February 15, detaining a number of important militia leaders, including Lieutenant Konaté and Lieutenant Ganagi Hervé. Another important anti-balaka leader, Patrice Edouard Ngaissona, managed to evade the operation, though arms and ammunition were recovered from his home (RFI, February 15). The detainees attempted to escape Bangui prison on February 23, but were foiled by alert Rwandan MISCA guards (AFP, February 24).

Rwandan Peacekeepers examine amulets on a detained Anti-Balaka militant

The anti-balaka militias are reported to be divided over the CAR’s future political direction. One faction continues to call for the return of deposed president François Bozizé, while a more moderate faction is seeking to lower the intensity of the conflict and to cooperate with the new government of interim-president Catherine Samba-Panza (RFI, February 16). The anti-balaka rebels depend heavily on charms and amulets designed to ward off bullets and other threats.

Many residents of the CAR view the Chadians as biased towards the republic’s Muslims, who are often referred to by the Christian population as “Chadians” regardless of their origins. The arrival in Bangui of the projected EU force of 1,000 troops with heavy equipment is still believed to be a month away. The formation of a planned UN force of 10,000 peacekeepers (which would probably absorb most of MISCA) is opposed by Chad and is likely still six months away from materializing (VOA, March 3).

Chad traditionally regards the CAR region as its traditional backyard, dating back to the days when the Sultanate of Wadai (in present-day eastern Chad) used the region as a source of wealth in the form of slaves, ivory and other goods. In more recent years, Chadians have figured in the CAR as traders, mercenaries and even presidential bodyguards. N’Djamena’s influence on CAR politics is considerable and growing, considering Chad’s expanding and oil-financed military might. Most of Chad’s oil production is in the south of the country, just north of the unstable CAR.

Both the EU and the UN are calling on Turkey to contribute to the EU deployment, with the UN secretary-general even making a personal call to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for assistance. The likelihood of such a commitment is, however, still uncertain, as Ankara is consumed externally with the Syrian crisis and internally by a corruption scandal and approaching elections (Today’s Zaman [Istanbul], March 2). Turkey is, moreover, heavily involved in the reconstruction of Somalia and may be wary of adding a military role in an unfamiliar area.

French forces currently deployed to the CAR include Alpine troops of the 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade, some of whom are specialists in urban warfare, and troops of the 8th Régiment de Parachutistes d’Infanterie de Marine (8e RPIMa), an airborne unit with experience in French Indo-China, Algeria, Chad and Afghanistan.

The French intervention in the CAR is not the first in that nation’s post-independence period; in September 1979, units from the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE – France’s external intelligence service until reorganization in 1982) and the 1st RPIMa seized Bangui’s airport, allowing transports carrying 300 troops to land with the purpose of replacing “Emperor” Jean-Bédel Bokassa with a new president, David Dacko, who helpfully arrived with the French troops.

Notes

1. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, “Central African Tragedy… Between Crusader Deceit and Muslim Betrayal,” February 26, 2014, https://www.ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=47761

This article first appeared in the March 6, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Merger of Northern Mali Rebel Movements Creates Political Distance from Islamist Militants

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Andrew McGregor

November 14, 2013

Proclaiming that the move was the only means of securing peace in northern Mali, the three largest rebel movements in the region announced their merger on November 4. The merger brings together the normally hostile members of one Arab militia, the Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA), and two Tuareg groups, the secular Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) and the Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad (HCUA), which contains many former members of the al-Qaeda-allied Islamist Ansar al-Din movement.  No name has been chosen for the new movement, which will be effective “within 45 days” after approval had been given by the membership of each group (Soir de Bamako, November 4; al-Jazeera, November 5; AFP, November 5). The rebel movements are looking to present a united front after withdrawing from peace talks with the central government on September 26. Reports of a forthcoming decision to merge, undertaken by delegations of the three groups based at the now-suspended peace talks in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou, were given a hostile reception by groups of youths in Kidal (Maliactu.net, November 1). 

French Chief-of-Staff Admiral Guillaud Reviews Malian Troops (RP Defense)

In Bamako, there are fears that jihadists are re-infiltrating the north to recover weapons caches buried beneath the sand, as well as concerns about what much of the Malian press regards as duplicity from Paris in dealing with the north – the locally so-called “Dutch policy” (in reference to French president François Hollande), under which Paris is accused of arranging a separate deal with the MNLA with only a symbolic presence in Kidal from the Malian national government (L’Annonceur [Bamako], November 7; Maliactu.net, October 30; Les Échos [Bamako], November 6). During a recent visit to Mali, French Armed Forces chief-of-staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud expressed the ambivalence in France’s relationship with the MNLA rebels by saying that “France is neither pro, nor anti-MNLA.” Admiral Guillaud was reported to have discussed a defense agreement between the French and Malian militaries of a type unique to the former French colonies in Africa. Guillaud also promised to maintain French air support, Special Forces units in northern Mali and an operational headquarters at the Bamako-Senou International Airport (Maliactu.net, October 17; L’Essor [Bamako], October 10).

The Arab MAA was formed in February 2012 (initially under the name Front de Libération Nationale de l’Azawad – FLNA) as a self-defense militia incorporating members of earlier Arab militias and Arab soldiers of the Malian Army who deserted after the fall of Timbuktu to Islamist groups last year (For clashes between the MNLA and MAA, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, June 3).

Despite the merger, the MNLA was accused of mounting a November 8 attack on a Malian military patrol in Egazargane, roughly 86 miles from the town of Menaka, though it is possible the clash was the result of a disagreement that followed a small collision between vehicle belonging to the army and the MNLA, respectively (Maliactu.net, November 8; AFP, November 10).

Efforts to arrive at a settlement in northern Mali have been further complicated by the abduction and murder on November 2 of two French nationals working for Radio France Internationale, Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon. Malian intelligence sources have said the kidnapping was the work of Baye Ag Bakabo, an ethnic Tuareg who was a low-level member of Abd al-Karim al-Targui’s unit of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) before he was expelled on suspicion of stealing money. In this regard, the kidnappings may have been a failed attempt to compensate al-Targui through significant ransoms for the two journalists and work his way back into the group, a scenario suggested by Bakabo’s relations in Kidal (Journal du Mali, November 9; AP, November 6). Al-Targui is a prime suspect in a number of high-profile abductions carried out in recent years in northern Mali. A statement issued by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the abductions and murders as “a response to crimes committed by France against Malians and the work of African and international forces against the Muslims of Azawad” (Sahara Media [Nouakchott], November 6). There was speculation from military sources that Baye ag Bakabo had joined the MNLA in the interests of obscuring his past engagement with AQIM (Maliactu.net, November 8). Many Tuareg have displayed a notable fluidity in their organizational allegiance.

The two French nationals were seized outside the home of an MNLA official in Kidal that they had planned to interview. The pursuit of the kidnappers started quickly and in force, with ground troops on the trail being assisted by two Rafale fighter-jets diverted from another operation in northern Mali and a pair of helicopters dispatched from the air-strip at Tessalit (Le Monde, November 8). Although the kidnappers escaped, the bodies of the two journalists were discovered, killed either through panic on the part of their abductors or on the orders of al-Targui as pursuers closed in.  Nine militants were reported to have been arrested in connection with the case on November 8 (Reuters, November 8).

MNLA vice-president Mahamadou Djeri Maiga said the movement had been “humiliated” by the abductions and were further concerned by the attitude of security authorities, who have declined offers of assistance from the MNLA in finding the perpetrators, though the movement is making its own enquiries: “We will share our results with those responsible for the case. We cannot sit idly by and do nothing” (AFP, November 4). The deaths of the journalists have been used in some quarters in Bamako to argue that the Tuareg movements are incapable of administering Kidal or Azawad as autonomous regions (Le Pays [Ouagadougou], November 6). A French government spokesman said on November 4 that France would “probably” increase its military presence in Mali in response to the slayings (Maliactu.net, November 4).

Bamako has backed off from its prior insistence that all arrest warrants issued for leading Tuareg rebels be carried out prior to arriving at a settlement for the north. On October 29, the central government announced it was lifting arrest warrants issued for Ibrahim ag Muhammad Assaleh of the MNLA and Ahmada ag Bibi and brothers Muhammad and Alghabass ag Intallah of the HCUA, the latter pair being the sons of the powerful leader of the Ifoghas Tuareg of Kidal, Intallah ag Attaher (for Alghabass ag Intallah, see Militant Leadership Monitor, January 2013). The reason given was the measure was needed to “facilitate the pursuit of the process of national reconciliation” (AFP, October 29). Ag Bibi and the Intallah brothers are all candidates in the November 24 parliamentary elections.

A number of Malian and African human rights organizations have opposed lifting the arrest warrants, claiming they would promote a climate of impunity for individuals accused of serious crimes, such as war, crimes, murder, rebellion and terrorism. According to the leader of the Malian Association of Human Rights, a political solution to the Mali crisis “cannot be at the expense of the victims of the crisis or the independence of the judiciary” (L’Essor [Bamako], October 24).

Further talks with the rebel movements are scheduled to take place this month, but Bamako’s position has been consistent – it will not consider autonomy for the north under any circumstances.

This article was first published in the November 14, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.