“Why Take Up Arms?” Tuareg Loyalty to the State in Mali

Posted on December 1, 2016 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

Aberfoyle International Security

December 1, 2016

With a small population of roughly 2 million people spread as tiny minorities in five African states, the survival of the Berber Tuareg might appear to rely necessarily on ethnic solidarity. This, however, has never been the case with the Tuareg, who nurture often violent differences between confederations, tribes, clans and social classes. It was these differences, in part, that prevented the Tuareg from mounting an effective, unified opposition to the consolidation of their territories under French colonial rule in the late 19^th/early 20^th centuries. While the Tuareg gained a reputation as perpetual rebels to colonial rule, this perception ignored the Tuareg confederations that aligned themselves with the French and assisted the expansion of their empire in Africa.

In similar fashion, modern Tuareg rebels and separatists in northern Mali have been the focus of international media in recent years, but there are Tuareg groups and leaders who see their future in a united Malian state. One such leader is known as Le Renard de Kidal, the “Fox” of Mali’s north-eastern Kidal region, the desert home of some of Mali’s most committed rebels. The Fox is General al-Hajj ag Gamou, loyal to the Bamako government and the first and only Tuareg member of Mali’s general staff.

General al-Hajj ag Gamou (Le Figaro)

With over three-and-a-half decades of active military life behind him, ag Gamou enjoys intense loyalty from the men in his command, many of whom have been with him for years. As one NCO put it: “Gamou, he eats with us, he fights with us. Despite his rank, he remains simple. This is a good warrior. One wants to be like him” (Bamada.net, June 27, 2013).

Now, as both an officer in the Malian Army and the leader of a powerful and personally dedicated desert-based militia, ag Gamou finds himself at the center of a social upheaval in the Tuareg world that has become inextricably tangled with the still-simmering rebellion of Arab and Tuareg separatists in Mali’s Kidal region.

From Shepherd to Soldier

Born in 1964 in Tidermène (Ménaka district), al-Hajj ag Gamou worked with his father herding goats instead of attending school. Like his father, ag Gamou is a member of the Imghad, a Tuareg group who act as hereditary vassals to the smaller but “noble” Ifoghas group in northern Mali’s traditional Tuareg hierarchy. [1]

As a 16-year-old, ag Gamou left drought-ridden Mali to join Libya’s Islamic Legion, a largely unsuccessful 1972-1987 attempt by Mu’ammar Qaddafi to create a multinational elite Arab fighting force to further his pan-Arabist policies. Relying on unsound historical and linguistic contortions designed to prove the Berber Tuareg were actually Arabs, Qaddafi recruited heavily from Tuareg communities in the Sahel. [2] Poorly trained and often reliant on impressed migrant workers to fill its ranks, the Legion never achieved elite status and performed poorly against French-supported Tubu warriors on its main battlefield, Chad. Nonetheless, the young ag Gamou received Special Forces training in Syria before fighting alongside Palestinians in Lebanon’s civil war and later in Qaddafi’s attempt to seize northern Chad, believed at the time to be uranium-rich (L’Opinion [Paris], June 9, 2014). By the time the Legion was dissolved, ag Gamou had likely been well exposed to Qaddafi’s belief that the tribes of the Sahel should reject the region’s traditional social hierarchies

Similar ideas were forming in northern Mali. Like the earlier colonial French, Mali’s post-independence government continued to rely on the powerful Ifoghas Tuareg to assert authority over other Tuareg groups in northern Mali in the name of the government. However, the absence of state institutions in northern Mali meant an absence of development, infrastructure, health care, security and employment, all encouraging an illicit smuggling-based economy and a cycle of rebellion and temporary reconciliation when one or both sides were exhausted.

When democracy was introduced with independence in 1960, members of lower social orders in Arab and Tuareg society such as the Imghad were able to use their greater numbers to place their representatives in positions of authority over the local “noble” clans. The rejection by these clans of any social restructuring has been a core issue in nearly every rebellion in northern Mali since independence.

Return to Mali and Rebellion

After the Libyan defeat in Chad, ag Gamou returned to Mali, where he became involved in the Libyan-supported 1990-1996 Tuareg rebellion as a leading member of the Libyan-supported Armée Revolutionnaire de Libération de l’Azawad (ARLA). French historian Pierre Boilley met ag Gamou in those days and described him as “a taciturn and secretive man. He did not make grand speeches. He could get brutally excited, but he was pleasant” (Bamada.net, June 27, 2013). As usual, the Tuareg failed to unite in a common cause and ag Gamou’s ARLA became engaged in a violent rivalry with Iyad ag Ghali’s Mouvement populaire de l’Azawad (MPA). Ag Gamou had served alongside ag Ghali, an Ifoghas, in the Islamic Legion.

In February 1994 ag Gamou made a strategic mistake by kidnapping Intallah ag Attaher, the amenokal (chief) of the Ifoghas of Kidal. Though the amenokal was eventually returned unharmed in a prisoner exchange, the event was viewed by many Ifoghas as an unforgivable assault on the traditional social order and led to ARLA’s military defeat. Over two decades later the event still has repercussions – Intallah ag Attaher’s eldest son, Mohamed ag Intallah, is the new amenokal, while another son, Alghabass ag Intallah (the former right-hand man of Iyad ag Ghali in Ansar al-Din) is now head of the HCUA, an Ifoghas dominated militant group based in Kidal. Neither have forgotten the kidnapping, which continues to poison relations between the Imghad and the Ifoghas.

Mohamed ag Intallah with al-Hajj ag Gamou (Maliweb.net)

An End to Rebellion

As the rebellion wound down, Gamou joined other rebel fighters integrating with the Malian army. Integration allowed for further military training at the Koulikoro military school and deployment to Sierra Leone as a peacekeeper in 1999 (for which he was decorated) before assignment to Gao in 2001. His services resulted in promotion to lieutenant colonel and eventual command of the Kidal region in 2005. Gamou once explained his decision to become a government loyalist: “With the [1990-96] rebellion, we have obtained what we sought. Me, I have not been to school and I am a Colonel-Major. Why take up arms?” (Bamada.net, June 27, 2013).

The 2007-2009 Tuareg rebellion found Gamou on the government side in a bitterly fought campaign against Ibrahim ag Bahanga’s Alliance Touareg nord Mali pour le Changement (ATNMC). The tide turned against the rebels in 2009 when joint operations between Gamou’s Tuareg Delta militia, Colonel Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Ould Meydou’s Arab militia and Special Forces units of the Malian regular army (Echelon tactique inter-armes – ETIA) swept rebel bases in the north and drove the insurgents into Algeria. [3] Gamou’s work in the campaign brought him an appointment to President Amadou Toumani Touré’s personal staff despite concerns he was increasingly involved in northern Mali’s lucrative smuggling industry.

The Grand Deception

Many Malian Tuareg fought for the Qaddafi regime during the 2011 Libyan revolution. As the regime crumbled, ag Gamou was put in charge of welcoming these fighters back and urging their integration into the Malian Army, but the only takers were fellow Imghad (L’Aube [Bamako], February 18, 2016). The others quickly formed new armed movements, most notably the separatist Mouvement national de libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) and the Islamist Ansar al-Din, led by ag Gamou’s rival Iyad ag Ghali.

When a January 24, 2012 joint MNLA-Ansar al-Din rebel attack on Aguelhoc resulted in the massacre of its mostly southern-origin garrison after their ammunition ran out, ag Gamou rushed north from Kidal only to find the attackers had withdrawn. Small-scale clashes continued for two months after the rebellion began, when ag Gamou found his 500-man force surrounded and cut off from escape routes by a combined rebel force. After the Aguelhoc massacre surrender did not appear to be an option for the 200 southern troops under his command, while Iyad ag Ghali had already made his desire to slay ag Gamou well known. With the collapse of the Malian Army and a military coup in Bamako, there was no chance of relief from the south. Ag Gamou now made a shocking announcement – he had decided to go over to the rebels:

I changed sides because the Malian government has great difficulties in assuring the army’s defense of territory… Today I am dejected both physically and morally. Since I joined the Malian Army, I vowed to never betray it. But, today, I feel I am worn out. I fought as best I could with the means available to me. Against heavily armed men and a state that could not support me in my fight, I could not find a solution that could save us, me and my comrades (L’Indépendant [Bamako], April 2, 2012).

Contacting the MNLA’s Colonel Assaleth ag Khabi, ag Gamou agreed to join the rebel movement in exchange for protection from Iyad ag Ghali. The southern troops were disarmed and the MNLA demanded their handover, but Gamou refused, saying they were now his hostages. Granted freedom of movement by the rebels, Gamou headed for Niger and reported to the Malian consul in Niamey that his men were still loyal and ready to be repatriated to Bamako (Jeune Afrique, April 11, 2012; Bamada.net, June 27, 2013 ). The ruse had saved his command and left the rebels fuming.

A quick return to Bamako, however, was impossible. Mali’s army had abandoned the north, overthrown the president and was now consuming itself in bitter street battles between outnumbered Touré loyalists (the “Red Berets” of the presidential guard) and American-trained “Green Beret” putschists under Captain Amadou Sanogo. As Islamist militants poured into northern Mali, sidelining the politically secular MNLA, ag Gamou and his men were forced to watch helplessly from Niger: “It was very hard, very hard to be in a foreign country for a year” (France24.com, May 2, 2013). On December 2, 2012 an al-Qaeda operative attempted to kill ag Gamou in Niamey, but a potentially lethal shot was deflected by the commander’s cell-phone.

Tribal Map of Mali (Source: “Atlas Jeune Afrique 2010,” in: Bossard, L. (ed.), An Atlas of the Sahara Sahel, OECD, Sahel and West Africa Club, 2015, p. 191).

Return and Revenge

The launch of the French-led Operation Serval to retake northern Mali in January 2013 provided the opportunity for Ag Gamou’s fighters to join a column of Nigerien and Chadian troops crossing into northern Mali to link up with French forces advancing from the south. Ag Gamou helped drive Islamists of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) from Gao and loaned guides who provided invaluable services to Chadian and French troops fighting in the rocky and forbidding Adrar des Ifoghas region north of Kidal. However, the rivalry with the MNLA persisted, and Gamou found himself recalled to Bamako in March 2013 after arresting three MNLA members in Kidal who were aiding French forces in Operation Serval.

After the campaign, ag Gamou was decorated and elevated to the rank of brigadier general by a new unity government on September 18, 2013 (Le Débat [Bamako], January 3, 2014). MUJWA had not forgotten him however, and took their revenge on November 18, 2013 by murdering two members of his family (including a 3-year-old girl) and wounding two others (L’Indépendant [Bamako], November 25, 2013).

Assault on Kidal

Despite the expulsion of the foreign Islamists, the situation in the north remained tense with many fugitive Tuareg Islamists from Ansar al-Din transferring their loyalty from ag Ghali to a new and more politically acceptable movement, the Haut conseil pour l’unité de l’Azawad (HCUA). Despite all advice to the contrary, Prime Minister Moussa Mara insisted on visiting Kidal on May 17, 2014 to assert Malian sovereignty. Protesters prevented his plane from landing, so he arrived by helicopter. Ag Gamou and 60 of his men accompanied the PM’s convoy into the rebel stronghold, increasing local anger (Jeune Afrique, June 10, 2014).

Fighting broke out almost immediately between the Malian garrison and elements of the MNLA, HCUA and the separatist faction of the Mouvement arabe de l’Azawad (MAA), forcing Mara to seek protection in the MINUSMA (Mission multidimensionnelle intégrée des Nations unies pour la stabilisation au Mali) peacekeepers’ camp outside of town. By the 19^th, government reinforcements began arriving, including troops freshly trained by the European Union.

On May 21 a government offensive on Kidal led by the 33^rd Para-Commando Regiment (the “Red Berets”) and supported by BRDM-2 armored patrol cars and Malian infantry (the “Green Berets”) appeared to go well until the rebels launched a three-pronged counter-attack in the early afternoon. Mistakenly thinking the Paras had been destroyed, the Green Berets fled, with many soldiers and officers taking refuge in the MINUSMA camp outside the city (the 1200 peacekeepers and 100 French troops at the camp took no part in the fighting). After taking heavy losses, the Paras were forced to surrender, leaving Kidal firmly in rebel hands. Ag Gamou’s men were pursued southwards, with the commander’s right-hand man, Colonel Faisal ag Kiba, killed in the retreat. Panic spread as far as Gao and Timbuktu while Malian troops fled other towns without firing a shot, taking refuge in MINUSMA camps or even fleeing across the border into Algeria (Maliactu.net, February 24).

In Bamako, new President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta fired Defense Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and denied ordering the offensive (L’Opinion [Paris], June 9, 2014). Ag Gamou’s role as one of the three leaders of the offensive (along with Brigadier Didier Dacko and Colonel Abdoulaye Coulibaly) resulted in a serious but apparently temporary blow to his military prestige. With both the army and its militia allies recognizing that the military required a field general as chief-of-staff rather than an “office general,” Arab and Fulani militia leaders at the Ouagadougou peace talks recommended ag Gamou as new chief-of-staff to replace General Mahamane Touré, who resigned following the Kidal affair (Maliweb, May 29, 2014). [4]

The Formation of GATIA

Imghad leaders observed that only armed groups were invited to the peace negotiations and decided to form their own in August 2014, the Groupe d’autodéfense des touareg Imghads et allies (GATIA). According to a statement issued by the movement, GATIA “was created… to protect the Imghad people and their allies who have been abandoned by the state in an area where there are armed groups that kill and humiliate with impunity” (Africa News/Reuters, August 29).

The pro-Bamako GATIA began successful operations against the MNLA in October 2014. Ag Gamou’s role as GATIA leader was initially unacknowledged, but he appeared to use a 2016 Facebook posting to remove all ambiguity: “I am from GATIA. I have never hidden it,” adding “Mali will never be divided; I am Malian. So long as I live, the conspirators will never achieve their aims. And after my death, I have trained men to defend the territorial integrity of Mali” (Le Malien [Bamako], September 23). [5]

A proliferation of armed groups in the north made negotiations almost impossible, so most groups agreed in June 2014 to align themselves to either a pro-government coalition (La Platforme) [6] or an opposition coalition (Coordination des mouvements de l’Azawad – CMA). [7] The general view in southern Mali is that the CMA is “feudal, anti-republican and anti-democratic” (Koulouba.com, August 1, 2016). As tensions increased between the two coalitions, GATIA set up checkpoints at the northern and southern entries to Kidal in mid-June 2016.

Ten people were killed on July 22 in fighting between GATIA and the CMA that some believed was a struggle for control of the smuggling trade (Maliactu.net, August 10). UN human rights observers and MINUSMA aerial surveillance recorded forced displacements and even executions of rival clansmen by GATIA elements, though a GATIA spokesman explained these as the result of “intercommunal tensions” (Reuters, August 31, 2015).

A series of clashes followed through the summer as the CMA attempted to break the GATIA blockade. After a September 16 battle at In Tachdaïte, a MNLA official claimed ag Gamou’s fight against the Ifoghas was only a pretext designed to gather popular support for his true purpose – establishing government control of areas now held by the CMA while using his growing military importance and political influence to protect trafficking networks. The official went on to say that peace with ag Gamou would be impossible as all his officers were drug traffickers using arms from government arsenals to control drug routes (Journal du Mali, September 22). GATIA in turn claims that CMA figures are involved in drug transports; in reality there are few Tuareg and Arab gunmen in northern Mali who are not involved in some type of smuggling, the only lucrative work available.

Despite reverses in Kidal itself, GATIA continues to maintain an effective blockade of the city that makes life there difficult (L’Indicateur du Renouveau [Bamako], September 21). GATIA will not allow humanitarian aid to cross into Kidal unless it is associated with its distribution. Air transport is not an option as the airport is closed due to a proliferation of land-mines (Reuters, October 17).

GATIA’s activities have drawn the ire of the U.S.; American ambassador to Mali Paul Folmsbee recently demanded that Bamako “put a stop to all ties both public and private with GATIA, a group of armed militia that is not contributing to the north” (Africa News/Reuters, August 29). U.S. ambassador to the UN Samantha Power similarly called for Bamako to “cease all supports to groups that are subservient to it,” while deploring the involvement of a Malian general (ag Gamou) who “continues to lead a northern militia” (L’indicateur du Renouveau [Bamako], October 3).

Ag Gamou (left) with General Didier Dacko (right)

Mali’s army chief-of-staff, General Mahamne Touré, was replaced by on June 29 by his deputy, Brigadier Didier Dacko, who was at the same time promoted to Major General (L’Essor [Bamako], July 8; Jeune Afrique, July 18). Dacko, a member of the Bobo tribe (a group straddling the border with Burkina Faso), has a reputation as a fighting officer and has worked closely with Gamou on many operations. The change suggests GATIA will continue to be able to rely on the Malian Army for funds and weapons.

Conclusion: An Obstacle to Peace?

Ag Gamou once declared: “I have no political ambition. I am a soldier; soldiers are outside of politics. I am here to defend the territorial integrity of Mali… Politics does not interest me. Not at all” (RFI, March 6, 2013). Nonetheless, many in Mali now suspect Gamou’s involvement with GATIA reflects growing political ambitions. Bamako’s inability and/or reluctance to establish central control over northern Mali has left the region open to the rule of local strongmen, particularly if such individuals have the advantage of reflected legitimacy through an official role in the national armed forces. Politically, however, Gamou does not enjoy President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta’s trust in the way Amadou Toumani Touré trusted him. Western diplomats may regard ag Gamou as an obstruction to a negotiated settlement in the north, but for many in the region this professional soldier represents the face of a new social order no longer based on a hereditary hierarchy.

Notes

For the Imghad, see Baz Lecocq, Disputed Desert: Decolonisation, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Northern Mali, Brill, Leiden, 2010, pp.6-7.
Lieutenant Colonel Kalifa Keita, Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Sahel: The Tuareg Insurgency In Mali, Strategic Studies Institute, Carlisle PA, May 1, 1998, p.13
See US Embassy Bamako Cable 09BAMAKO538_a, August 12, 2009, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BAMAKO538_a.html
General Touré was eventually retained in the post and made his official retirement on December 31, 2015.
The authenticity of this statement was challenged by GATIA’s secretary general (Jeune Afrique, September 23, 2016).
The coalition was formed June 14, 2014, and includes GATIA, the MAA-Platforme, the Coordination des mouvements et fronts patriotiques de résistance – CMFPR (a mainly Songhai and Fulani/Peul group) and the Mouvement pour le salut de l’Azawad (MSA), a Tuareg MNLA splinter group that opposes Ifhoghas domination of the Kidal region and joined La Platforme on September 17, 2016.
The CMA was formed June 9, 2014. The coalition includes the MNLA, HCUA, MAA-Dissident, CMFPR II and the Coalition pour le peuple de l’Azawad (CPA), a largely Tuareg MNLA splinter group that favors federalism over separatism.

Mali’s Neo-Jihadi Macina Liberation Front: What do they really want?

Posted on February 1, 2016 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor
Aberfoyle International Security Special Report
January 15, 2016

What is the Macina Liberation Front?

The Macina (or Massina) Liberation Front (MLF – Front de Libération du Macina) is an Islamist extremist organization that exploits grievances amongst Mali’s Fulani (a.k.a. Peul or Fulbe) pastoralists as well as a 19th century tradition of Fulani jihad to recruit militants.

MLF members, who may number less than a hundred active members, are drawn mainly from two principal sources – veterans of the self-defence militias that emerged in Mali’s Fulani community after several decades of political and ethnic violence in Mali’s north, and members of the Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA), an African-focused Islamist group that was part of the 2012-2013 jihadi occupation of northern Mali.

Map showing concentrations of Fulani in West Africa

Who are the Fulani?

Since spilling out centuries ago from their homeland in the Senegal-Guinea region, the Fulani are now found across the Sahel from Mauritania to Sudan, a decentralized community of some 30 million who speak a variety of dialects and are known by an assortment of names in their many host countries. There is no common leadership in the present era (Fulani society tends to be internally competitive rather than cooperative), but improved communications and often-violent rivalries with non-Fulani communities have added to an emerging sense of persecution and unity. It is this that the Islamists are eager to capitalize on.

While the Fulani/Peul are best known as pastoralist cattle-herders, settled Fulani/Peul may be found in many professions (especially trade) and have provided presidents to a number of the nations in which they dwell. Most Fulani share a common ethical code, the Lawaal Pulaaku (the Fulani Way), that the extremists would like to replace with a new set of values.

The undeclared war between herdsmen and farmers that is raging across Sahelian Africa is based in part on receding pasture-land and increased competition for resources. The resulting violence can easily take on a religious dimension – most Fulani/Peul herdsmen are Muslim; their rivals are often sedentary Christians.

Typically, the MLF is described as seeking to revive the 19th century Fulani-controlled Islamic state of Macina, though this is as much a nostalgic recruitment tool as an objective. The more immediate objectives of MLF include the elimination of traditional Islam in the region, an effort that embraces the killing of rival imams and Sufi religious leaders. The MLF also seeks to empty the region around Mopti of all traces of government presence through a campaign of assassination and intimidation.

MLF Leader Hamadoun Kufa

How is the MLF Leadership structured?

The MLF leader is Hamadoun Kufa, a veteran jihadist and graduate of a local Koranic school. Kufa joined the Islamic missionary-reformist Tablighi Jama’at in the 1990s, along with Iyad ag Ghali, the now fugitive Tuareg leader of Ansar al-Din. Kufa worked closely with Ag Ghali in the 2012-2013 Islamist occupation of northern Mali and these ties continue to this day. The MLF appears to be intended as a southern arm of Mali’s armed Islamist movement, coordinating with Iyad ag Ghali and others while operating in Bambara-majority areas of southern Mali (including Bamako) where Arab and Tuareg strangers would be conspicuous. Other groups such as “Ansar al-Din in Southern Mali” and the “Katiba Khalid ibn Walid” appear to have been similarly created to bring African Muslims into the militant fold. Boko Haram (dominated by the Kanuri) has tried to make inroads in the Fulani community in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.

How does the MLF fit into the Malian Jihad?

The MLF insists on a severe Salafist interpretation of Shari’a together with restrictions on women (restricted to home, wearing of a veil when necessary to go out) that would limit the important role played by women in Mali’s largely agriculture-based economy.

The movement, by its own admission or that of its partners, has engaged in a number of military and civilian terrorist attacks in cooperation with Iyad al-Gali’s Ansar al-Din and Mokhtar al-Mokthar’s notorious al-Murabitun organization (now reunited with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – AQIM). The MLF’s value to the jihadis is its ability to open a new front in Mali’s south (where 90% of the population lives) that can draw off security forces from the north, giving the extremists greater freedom of movement while embarrassing the government and its foreign allies. MLF attacks have a secondary purpose of provoking government retaliation against innocent Fulani, thus radicalizing the community and encouraging jihadist recruitment.

Does the Front truly represent Fulani interests?

Just as many of the victims of the Kanuri-dominated Boko Haram movement are fellow Kanuri, the MLF does not fail to target other Fulani. It is AQIM strategy to form new arms by creating “local” insurgent groups that appear to be responding to domestic concerns while actually working towards the creation of an al-Qaeda-ruled state. Indeed, the MLF’s direct attacks against the state and its Islamist bent set it apart from nearly all other groups professing to represent the interests of Fulani herdsmen.

The group’s use of nostalgia for the jihadist Macina Empire of Shaykh Sekou Amadou was revealed as nothing more than a recruiting tool when the movement attacked the mausoleum of Shaykh Sekou last May. Though not especially grand, the tomb violated the group’s Salafist belief that anything more than a simple grave marker is idolatry.

Where does the MLF go from here?

Islamist extremists will continue to pursue the radicalization of Fulani communities across West Africa, but may ultimately fail in this effort if the MLF is not seen to address issues of concern to the Fulani community rather than those of interest to AQIM’s leadership. The Fulani pastoralists have legitimate grievances but at the same time the community has lost many opportunities to reap popular sympathy through a tendency by some of its members to turn to the AK-47 as a means of solving disputes.

Ultimately, Fulani ethno-nationalism would seem unlikely to play a major part in the larger Islamist movement in Mali, which, officially at least, eschews tribalism and ethnic rivalry in favor of a common status within a Shari’a state.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s al-Murabitun Movement Introduces Urban Terrorist Tactics to Raise Ethnic Tensions in Mali

Posted on April 30, 2015 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

From Tips and Trends: The AIS African Security Report

Aberfoyle International Security, April 2015

A brutal March 7 attack on night-club goers in the heart of Mali’s national capital of Bamako using machine-guns and grenades announced the arrival of the bitter fight for control of northern Mali in a region traditionally untouched by the ongoing struggle. Eight people were wounded in the attack and five killed, including three Malians, one Belgian and one French citizen.

La Terrasse night-club, the scene of the attack, is located in the midst of the Hippodrome district of central Bamako, a hub for expatriates and westernized Malian youth who congregate in the districts’ many cafés, restaurants and nightclubs, many of them Lebanese-owned. Like many of its neighbors, La Terrasse is a known gathering place for Malian prostitutes and Western expatriates.

Credit for the attack was claimed by terrorist group al-Murabitun in a 90 second Arabic language audiotape sent to Mauritanian newspaper al-Akhbar: “We claim the last operation in Bamako led by the valiant fighters of al-Murabitoun to retaliate against the miscreant West that insulted and mocked our Prophet and [for the death of] our brother, Ahmed al-Tilemsi” (al-Akhbar [Nouakchott], March 7, 2015). Al-Tilemsi was killed by French Special Forces in the Gao region of northern Mali on December 11, 2014. Ten other jihadists were killed in the raid and three captured.

Al-Murabitun (The Sentinels) was formed in August 2013 through a merger of the Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA) and veteran terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Katibat al-Mulathameen (“Veiled Brigade”; also operating under the name al-Mua’qi’oon Biddam – “Those who Signed in Blood Brigade”). Al-Murabitun is now led by its founder, Mokhtar Belmokhtar (a.k.a. Khalid Abu al-Abbas). Though Belmokhtar was believed to be the power behind the new group from the beginning, its first official leader was Abu Bakr al-Masri, a veteran Egyptian militant who was killed by French Special Forces in April 2014.

A week after the attack, Malian Special Forces announced they had killed a grenade-throwing accomplice in the attack during a two-hour gun-battle that began during a raid on a residence in Magnambougou, a crowded working-class area of Bamako. A large cache of arms and ammunition was also seized. Identity cards on the body identified the “light-skinned” suspect as Mohamed Tanirou Cissé, a native of Bourem in the Gao region of northern Mali (Nouvelle République, March 13, 2015; AFP, March 13, 2015). Three other suspects have been identified and arrested, including a transport agent working the Gao to Bamako line who arranged the transport of the attackers to Bamako, and a pair of Songhai shop-keeping brothers from Bourem who are alleged to have provided the terrorists accommodation in the capital (L’Essor [Bamako], March 20, 2015). The principal assailant remains missing.

Ahmed al-Tilemsi

The individual named in the Murabitun statement was Ahmed al-Tilemsi (a.k.a. Abd al-Rahman Ould Amar), a Lamhar Arab from the Gao region with a reputation as a businessman who was not averse to drug-trafficking. Before the 2012 rebellion al-Tilemsi may have been associated with Colonel Abd al-Rahman Ould Meydou’s pro-government Arab militia, but had clearly sided with MUJWA by the time the radical Islamist movement occupied Gao. Though some have suggested his allegiance may have had more to do with protecting his business interests than with ideology, other sources claim he was a dedicated jihadist who held the position of MUJWA military chief in the Gao region. Most observers agree that al-Tilemsi became known as a major financier for MUJWA (RFI, December 11, 2014; Jeune Afrique, July 27, 2012).

Al-Tilemsi’s name was frequently connected to northern Mali’s lucrative kidnapping business, conducted primarily by Islamist extremists who often used local Arab businessmen as go-betweens in arranging the payment of ransoms (RFI, December 11, 2014).

All-Murabitun’s message also claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt against the nation’s highest-ranking Arab soldier “for his involvement in the war against the mujahidin” (al-Akhbar [Nouakchott], March 7, 2015).

General Mohamed Abd al-Rahman Ould Meydou

In the course of the January 26 assassination attempt on General Mohamed Abd al-Rahman Ould Meydou outside his home in Bamako’s city center, the general encountered two turbaned men on a motorcycle outside his home. The assailants opened fire, wounding him in the head, hand and leg before leaving him for dead (L’Indépendant [Bamako], January 28, 2015). Ould Meydou was reported to have received threats days before the attack warning him to change his loyalties or he would be shot (L’Indépendant [Bamako], January 28, 2015).

Along with his Tuareg counterpart, General al-Hajj ag Gamou, Meydou played a vital role in the fighting of 2008’s Operationn Djiguitougou, which used Tuareg and Arab militias to drive Tuareg rebels under the command of the late Ibrahim ag Bahanga out of northern Mali. Colonels during the latest northern rebellion, both men were raised to the rank of Brigadier General in late 2013 in recognition of their vital contributions in restoring government authority in northern Mali. The men are, respectively, the highest-ranking Arab and Tuareg officers in the Malian Army.

Meydou was the target of an ambush directed at eliminating his leadership while travelling between Kidal and the northern garrison town of Aguel Hoc in 2012 but succeeded in escaping with his life. Ag Gamou escaped similar attempts by pretending to join the Islamist insurgents before passing into neighboring Niger with his roughly 400 man force intact. From there, he was able to return to the north in January 2013 alongside a column of Nigerien, Chadian and French forces.

During the operation to retake northern Mali from the Islamist coalition, Ould Meydou led a largely Bérabiche Arab Timbuktu-based militia that co-operated with Malian regular forces in Gao led by Colonel Didier Dacko. Now a Brigadier, Dacko is known as a capable and respected officer who opposes the reintegration of rebels into the regular army as part of any negotiated settlement. The strategy has failed several times, with some officers such as Colonel Hassan ag Fagaga (the current MNLA military chief) shuttling back and forth between the Army and rebel formations.

Projections

The attack on La Terrasse and the attempted assassination of General Ould Meydou mark the introduction of urban terrorism to Bamako, which has escaped such activity during all the rebellions and disturbances since independence. Like Somalia’s al-Shabaab, al-Murabitun’s ability to operate in northern Mali is now somewhat restricted by a major international military presence. Following al-Shabaab’s lead, al-Murabitun appears to be shifting to attacks against soft targets in the national capital.
Though Bamako is roughly 450 kilometers from the nearest point in northern Mali, the group may be able to draw on the capital’s small population of Arabs and Tuareg for recruits, though the size of this population is somewhat diminished since riots targeted light-skinned northerners in Bamako in 2012. In the Terrasse bombing, security reports indicate the operation was the work of a mixed cell of northerners and northern-origin residents of Bamako.
There is a significant danger that further incidents of urban terrorism may provoke even more serious revenge attacks against innocent northerners living in the capital. Besides the larger objectives of forcing a withdrawal of international (especially French) forces and a return to Islamist rule in the north, al-Murabitun’s latest strikes are destined to increase ethnic tensions within Mali that could derail the ever precarious peace talks ongoing in Algiers.

The Divided Leadership of Northern Mali’s Arab Community: A Profile of the Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA)

Posted on April 30, 2015 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

From Tips and Trends: The AIS African Security Report

Aberfoyle International Security, April 2015

Despite their small numbers, northern Mali’s Arab population maintains a high degree of influence in the region’s social, religious and political life since their gradual arrival through the 17^th to 19^th centuries.

The Arab community of northern Mali is composed of three main groups:

The Bérabiche moved into northern Mali in the early 17^th century and established an important commercial center at Timbuktu. Before the Islamist occupation of the north in 2012, some members of the tribe played an important role in guiding al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) smuggling convoys through the north. In some cases, AQIM leaders and fighters married into the Bérabiche.
The Kounta are part of a large confederation of religious clans found across West Africa. Claiming a common 15^th century ancestor, their religious authority is tightly tied to their importance in the Qadariya Sufi order in West Africa. Once wealthy through commerce and the payment of tribute by lesser Arab groups, a changing social order has presented the group with new challenges. Some Kounta sought new revenues through engagement in narcotics smuggling, though this has damaged their religious status in the north. Kounta relations with the Tuareg are complicated, while struggles for control of northern Mali’s smuggling routes have brought the Kounta into conflict with the Bérabiche and Tilemsi Arabs.
The Tilemsi Arabs (a.k.a. Tangara) arrived in the Tilemsi Valley region of Gao from Mauritania in the 19th century in response to a call for aid from the Kounta, to which they were once subordinate. Their position close to the Algerian border allowed the group to profit sufficiently to allow them to stop paying tribute to the Kounta over a decade ago. However, their smuggling activities brought them into close contact with AQIM, the result being the growth of religious extremism in the community.

Sidi Brahim Ould Sidati

The original Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA – Arab Movement of Azawad) was created in late 2012 as a reorganization of the short-lived Front de libération nationale de l’Azawad (FNLA). The movement was designed initially as an Arab self-defense group with an interest in autonomy but not independence for the north or the implementation of Shari’a in the region. Azawad is the local name for northern Mali.

Since then, however, the MAA has split into two factions – one in favor of greater autonomy within a united Mali, the other taking a harder line on independence for the north. The pro-Bamako faction of the MAA is led by Professor Ahmed Sidi Ould Mohamed and is largely based in the Gao region with a military base at Inafarak (near the Algerian border), while the dissident or separatist faction is led by Sidi Brahim Ould Sidati and suspected narco-traffickers Dina Ould Aya (or Daya) and Mohamed Ould Aweynat, amongst others. Both men are subject to international arrest warrants for their alleged roles in narco-trafficking (L’Indépendant [Bamako], May 28, 2014). The military chief of the dissenting MAA is Colonel Hussein Ould al-Moctar “Goulam,” a defector from the Malian Army. This faction is based in the Timbuktu region.

Both factions of the MAA include former members of the Islamist Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA) that joined AQIM and Ansar al-Din in briefly ruling northern Mali after expelling government forces and defeating the rebel Mouvement National pour la liberation de l’Azawad (MNLA). A pro-government militia, the Groupe Autodéfense Touareg Imghad et Alliés (GATIA) helpfully claims that the former MUJWA fighters in the pro-Bamako MAA simply joined the Islamists to provide security for their community during the Islamist occupation (Le Monde, February 11, 2015). The mainstream MAA is dominated by members of the Lamhar clan, a group whose recent prosperity and large new homes in Gao are attributed to their prominent role in moving drug shipments through northern Mali. Some reports have characterized the split in the MAA as being directly related to a struggle for control of drug-trafficking routes through northern Mali (L’Informateur [Bamako], May 28, 2014).

With their intimate knowledge of the Malian Arab community and the lands in which they dwell, a loyalist Arab movement is a natural threat to the operations of jihadists in northern Mali. It is not surprising, then, that Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s al-Murabitun organization issued a threat against the loyalist MAA and the independence-minded but officially secular and largely Tuareg MNLA on April 8, citing their alleged loyalty to the French (MaliActu.Info, April 8, 2015).

Yoro Ould Daha (a.k.a. Sid’Amar Ould Daha), one of the leaders of the pro-Bamako faction of the MAA, typifies the kind of political confusion and pliability that hinders the arrival of a negotiated settlement in the north and frustrates foreign supporters of Malian democracy. Ould Daha came to prominence as the MUJWA chief of security during the Islamist occupation of northern Mali, but now insists he and his movement are now seeking a unified nation with its capital in Bamako. Widely regarded as a major drug trafficker with a reputation for brutality gained during his time as security chief for MUJWA-occupied Gao, Ould Daha was arrested by French forces in Gao in July 2014 and turned over to Malian authorities, but was released only days later, though not before accusing the French military of supporting his enemies in the separatist MNLA (Le Témoin [Bamako], August 12, 2014; MaliWeb, August 2, 2014; RFI, September 8, 2014). The loyalist MAA’s chief of military staff, Colonel al-Oumarani Baba Ahmed Ould Ali, resigned from the movement in mid-March, citing internal reasons related to the loyalist alliance (L’Indicateur du Renouveau [Bamako], March 19, 2015).

At present, armed groups active in northern Mali include the following:

1/ Coordination des Mouvements et Front patriotique de résistance (CM-FPR, incorporating the largely Songhai Ganda Koy and Ganda Iso militias) On June 24, 2014, this coalition allied itself with GATIA and the loyalist faction of the MAA. The movement seeks self-determination for the north, but exists mainly to resist Tuareg domination of the north.

2/ Le Haut Conseil pour l’unité de l’Azawad (HCUA – Viewed as the voice of the Ifoghas Tuareg of Kidal, the HCUA includes many former members of the now dormant Ansar al-Din Islamist movement led by Iyad ag Ghali).

3/ Coalition pour le Peuple de l’Azawad (CPA – allied with Ganda Iso) The CPA was created from a split in the MNLA and seeks federalism rather than independence. Largely Tuareg, but claims membership from the Arab, Songhai and Peul/Fulani communities of the north.

4/ Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA – both pro and anti-Bamako factions use the same name despite the split). Both factions of the MAA include many former members of MUJWA.

5/ Mouvement National pour la liberation de l’Azawad (MNLA) A largely Tuareg movement seeking an independent northern Mali. The Kel Idnan and Taghat Mellit Tuareg are well represented in the movement.

6/ Mouvement Populaire pour le Salut de l’Azawad (MPSA) The Arab MPSA is the result of a split in the MAA, with MPSA dissidents claiming they wanted to remove themselves from the influence of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) (Anadolu Agency, August 31, 2014). The group seeks self-determination for the north rather than independence but does not appear to be very influential.

7/ Groupe Autodéfense Touareg Imghad et Alliés (GATIA). This pro-government group is closely tied to the Malian Army and is led by General al-Hajj ag-Gamou. It consists largely of Imghad Tuareg but also includes a number of allied Arab fighters.

GATIA: A Profile of Northern Mali’s Pro-Government Tuareg and Arab Militia

Posted on April 3, 2015 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor
April 3, 2015

A little more than a year after a French and African Union military intervention drove an Islamist coalition from their bases in northern Mali in early 2013, Prime Minister Moussa Mara ignited the seething tensions in the area with an ill-advised visit to the Kidal region (a stronghold of separatist Tuareg rebels) in mid-May 2014. Within days, the Malian Army was in full flight from angered Tuareg insurgents in Kidal and many other sites of strategic importance in the north, including towns along the main drug-trafficking and smuggling routes that connect northern Mali to the northern Sahara and the Mediterranean coast.

General Hajj ag Gamou (right), with Chadian officers during operations in Mali

As a result of the army’s rapid flight, a significant portion of the Tuareg and Arab communities of the north that have no interest in separatism or the formation of an Islamic state were suddenly once more at risk from politically-motivated violence. These communities responded by transforming their pro-government Tuareg militia into a more inclusive pro-government self-defense organization, the Groupe Autodéfense Touareg Imghad et Alliés (GATIA), led by the only Tuareg member of Mali’s general staff, General Hajj ag Gamou. With an estimated 1,000 fighters drawn from Tuareg and Arab communities, the movement announced its formation on August 14, 2014. Since then the group has emerged as a powerful obstacle to the ambitions of those militant groups in northern Mali seeking greater autonomy or the establishment of an independent state to be known as “Azawad.”

Formation and Aims

According to GATIA’s secretary-general, Fahad ag Almahmoud, the movement was formed after the May 2014 withdrawal of the Malian Army from its positions east and north of Gao rendered the Tuareg and Arab communities “defenseless” (Le Monde, February 9, 2015). Failing to obtain the support of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (Mission multidimensionnelle intégrée des Nations unies pour la stabilisation au Mali-MINUSMA) or French military forces (which the movement suspects of supporting the Tuareg separatists of the Mouvement National pour la liberation de l’Azawad [MNLA]), GATIA’s founders observed that only armed groups were being given a seat at the peace negotiations that followed: “There was no mission to substitute ourselves for the army or [government] assistance, we just have the same enemy. In reality, when we took up arms, the Malian Army no longer existed [in northern Mali]” (Le Monde, February 9, 2015; RFI, August 16, 2014).

The establishment of GATIA, however, is not just a response to growing insecurity in the absence of government security forces. It is, in many ways, also the result of a long-simmering conflict between the noble Tuareg clans of Kel Ifoghas (a.k.a. Kel Adagh) and the Tuareg vassal clans known as Imghad. The introduction of democracy after independence in 1960 allowed the more-numerous vassal classes of Tuareg and Arab society to accrue authority as elected officials over the less numerous noble groups. For many in the non-noble classes, Malian citizenship also offered a chance to restructure traditional Tuareg and Arab society in their favor, while the noble castes objected to these developments and their own sudden political subordination to the Bambara ethnic majority in southern Mali.

The rivalry between nobles and vassals was intensified by struggles over smuggling routes, after a new outbreak of rebellion in northern Mali led by separatist Tuareg vassal clans in January 2012 and the military coup three months later that ended Bamako’s authority over the north. When the Islamist coalition occupied northern Mali, the noble Ifoghas group tended to favor Iyad ag Ghali’s Islamist Ansar al-Din movement, while the vassal Imghad (particularly the Tuareg militia led by Hajj ag Gamou) sided with the state. Ag Ghali of the Ifoghas is a bitter enemy of Imghad General Ag Gamou, and is now believed to be in the uncontrolled region of southwestern Libya while preserving his influence in northern Mali through intimidation and alleged death squads which target his opponents in the Tuareg community (Jeune Afrique, February 18, 2015).

Evolving Alliances

The French and African Union military intervention in 2013 shattered the Islamist coalition in northern Mali (which included the Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa [MUJWA] and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM] as well as Ansar al-Din), leading many Ifoghas to abandon Ansar al-Din to form a new and less overtly provocative movement, Le Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad (HCUA). With Mali’s regular army still absent from the north, there have been calls from Mali’s press and political establishment for Ag Gamou’s GATIA to be formally integrated into the Malian Army (Nouvelle Liberation [Bamako], October 24, 2014).

After the flight of the Malian Army from the north, GATIA joined Songhai fighters of the Coordination des Mouvements et Front Patriotique de Résistance (CM-FPR, incorporating the largely Songhai Ganda Koy and Ganda Iso militias) and the loyalist faction of the Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA). These took part in a successful battle against a coalition of rebels (HCUA, MNLA and the anti-Bamako faction of the MAA) led by veteran commander Hassane Fagaga at Anéfis on July 11, 2014. [1] Both the MNLA and GATIA use Malian fighters who returned from Libya after the defeat of the Qaddafi regime. One of these, Baye “Bojan,” was an important military commander in GATIA before his death in the battle for Anéfis.

The military weakness of the MNLA (exposed earlier when the movement was sidelined by Islamist militants in 2012) resurfaced in October 2014 when GATIA drove the MNLA from its base in the town of In Tillit (south of Gao) and several other smaller settlements (L’Indépendant [Bamako], October 20, 2014; Jeune Afrique, October 17, 2014). GATIA insists that the MNLA is deeply involved in drug trafficking, though in reality there are few armed groups in northern Mali that have not benefitted in some fashion from the lucrative drug corridors that run from West African ports through Mali to points north and east.

General Didier Dacko

General Didier Dacko of the Malian Army denied reports that government forces had provided support to the GATIA attack, adding that “the militia does not act under the orders of the Malian Army” (Sahelien.com, October 16, 2014). Mali’s Ministry of Defense has also described suggestions that GATIA was formed from members of Ag Gamou’s militia (an important part of the re-conquest of northern Mali in 2013) and elements of a Malian Army technical weapons group as “part of a pure disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting the Malian Army” (Jeune Afrique, February 16, 2015).

Government denials that it is assisting GATIA may be a means of promoting GATIA as an independent (but Bamako-friendly) partner in the Algiers peace talks, which currently exclude GATIA. This is because if GATIA is too closely identified with the government through a formal relationship with the government there would be little reason for them to be part of the negotiations. General Ag Gamou continues to report to the Malian general staff, but GATIA Secretary-General Ag Almahoud insists that GATIA members receive no pay from Bamako: “Nobody pays us. We do it for honor, not for the unity of Mali” (Jeune Afrique, February 17, 2015).

GATIA’s goals remain only vaguely outlined; when asked directly what proposals GATIA intended to present at the peace talks, Ag Almahoud preferred to describe what GATIA did not stand for: “We are not part of the movements that have taken up arms against the state. We do not demand secession from Mali, nor federalism, nor autonomy” (JournalduMali.com, October 21, 2014). What is clear is that GATIA sees a future for northern Mali within a sovereign and secular Malian state. Less certain is what all this loyalty will cost, keeping in mind Ag Gamou’s apparent political ambitions.

Outlook

The flight of Malian troops from northern Mali in May 2014 confirmed once again that Mali’s military is utterly incapable of controlling the north, convincing Mali’s leaders that the deployment of pro-government ethnic militias is preferable to further misadventures by the Malian Army. While the French have committed to a military presence in the region with the inauguration of Operation Barkhane in July 2014, both separatists and loyalists suspect the French of favoring the other side. [2] The HCUA, MNLA and the anti-Bamako faction of the MAA are likewise all determined to prevent GATIA from having a seat at the peace talks, in part because GATIA’s very existence challenges their claim to be the legitimate voices of northern Mali’s Tuareg and Arab communities. On the other hand, the question is whether any agreement reached in Algiers that excludes GATIA could restore peace and order in northern Mali. The internal struggle within the Tuareg and Arab communities is escalating and a failure to address this in the ongoing negotiations will fail to produce a workable solution to the violence in the north.

Notes
1. For Ganda Koy and Ganda Iso, see Terrorism Monitor, April 19, 2012, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=39290&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=588&no_cache=1 ; August 10, 2012, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=39747&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=588&no_cache=1 ; and February 21, 2014, http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=41997&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=757&no_cache=1 . Both factions of the MAA include many former members of MUJWA.
2. For Operation Barkhane, see Terrorism Monitor Briefs, July 24, 2014, http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=42667&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=757&no_cache=1 .

Mali’s Peace Talks: Doomed to Failure?

Posted on August 7, 2014 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor
August 7, 2014

Mali’s disaffected minority northerners are now at least equal in military power to the state. Outside of a few tribal units drawn from loyalist Tuareg and Arabs, Mali’s military (drawn largely from the nation’s southern population) finds itself severely outclassed when fighting in the unfamiliar terrain of northern Mali. Every Tuareg rebellion has seen a marked improvement in arms and tactics over the last and it was ironically only al-Qaeda’s intervention that prevented the utter defeat of the state military by encouraging foreign intervention. If this pattern continues, Bamako clearly cannot expect to survive another rebellion and continue to retain sovereignty over the north. This creates a certain urgency for the success of upcoming peace negotiations to be held in Algiers beginning August 17, a situation the armed opposition will attempt to use to its advantage.

Improved military training does not appear to provide an answer to this dilemma – indeed, it was American-trained troops that led the military coup in 2012 that overthrew Mali’s democratically elected government and then refused to fight in the north. Mali’s military remains badly divided and in dire need of reform before it can do more than pretend to be a stabilizing force in the north. Without an effective military presence, a Bamako-appointed civil administration will be reduced to giving suggestions rather than implementing policy. For now, however, the Tuareg and Arabs of the north do not trust the army, while the army does not trust its own tribal Tuareg and Arab militias. Until this situation changes, meaningful disarmament will be impossible and development initiatives unable to proceed regardless of what agreements might be made in Algiers.

The MNLA’s claim to represent northern Mali’s Arab, Songhai and Peul/Fulani communities is open to challenge. While individuals from these groups may belong to the MNLA, most members of these groups view Tuareg intentions with suspicion. Even though the Arab MAA sits side-by-side with the MNLA at the Algiers talks, recent clashes between the two groups in northern Mali suggest this unified front may not last long (Reuters, July 14; July 24). The Tuareg themselves are badly divided by class, clan and tribe, something reflected even within the senior ranks of the MNLA, with some leaders prepared to accept some form of autonomy, while others demand nothing less than complete independence (Inter-Press Service/Global Information Network, July 23; Xinhua, July 17).

France has complicated negotiations through its new redeployment of French military forces in Africa under the rubric Operation Barkhane, which establishes a series of French bases in sensitive areas of their former colonies in the Sahel (see Terrorism Monitor Brief, July 24). In Kidal, anger is growing in some quarters against the prolonged and now apparently permanent French military presence, while in the south, France is popularly perceived as a destabilizing element suspected of secretly backing Tuareg independence movements. The question is whether Bamako will now deal sincerely with the armed opposition in negotiations if it senses it now has French muscle behind it in the form of a permanent French counter-insurgency force. President Keita came to power on a platform of dealing firmly with the north but must obviously shift from the status quo without alienating his southern supporters.

While the inclusion of the three Islamist groups (Ansar al-Din, AQIM and MUJWA) in the talks could not be expected, they have increased their activity in northern Mali as talks get underway in order to remind all parties of their continued presence in the region. Again, this inhibits the creation and implementation of development projects, particularly if foreign nationals continue to be a target of the Islamists.

Bamako has laid out “red lines” it insists it will not cross with relation to Mali’s territorial integrity and republican system of government, but will have difficulty taking a firm stance given its weakened state and the defeat of its forces in Kidal in May (Echourouk al-Youmi [Algiers], July 19; All Africa, July 16). While it may be possible to persuade the opposition to settle for a robust form of autonomy, Bamako must be prepared to retain authority for little more than defense issues and foreign affairs. The northern opposition must, in turn, keep in mind that greater local authority will mean little without a budget. Mali is one of the poorest states on earth, and the more autonomy the north gains, the less likely it will be for Bamako to devote limited resources to its success. If development promises continue to be ignored as soon as the ink dries on yet another Malian peace agreement, then we are likely in for another round of phony disarmament campaigns, failed military integration and local discontent leading to rebellion.

This article first appeared in the August 7, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

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

Posted on July 24, 2014 by McGregor

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).

President 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).

Soldiers 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

A Divided Military Fuels Mali’s Political Crisis

Posted on June 13, 2014 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

June 13, 2014

Both short and long-term prospects for renewed stability in Mali’s restive northern region took a heavy blow with the May collapse of the Forces Armées du Mali (FAMA) in the face of Tuareg and Arab resistance in the northeastern Kidal region. The collapse reflected long-standing divisions and rivalries within the Malian Army that have gone unresolved despite new efforts at equipping and training the Malian military.

While the international community has pledged over $4 billion in funds intended for reconstruction, patience is beginning to run out with the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who appears to have wasted little time in re-introducing various ills of the previous government, including nepotism, poor governance practices and a lack of fiscal accountability most visibly manifested in the unnecessary purchase of a $40 million Boeing 737 jet for presidential use that has endangered Mali’s eligibility for foreign aid. Funds targeted for military reconstruction have produced new uniforms and a new logo for the army, but little else (Guardian, May 18).

Colonel Didier Dacko

When a small group of Islamist insurgents attacked the city of Gao shortly after its January 2013 liberation by French forces, a much stronger Malian force made an unsuccessful appeal to French forces to intervene. Malian operations chief Colonel Didier Dacko did not find the French refusal surprising: “I do not blame [the French] for not coming immediately. It was the first time that the two armies were facing a common enemy, with no real coordination,” adding that “Our army is the exact image of our country. The coup has accelerated its decay “(L’Indépendant [Bamako], February 19, 2013).

Miscalculation in Kidal

The trouble in Kidal began with a poorly considered visit to the region by Prime Minister Moussa Mara on May 17, intended as a demonstration of Bamako’s sovereignty over the region. Mara insisted on visiting Kidal despite several days of violent protests and runway occupations designed to prevent his plane from landing. Mara eventually arrived at the military base by helicopter, but violence erupted with Tuareg and Arab rebel factions seizing the government house, abducting civil servants as hostages and slaughtering some eight government officials. A Malian military offensive was launched on May 21 to retake Kidal, but faltered in the face of heavy opposition from the Haut Conseil pour l’unité de l’Azawad (HCUA – largely Ifoghas Tuareg), the Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA – largely Idnan and Taghat Mellit Tuareg) and the Mouvement arabe de l’Azawad (MAA).

Once fighting broke out, Malian troops, many of them recent graduates of EU military training, quickly broke and abandoned their positions across northeastern Mali to take refuge in United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) camps or to flee south or north on the road to Algeria. With Malian forces on the run in most regions of northeastern Mali, MNLA forces easily occupied the towns of Anefis, Aguelhok, Tessalit, Menaka, Ansongo, Anderamboukane and Lere, seizing weapons and vehicles abandoned by the Malian troops without a shot being fired in many cases (Reuters, May 22). Without French intervention, the MNLA and its allies might have easily retaken all of northern Mali.

Malian authorities maintain that the forces opposing them in Kidal were far larger than originally estimated (2,000 as opposed to 700) and were reinforced by elements of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the allied Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA), an unlikely combination in the current political circumstances of northern Mali (Mali Demain [Bamako], June 5; L’Indépendant [Bamako], June 5).

The question of who actually ordered the disastrous offensive on Kidal remains unanswered (the president denies it was his decision), though the resignation of former Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs and former intelligence chief Soumeylou Boubèye Maiga appears to have served to satisfy the demand for a scapegoat (Le Débat [Bamako], June 9). The new Defense Minister is Ba N’Dao, a retired colonel in the Malian air force.

Regardless of who ordered the attack on Kidal, the actual assault was directed by operational commander Brigadier Didier Dacko and led by Brigadier Ag Gamou, who was later accused by French sources of “pouring oil on the fire” (L’Opinion [Paris], June 10). Ag Gamou and his Imghad Tuareg militia have been engaged in a lengthy and bitter struggle with the Ifoghas Tuareg elites in Kidal, making Ag Gamou a provocative choice to lead the assault on Kidal. Leading a column of loyalist Tuareg, Red Berets and elements of three battalions of EU-trained Green Berets equipped with light armor, artillery and BM-21 Katyusha rocket launchers, Ag Gamou’s force appears to have encountered a superior force of rebels from the MNLA, HCUA and MAA. The Malian offensive quickly collapsed with the loss of as many as 50 soldiers, including Ag Gamou’s right-hand man, Colonel Ag Kiba. No attempt at intervention was made by the 1200 MINUSMA police and troops from Guinea, Chad and Senegal stationed in Kidal’s Camp 2. France eventually responded to the violence by sending an additional 100 troops from Abidjan to Gao, bringing the French deployment up to 1,700 soldiers (Reuters, May 21).

Return of the Red Berets?

Much of the weakness of the Malian Army is based on distrust between different factions that predates the January 2012 Tuareg/Islamist rising in northern Mali, but which was exacerbated by the March 22, 2012 military coup led by Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo and the “Green Beret” faction of the Malian army. The coup was opposed by the 33^rd Parachute Brigade“Red Beret” airborne units that also formed the presidential guard of Amadou Toumani Touré, himself a former Red Beret. Though unable to prevent the coup, the Red Berets succeeded in spiriting the president to safety before mounting an unsuccessful counter-coup in late April, 2012 (see Terrorism Monitor, February 22, 2013). The failed counter-coup was followed by the brutal torture and murder of roughly 30 captured Red Berets, who subsequently disappeared into mass graves near the Kati military base outside of Bamako that served as Sanogo’s headquarters. 33^rd Brigade commander Colonel Abidine Guindo was arrested in July, 2012 for his role in the counter-coup and detained for 16 months. The two factions clashed again on February 8, 2013 (Le Flambeau [Bamako], February 13, 2013).

A reconciliation was effected between the two factions in June, 2013 that allowed the Red Berets to return to active service in northern Mali, with Sanogo describing the fatal conflict within the military as a series of “misunderstandings and differences of view” (Le Progrès [Bamako], June 29, 2013). However, after having failed in his attempt to position himself as a senior statesman in democratic Mali following the election of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in September 2013, Sanogo and twenty of his relatives were charged with “kidnapping, abduction and murder” in connection with the murders of the Red Berets (AFP/MaliActu, June 6). Also charged were former defense minister General Yamoussa Camara, former state security director General Sidi Touré and two of Sanogo’s aides, Captain Amadou Konaré and Lieutenant Tahirou Mariko (L’Aube [Bamako], March 27). Responsibility for guarding the president was eventually passed on to Mali’s Garde Nationale.

It was not only Red Berets who suffered under Sanogo’s command, however, as demonstrated by a September, 2013 mutiny at the Kati military base by soldiers of Sanogo’s Green Beret faction angry at the cancellation of promised promotions (L’Aube [Bamako], March 27). The disturbance was ended by the intervention of Malian Special Forces under Lieutenant Colonel Elisha Daou, which arrested some 30 mutineers. The bodies of five of these soldiers, still in uniform but bound with rope and irons, were found in two bizarre graves alongside the heads of five crocodiles (L’Indépendant [Bamako], February 25). Many other victims of Sanogo’s manhunt for mutineers remain missing.

On June 6, Malian authorities revealed they had disrupted a new military plot against the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta allegedly led by members of the Red Berets. Some officials denied the plot was actually a coup and those detained were officially charged with intending to “destabilize the institutions of the Republic and endangering the security of the State” (22 Septembre [Bamako], June 9).

Lieutenant Muhammad Ouattara (Jeune Afrique)

Among those arrested were the alleged ring-leader, Lieutenant Muhammad Ouattara, and ten non-commissioned officers, though there were reports authorities believed the plot was sponsored by “some senior military officers” (L’Indépendant [Bamako], June 6; Reuters, June 6). Otherwise, details of the plot remain scarce, and there is wide skepticism in Bamoko over the reality of the alleged coup. Ouattara previously spent 8 months in detention following the Red Beret’s unsuccessful counter-coup in April 2012 and was sent north to the Gao region after his release (L’Aube [Bamako], June 9).

Al-Hajj ag Gamou and the Pro-Bamako Tuareg Militia

Brigadier Ag Gamou, the leader of the failed assault on Kidal, is one of Mali’s most experienced and controversial officers. After joining the Libyan Army at age 16, the future militia leader saw service in Chad, Lebanon and Syria before returning to Mali as a rebel leader in the 1990s before his integration into the Malian Army. Ag Gamou was decorated for his service as an ECOWAS peacekeeper in Sierra Leone before being posted to northern Mali, where he cooperated with Arab militia commander Muhammad Ould Abd al-Rahman Meydou in driving Tuareg rebels under the late Ibrahim ag Bahanga from northern Mali in 2009. Promoted Brigadier in September, 2013, Meydou is a Tilemsi Arab and highly capable desert fighter whose command is composed mostly of Bérabiche Arabs from the Timbuktu region (L’Indépendant [Bamako], September 13).

Finding himself isolated in the Gao region by the 2012 Islamist occupation of northern Mali, Ag Gamou rescued his men by declaring his allegiance to the Islamists before moving them through Islamist lines to the Niger border, which he then crossed with his troops while declaring his change of loyalties was only a subterfuge. While in Niamey, Ag Gamou survived an assassination attempt intended as payback for his trickery. When Chadian and Nigerien forces moved north to join the French-led Operation Serval, Ag Gamou’s troops joined them and played an important role in hunting down Islamists in the rough terrain of the Adrar des Ifoghas.

Despite these successes, Gamou found himself recalled to Bamako in March 2013 after arresting three MNLA rebels in Kidal who were cooperating with French forces involved in Operation Serval. According to sources within the military, Ag Gamou continued to operate independently and without regard for the chain of command, a habit developed during his time under former Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré, who gave the Tuareg militia leader a largely free hand to carry out operations in northern Mali as he saw fit (Procès Verbal [Bamako], April 3, 2013). While in Bamako, elements of MUJWA attacked a home belonging to Ag Gamou’s relatives, killing two (including a four-year-old girl) and severely injuring the child’s mother. Despite his controversial status, Ag Gamou was promoted to Brigadier General on September 18, 2013, a move received with popular acclaim in the Gao region (Le Débat [Bamako], January 3).

In February, a group of Fulani tribesmen attacked Gamou’s home village of Tamkoutat in the latest stage of an ethnic conflict between local Tuareg and Fulani herders. Gamou saw a political motive in the attacks: “They put pressure on me by attacking my family because they accuse us of having acted for various military forces to return the Malian government in the north. They used the same procedure as [the January 2012 MNLA/Ansar al-Din massacre of Malian troops at] Aguel-hoc, tying their victims hands behind their back and slaughtering them one by one” (Nouvelle Libération [Bamako], February 13).

Recently, representatives of the MAA and the Coordination malienne des Forces patriotiques de résistance (CMFPR – largely Songhai and Fulani “loyalist” self-defense militias such as Ganda Koy and Ganda Iso) involved in peace talks in Ouagadougou proposed Ag Gamou as the new Malian chief-of-staff to replace General Mahamane Touré, who resigned following the Kidal affair, suggesting that Ag Gamou was the individual most capable of uniting the badly divided military (L’Indépendant [Bamako], June 4).

Conclusion

The Kidal incident has revived popular anger at the French and the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, with both being accused of working in favor of Tuareg separatists. This perception is a natural development stemming from French cooperation with the MNLA during the Spring 2013 Operation Serval campaign against armed Islamists in northern Mali and subsequent French attempts to slow the reintroduction of central government authority in the Kidal region before a general peace treaty is agreed upon. In the meantime, the Keïta government has announced it will expand its underfunded and underequipped military by introducing mandatory national service for men and women aged 18 to 35 earlier this month (Reuters, June 5). Military training will last for a period of six months, though it was not clear whether this measure would be applied in northern Mali, where it would likely be a non-starter with both Tuareg and Arab groups. There is a sense that Keïta’s new measure is at least in part a response to student protests in Bamako.

President Keïta has lost the confidence of the international community – the IMF, World Bank and EU have frozen aid and development programs in the face of unanswered accountability questions. Within Mali, the president has lost credibility and must now enter negotiations with rebels in Ouagadougou in a position of weakness. While there are serious questions regarding the reality of Ouattara’s Red Beret coup attempt, the conditions nevertheless exist in Mali that would encourage another military coup – corruption, military collapse, plummeting morale, internal challenges to sovereignty, international isolation, ineffective governance and loss of confidence.

This article was first published in the June 13, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Coalition of the People of Azawad: New Rebel Movement Declared in Northern Mali

Posted on April 3, 2014 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

April 3, 2014

On March 18, a statement issued from the “military base of Hassi Labiad” in the name of the political and military cadres of the Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA), notables and the religious and traditional leaders of Azawad (i.e. northern Mali) proclaimed the establishment of the Coalition du Peuple pour l’Azawad (CPA). [1] The self-described “politico-military” organization claims a strength of “nearly 8,000 veteran fighters” and pledges the group’s commitment to negotiations with the Malian government and “the fight against terrorism in the Azawad and transnational crime.” Ag Assaleh was one of four Turareg rebels to have Bamako lift a warrant for his arrest in October, 2013 in the interests of furthering national reconciliation (Jeune Afrique/AFP, October 29, 2013).

Ibrahim ag Muhammad Assaleh

The new movement is led by its chairman, Ibrahim ag Muhammad Assaleh, the former external affairs representative of the MNLA, and a bureau of 32 members, overwhelmingly consisting of Tuareg leaders despite the movement’s claims to represent a broad spectrum of individuals from the Tuareg, Arab, Fulani and Songhai communities of northern Mali. CPA leader Ag Assaleh has made reference to fighters joining the CPA from the “tribes of Ansongo Cercle,” likely a suggestion the movement was being joined by Songhai fighters from that region, which straddles the Niger River south of Gao (Koaci.com, March 20). However, one of the individuals named as an executive member of the CPA, Baye ag Diknane (a founding member of the MNLA), issued an open letter expressing his surprise at being named a top official of the CPA while reaffirming his commitment to the MNLA (Azawad24.com, March 25).

Ag Assaleh was not present at the proclamation in Hassi Labiad, a village 350 kilometers northwest of Timbuktu, as he was in Niamey for talks with various representatives from northern Mali. The announcement was presided over by the CPA’s external relations official, Muhammad Ousmane ag Mohamedoun, in front of 700 attendees, including the Defense Attaché of the Algerian Embassy in Burkina Faso and the first adviser of the Algerian ambassador to Burkina Faso (Le Quotidien [Bamako], March 23). Ag Assaleh maintained that the event was also attended by representatives of the Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA) and the largely Tuareg Haut Conseil pour l’unité de l’Azawad (HCUA) as well as various representatives of the Songhai and Peul/Fulani peoples (Jeune Afrique, March 19; Journaldumali.com, March 19).

The CPA has divided northern Mali (or Azawad) into four military zones, with a commander appointed for each. Tahha ag Alfaki is responsible for military affairs in the western zone, Assaleh ag Muhammad Rabah (a former MNLA negotiator in the Ouagadougou peace talks) is responsible for the southern zone, Mossa ag Ahmedou (former MNLA communications director) is responsible for the eastern zone and Issouf ag Erfal is responsible for the northern zone.

Negotiations appeared promising last summer, when the Tuareg rebels signed the Ouagadougou agreement with Malian authorities on June 18 to allow the July general elections to proceed. However, after the elections, Bamako lost interest in meeting other provisions of the agreement, leading the rebels to suspend negotiations with the government on September 26, 2013 (AFP, October 6, 2013). Insisting that direct negotiations with Bamako are impossible, Ag Assaleh says he has sent requests to the government requesting new talks through mediators from Algeria, Burkina Faso and the Mission multidimensionnelle intégrée des Nations unies pour la stabilisation au Mali (MINUSMA), the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali (Reuters, March 25).

Bilal ag Acherif (Jeune Afrique)

One reason for the split in the MNLA is the growing impatience of some members with the leadership of MNLA secretary-general Bilal ag Acherif, particularly his hardline approach to talks with Bamako and his preference for Morocco as a new mediator in the peace talks. With apparent Algerian support for the creation of the CPA, it now appears that the Algerian-Moroccan cold war is now finding Malian proxies, complicating progress in an already difficult peace process (for growing Algerian-Moroccan tensions, see Terrorism Monitor, November 28, 2013).

Ag Assaleh suggests that ag Achérif is involving the Tuareg in Morocco’s struggle with Algeria, noting that while there are no Tuareg communities in Morocco, Algeria, by contrast, is the home of Tuareg groups closely related to those in northern Mali.

If there had been no French colonization, there would be no border between Azawad and Algeria. Our people are located on either side of this boundary… Listen, I’m very independent towards Algerian interests and we are autonomous in our fight. If you think I am close to Algeria, I would respond,”Yes, we are [close] geographically and socially. The majority of southern Algeria is occupied by Tuareg. I could even say I’m 50% Algerian (Jeune Afrique, March 10).

While Ag Assaleh maintains that the independence of Azawad has not been on the agenda since the Ouagadougou Accords, he has also insisted on the full implementation of the Accords’ provisions and warned that: “If the ceasefire is not respected by the Malian side, we will have to return to war” (Jeune Afrique, March 10).

Note

1. “Déclaration de création de la Coalition du Peuple pour l’Azawad (CPA),” 22 Septembre [Bamako] March 24, 2014, http://maliactu.net/declaration-de-creation-de-la-coalition-du-peuple-pour-lazawad-cpa/

This article first appeared in the April 3, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

The Jihad Alternative in West Africa: Hamada Ould Kheirou and the Founding of MUJWA

Posted on April 1, 2014 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

April 1, 2014

Much of West Africa has strong traditions of jihad in its Black communities dating back to the early 19^th century Islamic kingdoms that dominated the region. Their roots in Islam go back centuries earlier. When Arab and Tuareg jihadists established control of northern Mali in 2012, it became apparent that the Arab-centric jihadist movement was failing to attract Black recruits in the numbers necessary to spread Islamist extremism in the rest of Mali and beyond. This situation was addressed by a 44-year-old Mauritanian, Hamada Ould Muhammad Kheirou (a.k.a. Abu Qum Qum). As leader of the Harakat al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad fi Gharb Afriqiya (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa – MUJWA), Ould Kheirou sought to expand the recruitment pool of the regional jihadist movement beyond its Arab core. Initially successful, Ould Kheirou briefly became one of the most powerful individuals in northern Mali.

Hamada Ould Muhammad al-Kheirou (al-Akhbar)

Ould Kheirou, born in Mauritania in 1970, attended a Koranic school as a child, developing a reputation as a poet in classical Arabic (outside of religious studies, Mauritanians typically speak the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic common to northwest Africa). The Koranic student grew up at a time when Salafist interpretations of Islam were penetrating Mauritania with support and funding from Saudi Arabia.

Eventually, Ould Kheirou became a preacher, known for his provocative sermons in Nouakchott denouncing the “innovations” of traditional Islamic practices in Mauritania. There is little doubt the fiery preacher came to the attention of Mauritanian security services as former president Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya initiated a crackdown on Salafists and other opponents of his regime in 2003. Perhaps not coincidentally, Ould Kheirou is reported to have left to join the jihad in Iraq the same year (Magharebia, December 10, 2012).

“True Islam” and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

Back in Mauritania, Ould Kheirou was arrested in Nouakchott with two other men in 2005 for committing acts of violence against worshippers in a mosque he claimed did not engage in “true Islam” (Jeune Afrique, October 3, 2012; Sahara Media, January 12, 2012). Mauritanian Islam is dominated by two Sufi orders, the Tijaniya and Qadiriya, though Ould Kheirou has been known to even criticize other Salafists if they are unwilling to take up arms. Ould Kheirou escaped detention with two other Islamists dressed as women a few months later in April, 2006. Unconfirmed rumors suggested that Ould Kheirou fled to neighboring Senegal, but in June 2007, an in absentia judgment found Ould Kheirou not guilty on all charges.

Shortly after this, Ould Kheirou appears to have joined Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s al-Mulathamin Battalion, one of the armed wings of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operating in the Sahara. During this period, Ould Kheirou began developing skills as an AQIM bomb-maker, assisted by fellow Mauritanian Tiyib Ould Sidi Ali.

In 2009, Ould Kheirou and Ould Sidi Ali were arrested in Bamako for bomb-making activities after their workshop blew up and were additionally charged with sending supplies to the forces of AQIM amir Mokhtar Belmokhtar in northern Mali. His stay in prison was again short; his release the following year appears to have been part of the terms for AQIM’s release of French hostage Pierre Camatte in February 2010 (al-Akhbar [Nouakchott], August 27, 2010; Jeune Afrique, October 3, 2012). By August of the same year, Ould Kheirou was making his first AQIM video, explaining al-Qaeda’s objectives in the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic in a video entitled “On the Occasion of Ramadan Fighting is Ordained for You.” Despite a severe approach to religion, Ould Kheirou has a reputation amongst his fellow fighters for his sense of humor and his poetry recitals, which he punctuates with gunfire (Sahara Media, January 9, 2012). His poetry, designed to appeal to the warrior caste of the Mauritanian tribes, has featured prominently in AQIM videos.

Diversifying Jihad

Despite existing differences with the AQIM leadership over the domination of the movement by Algerian commanders and problems regarding the distribution of ransoms, Ould Kheirou’s creation of MUJWA in mid-2011 appears to have been less of a split within the movement than an effort at expansion through the creation of an organization with greater appeal to Black West Africans by appealing to their own traditions of jihad.

MUJWA’s first video, released on December 12, 2011, displayed three European aid workers abducted from the Polisario camp in Tindouf in October 2011. A second video released in December 2011 presented the ideological basis of the group, praising the 19^th century jihads of West African Islamic rulers such as Amadou Cheikou, Umar Tall and Uthman Dan Fodio in what appeared to be a break from al-Qaeda’s usual Arab-centric narrative designed to entice Black Africans to join the West African jihad (AFP, December 22, 2011). Despite the new approach to recruitment, MUJWA’s leadership remained almost exclusively dominated by Malian Arabs and Mauritanians. Suggestions that the creation of the new movement marked a split within AQIM were gradually dispelled by the apparent cooperation between the two movements after the “split” and MUJWA’s continued focus on the Algerian targets favored by AQIM.

Despite the explicit attempts to appeal to Black Muslims, MUJWA described itself as an alliance incorporating Arabs, Tuareg, Black Africans and various muhajirin (foreign fighters). The movement accused the Tuareg of the Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) of racism, claiming that Blacks had no rights in the secular Tuareg independence movement. [1] However, MUJWA’s sole Black African commander, Hisham Bilal, quit the movement and returned to his native Niger with his men in November 2012, complaining that the Arab commanders of MUJWA viewed Black jihadists as “cannon fodder” and believed “a black man is inferior to an Arab or a white” (AFP, November 9, 2012). For the duration of its existence, most of the leadership of MUJWA remained firmly in the hands of Lamhar Arabs from Tilemsi (Gao region of northern Mali) and various Mauritanian jihadists such as Ould Kheirou and his companions.

According to regional analyst Wolfram Lacher, MUJWA’s core leadership was drawn mostly from Lamhar Arabs who were heavily involved in narcotics trafficking and kidnapping activities with support and financing from Lamhar and Songhai businessmen. [2] These origins have sparked suspicions that the movement was more about putting a political and religious face on a criminal enterprise than bringing Islamic rule to the Sahara/Sahel region (RFI, August 9, 2012).

In early January 2012, only days after Mauritania issued an international arrest warrant for his arrest, Ould Kheirou appeared in a new video to “declare war on France, which is hostile to the interests of Islam… The jihad will be exported everywhere it is necessary and for God, we must be ready for anything” (AFP, January 3, 2012). Only a year later, Ould Kheirou’s movement would find itself face-to-face with French troops.

The Northern Mali Caliphate

When the MNLA and the Tuareg Islamist Ansar al-Din movement seized control of northern Mali from January to April 2012, an opportunity was presented to regional jihadists to establish an Islamist administration based on their own interpretation of Shari’a. Working in cooperation with Ansar al-Din to drive out the secular MNLA, AQIM soon found itself in control of Timbuktu Province, while Gao Province came under the control of MUJWA.

Relying on their old relationship, Ould Kheirou and Mokhtar Belmokhtar worked closely together during the Islamist occupation of northern Mali, including joint operations against the Tuareg MNLA. MUJWA’s governance in Gao alternated between strict application of Shari’a and attendant hudud punishments and greater leniency when faced with protests from local residents. Ultimately, MUJWA sought to impose its will on Gao by recruiting local Songhai (the majority in Gao) to form the core of the Islamic police. Some attempt was made at providing a working administration but the movement’s focus on enforcing Shari’a overshadowed these attempts.

Ahmad al-Tilemsi

In July 2012, al-Kheirou was added to the US Specially Designated Nationals sanctions list by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, along with his jihadi colleague, Ahmad al-Tilemsi (a.k.a. ‘Abd al-Rahman Ould Amer), a Lamhar Arab from northern Mali and commander of MUJWA’s Osama bin Laden katiba (battalion). [3] Al-Tilemsi’s allegiance to jihad came late and may have been primarily motivated by a desire to maintain his business and drug-trafficking interests after the sudden Islamist occupation of the north.

Also in July, Ould Kheirou was falsely reported to have crossed the border to surrender to Algerian authorities in Tamanrasset (Echourouk al-Youmi [Algiers], July 8, 2012). Ould Kheirou was again reported captured, this time by the MNLA in February 2013, but the report was never confirmed (Tass, February 4, 2013).

Though MUJWA was supposedly a new movement with an independent agenda, its focus on Algerian targets in this period was virtually indistinguishable from AQIM’s agenda and confirmed that the movement was more interested in using northern Mali as a launching point for jihadist attacks than running a competent Islamic administration:

March 3, 2012: MUJWA claims responsibility for a suicide car-bombing on the Algerian Gendarmerie Nationale headquarters in Tamanrasset that killed the bomber and wounded 24 people, including ten to 15 gendarmes (al-Arabiya, March 3; Echorouk [Algiers], March 3). The bomber used a Toyota 4×4 packed with explosives.
April 2012: MUJWA kidnaps seven Algerian diplomats in Gao, demanding 15 million Euros and the release of dozens of jihadists from Algerian and Mauritanian prisons (al-Watan [Algiers], May 3, 2012). One of the diplomats was executed on September 2, 2012.
June 29, 2012: A car bomber drove a Toyota 4×4 loaded with 1300 kilograms of explosives into a police station in Algeria’s Ouargla Oasis, killing one policeman and injuring three. MUJWA claimed the attack, saying it was in retaliation for Algeria “pushing” the MNLA to fight the Islamist mujahideen in northern Mali (Tout sur l’Algérie [Algiers], June 30, 2012; Reuters, June 29).

Friction began to build between the various Islamist movements in northern Mali as preparations continued for a French military intervention in the region and Ansar al-Din sought to move closer to its Tuareg brethren in the MNLA to present a united front in negotiations underway in Ouagadougou. Shortly after a major battle between the MNLA and MUJWA on November 16, 2012, a leading member of Ansar al-Din’s military command referred to MUJWA as the “common enemy” of both the MNLA and Ansar al-Din (Le Temps d’Algérie, November 27, 2012).

MNLA Fighters with the Azawad Flag (Maliweb)

By early January, 2013, Ansar al-Din was engaged in a broad effort to unite the various Islamist movements active in northern Mali under its own “native” leadership. MUJWA lost its Salah al-Din katiba when its commander, Sultan Ould Badi (a.k.a. Abu ‘Ali, a.k.a Abzou Aïcha), took his fighters over to Ansar al-Din (Sahara Media, January 2, 2013). Ould Badi, another Lamhar Arab, was a former smuggler and member of AQIM before becoming a founding member of MUJWA (Echourouk al-Youmi [Algiers], September 2, 2012). His departure appeared to be part of an exodus of members after the group received a UN terrorist designation.

Merger with Mokhtar Belmokhtar

The French-led military intervention in northern Mali that arrived in January 2013 ran into little opposition from MUJWA as the movement and their fellow Islamists returned home, melted into the local population or fled to hidden bases in the rugged Adrar des Ifoghas region of northeastern Mali. On February 21, 2013, the UN Security Council added Ahmad al-Tilemsi and Ould Kheirou to its al-Qaeda sanctions list. Both were listed as MUJWA leaders. [4]

However, Ould Kheirou’s partnership with Mokhtar Belmokhtar had not come to an end. The two were identified as co-planners of the May 23, 2013 dual suicide bombings in Niger against a military post in Agadez and the French uranium mining facility in Arlit (RFI, May 30, 2013). The partnership was formalized in August 2013, when a statement announced the merger of MUJWA with Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s al-Mulathamin Brigade “to achieve the unity of Muslims from the Nile to the Atlantic as part of a single project to face the Zionist campaign against Islam and Muslims.” The statement announcing the creation of a new post-merger movement called al-Murabitun went on to threaten French interests across the world while confirming the precedence of Osama bin Laden’s methods and ideals. The movement also swore allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and al-Qaeda chieftain Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri (Agence Nouakchott d’Information, August 22, 2013). The place of Ould Kheirou in this new structure is unclear – Belmokhtar himself has pledged not to lead the group in order to make room for “a new generation” of Islamist militants, possibly including Ould Kheirou.

AIS Update 2022 – What Happened to the MUJWA Leadership?

Ahmad al-Tilemsi – The jihadist commander was killed by French forces on December 11, 2014.

Sultan Ould Badi – After 2017, Ould Badi joined the Islamic State movement. He surrendered to Algerian authorities on August 11, 2018 to take advantage of an ongoing amnesty for former jihadists.

Hamada Ould al-Kheirou – The MUJWA leader appeared to have joined the Islamic State in 2014, but disappeared from public view shortly after. One report suggests he was killed in an airstrike in Libya in July, 2017.

Notes

Statement from the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen, Gao, November 23, 2012
Wolfram Lacher, “Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 13, 2012, http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/09/13/organized-crime-and-conflict-in-sahel-sahara-region/dtjm
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20121207.aspx
UN Security Council, “Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee Adds Two Individuals to its List,” February 21, 2013, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2013/sc10923.doc.htm