Revolutionary Roadshow: Libyan Arms and Fighters Bring Instability to North and West Africa: Part One: The Libyan Pandemonium

Posted on February 8, 2012 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

February 8, 2012

A year after the eruption of Libya’s spontaneous revolution, there are few signs of progress towards establishing internal security or a democratic government. Real power lies in the hands of well-armed militias with little inclination to disarm or demobilize and the ruling Transitional National Council (TNC) has been reduced to holding its meetings in secret to avoid bottle-throwing, grenade-hurling demonstrators. Amidst this turmoil come increasingly louder demands for a Shari’a regime as the old regime’s looted armories and former soldiers fuel new insurrections in the Sahel/Sahara region. Even as neighboring Mali descends into a new round of rebellion that threatens to become an all-out civil war, Niger and Algeria are struggling to find ways to break the wave of violence at their borders.

The alarming developments on the Libyan periphery inspired a special two-day meeting of foreign ministers and intelligence chiefs from Mali, Algeria Mauritania and Niger in Nouakchott in late January. These officials also invited their counterparts from Nigeria and Burkina Faso to discuss the rising “terrorist threat” in the Sahel/Sahara region and the possibility of ties between AQIM and Nigeria’s Boko Haram militants (AFP, January 23; PANA, January 24; Nouvel Horizon [Bamako], January 24).

Libya’s Political Chaos

In some ways it is proving difficult to distinguish between the new and old regimes in Libya as reports emerge of widespread torture and consequent deaths in detention centers run by the new military security agency and various militias. The UN estimates some 8,500 Libyans are held in militia-run prisons in and around Benghazi that have no external supervision (Telegraph, January 26). Libyan and UN authorities admit that they do not even know where all the detention centers are in Libya (AFP, January 25).

The ruling TNC has been forced to meet in secret after their Benghazi offices were stormed by protesters who tossed home-made grenades, set part of the building on fire and pelted TNC chairman Mustafa Abd al-Jalil with empty bottles (NOW Lebanon, January 22; al-Sharq al-Awsat, January 25). Only days earlier, the TNC deputy leader, Abd al-Hafiz Ghoga, was verbally abused and manhandled by protesters who questioned the sincerity of his defection from the Qaddafi regime (NOW Lebanon, January19). Ghoga’s subsequent resignation was rejected by the TNC (AFP, January 30). The fact that these incidents occurred in Benghazi, the TNC’s supposed stronghold, do not auger will for the future success of the interim government. The TNC already acknowledges it has little control over most of the country, which continues to be largely administered by well-armed militias. A campaign on Libyan social media seeks to undermine the transitional government with calls on Facebook and Twitter for the overthrow of the TNC, which is described in the messages as working for the return of the Qaddafi dictatorship (al-Sharq al-Awsat, January 25).

Libya’s Muslim Brothers have already demonstrated their political savvy in the creation of the new Libyan government by successfully demanding that two-thirds of the new assembly’s seats be reserved for candidates from political movements, a regulation that virtually guarantees the Muslim Brotherhood a dominant role in the new government as one of Libya’s only well-organized political movements (AFP, January 28). Restrictions on the participation of former members of the government in the electoral process automatically eliminate much of the Brotherhood’s opposition in contesting seats for the assembly. Thousands of Libyans have joined street demonstrations in Benghazi demanding the immediate implementation of Shari’a and its incorporation into a new Libyan constitution (AFP/NOW Lebanon, January 21).

Libyan Prime Minister Abdurrahim al-Keib has recently warned of the danger posed by Qaddafi loyalists who had escaped the Libyan revolutionaries: “This is a threat for us, for neighboring countries and our shared relations” (Reuters, January 20). However, recent reports that pro-Qaddafi fighters had attacked a militia occupying the southern city of Bani Walid reveal how easily these fears can be manipulated to repress political opposition.

Though militia statements indicated the Bani Walid fighters were Qaddafi loyalists, the violence was in reality the result of anger over thefts and arbitrary arrests committed by May 28 Brigade members that boiled over when a number of armed Bani Walid residents arrived at the Brigade’s base to demand the release of a local arrested by the militia. The Warfallah tribe, Libya’s largest and the dominant group in Bani Walid, demanded that the Brigade be disarmed and brought under Defense Ministry control (AFP, January 27). Though various militias had gathered around Bani Walid for a major assault on the city’s alleged “pro-Qaddafi” elements, the TNC declined to open a new round of fighting and instead sent Defense Minister Osama al-Juwali (himself a commander in the Zintan Brigade militia) to negotiate a settlement (Jordan Times, January 26). Libyan Interior Minister Fawzi Abdelali later clarified the situation by denying the uprising against the thwar (Libyan revolutionaries) was the work of pro-Qaddafi militants (NOW Lebanon, January 23). The talks led to TNC recognition of a tribal-based local government in Bani Walid, which should set an interesting precedent for decentralized government as the TNC attempts to extend its influence in post-revolutionary Libya.

Jordan is trying to alleviate the problem of rogue militias by undertaking the training in Jordan of some 10,000 thwar as preparation for their integration into Libya’s new military and security services (Jordan Times, January 20). However, it may prove difficult to convince the gunmen to abandon their new powerbases at a time when their armed presence will guarantee them a share in the considerable revenues of a new, oil-rich administration. Alternatively, Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, has offered to help Libya disarm its militias and integrate them into the new national police and military units (BBC, January 8). Al-Bashir received a warm welcome from the TNC in a mid-January visit to Libya, despite being wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in neighboring Darfur (Le Monde, January 19).

Pro-Qaddafi Tuareg Fighters in Libya

A New Tuareg Rebellion

The overthrow of the Qaddafi regime has had an enormous impact on Libya’s southern neighbors, most notably in Mali. Much has changed in Mali’s arid north since the leading Tuareg rebel, Ibrahim ag Bahanga, was killed in mysterious circumstances on August 26, 2011 (see Terrorism Monitor, September 16, 2011). [1] A prominent opponent of the political and military domination of Mali by the Bambara (one of the largest Mandé ethnic groups in West Africa), Ag Bahanga had been harbored by Qaddafi’s Libya after his defeat by Malian forces aided by Arab and Tuareg militias in 2009 (see Terrorism Focus, February 25, 2009). At the time of his death, it was widely believed in Mali that Ag Bahanga was preparing a new rebellion with weapons obtained from Libyan armories (Nouvelle Liberation [Bamako], August 17, 2011; Ennahar [Algiers] August 27, 2011). Ag Bahanga publicly opposed the “intolerance preached by the Salafists” of AQIM and at one point even proposed that his men be used as a mobile counterterrorist strike force (El Watan [Algiers], August 29, 2011; see also Terrorism Monitor, November 4, 2010). Ag Bahanga was an active recruiter for Qaddafi’s loyalist forces but later described the Libyan strongman’s death as an opportunity to advance Tuareg efforts to create a new state, Azawad, composed of the three northern territories of Mali; Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.

Since Ag Bahanga’s death, a new Tuareg independence movement has been formed from a mixture of veteran rebels, defectors from the Malian Army and the recently returned Tuareg veterans of the Libyan Army who arrived in northern Mali in several heavily-armed convoys. The military commander of the Mouvement National pour la Liberation de l’Azawad (MNLA – National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad) is Colonel Muhammad ag Najim, a Malian Tuareg formerly of the Libyan Army (Proces-Verbal [Bamako], January 30). According to one report, each of the three major MNLA units is commanded by a pair of officers, one a veteran of the Libyan army, the other a defector from the Malian army (Jeune Afrique, January 24).

The military base at Aguel Hoc (Kidal Region) was attacked by the MNLA on January 18 and again on January 24 (L’Essor [Bamako], January 26). Unlike the raids that characterized past Tuareg rebellions, the intent this time was to take and hold the town. As the MNLA poured reinforcements into the fighting the government forces ran out of ammunition, forcing a complete withdrawal from the town on January 27 (Reuters, January 27). Similar attacks occurred simultaneously at Menaka and Tessalit. According to a Malian military source, the assailants in Menaka were equipped with Katyusha rockets, courtesy of the looted Libyan armories (AFP, January 19).

The MNLA appears to be conducting joint operations with a new Tuareg Islamist movement. Iyad ag Ghali, one of the leaders of the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s has formed a movement demanding the institution of Shari’a in Mali (Info Matin [Bamako], January 12; 22 Septembre [Bamako], January 12). By doing so, Ag Ghali, who remains powerful in Kidal Region, has introduced an Islamist element to the traditional ethnic-nationalism that has fueled past Tuareg uprisings. Ag Ghali claimed it was his new Islamist movement, Harakat Ansar al-Din, that was most responsible for the January 18 seizure of Aguel Hoc (Sahara Media [Nouakchott], January 19).

It may have been Ag Ghali’s group that Mali’s Defense Ministry was referring to when it claimed units of AQIM jihadis had joined the MNLA in the assault on Aguel Hoc (AFP, January 26; al-Jazeera, January 27). By the end of January, Bamako was claiming the attack on Aguel Hoc was the combined work of AQIM, the MNLA and “a group linked to religious fundamentalists” (most likely Ag Ghali’s Ansar ad-Din) (L’Essor [Bamako], January 30). A Paris-based representative of the MNLA, Moussa ag Acharatoumane, told journalists that he rejected the government’s claim his movement had been joined by AQIM jihadis: “We’ve heard all this before. Every time Mali finds itself unable to battle our fighters, the Malian government tries to link us to terrorists. We reject all forms of terrorism. Our intention is to get rid of the drug traffickers and AQIM from our soil” (AP, January 27; Reuters, January 27).

A Malian army counterattack directed from the Gao headquarters of General Gabriel Poudiougou succeeded in briefly driving off the Tuareg occupying Aguel Hoc and Tessalit, with the reported loss of 45 to 50 insurgents including Colonel Assalat ag Habbi, a deserter from the Malian military, to the loss of two dead government soldiers (L’Essor, January 23; Maliba Info [Bamako], January 19). [2] However, the army’s success was short-lived, as it was not long before MNLA fighers returned to the towns, inflicting heavy losses on government forces.

The Tuareg widened the rebellion on January 26 by attacking tow ouposts more than 500 miles apart; Anderamboukane in the east and Lere in Mali’s northwest, taking the latter without a fight after a small government garrison was withdrawn (AP, January 26; Reuters, January 27). Reeling from Tuareg attacks, the Malian military withdrew to Niafunke, which was then promptly attacked and taken by the MNLA (Le Combat [Bamako], January 31).

With thousands of Tuareg and Arab refugees crossing into neighboring Niger, there is alarm in the Nigérien capital of Niamey that the rebellion in Mali may spread to the Tuareg community of northern Niger, which has a similar volatile mix of well-armed, disaffected Tuareg returnees from the conflict in Libya. Niger’s president, Issifou Mahamadou, appealed for an end to the ethnic divisions that have plagued the Sahara/Sahel region: “Let us cease shooting each other in the foot; let us stop stabbing one another. Let us stop dividing ourselves, taking recourse to our ethnic groups, to our region” (Tele Sahel [Niamey], January 24).

Note

1. For a profile of Ibrahim ag Bahanga, see Andrew McGregor, “Rebel Leader Turned Counter-Terrorist?: Tuareg’s Ag Bahanga,” Militant Leadership Monitor, March 30, 2010.

2. Both the MNLA and the Malian Army issue reports of massive losses to their opponents while reporting only minimal or no casualties to their own forces.

This article first appeared as a Jamestown Foundation “Hot Topic” Special Commentary, February 8, 2012.

A Portable War: Libya’s Internal Conflict Shifts to Mali

Posted on October 28, 2011 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

October 28, 2011

Mali, like its neighbor Niger, is facing the return of an estimated 200,000 of its citizens from Libya. Most are Malian workers and their families who have been forced to flee Libya by the virulently “anti-African” forces that have seized power in that country. Some, however, are long-term Tuareg members of the Libyan military who have suddenly lost their jobs but not their arms. Armed Tuareg began returning to northern Mali in large numbers in August and continue to arrive in their homeland in convoys from Libya (El-Khabar [Algiers], August 29).

Unfortunately, Mali has nothing to offer these returnees; not aid, not employment, nor even a sense of national identity; in sum, nothing that might provide some counter-incentive to rebellion. Disenchantment with the West is at an all-time high among the Tuareg. Even the French have fallen from favor; while the Tuareg could once count on a sympathetic reception in Paris and from elements of the French military, in the last few months Tuareg fighters have found themselves on the receiving end of French airstrikes and their home communities attacked by French-armed rebels. Both France and the United States have also made extensive efforts to train and equip the generally ineffective and cash-strapped militaries of Mali, Niger and several other Sahara/Sahel states in the name of combatting terrorism, improvements that run counter to Tuareg interests. A Malian government minister was quoted by a French news agency as saying the returning Malians were really a Libyan problem: “They’re Libyans, all the same. It’s up to the Transitional National Council [TNC] to play the card of national reconciliation and to accept them, so that the Sahel, already destabilized, doesn’t get worse” (AFP, October 10).

Pro-Qaddafi Tuareg Fighters in Libya

Another 400 armed Tuareg arrived in northern Mali from Libya on October 15, with many keeping their distance from authorities by heading straight into the northern desert (Ennahar [Algiers], October 18). Their arrival prompted an urgent invitation from Algeria for President Touré to visit Algerian president Abdel Aziz Bouteflika (Maliba [Bamako], October 17). According to Malian officials, the returned Tuareg were in two armed groups; the first with some 50 4×4 trucks about 25 miles outside the northern town of Kidal, the second consisting of former followers and associates of Ibrahim ag Bahanga grouped near Tinzawatene on the Algerian border (Reuters, October 20; L’Aube [Bamako], October 13). An ominous development was the recent desertion of three leading Tuareg officers from the Malian Army, including Colonel Assalath ag Khabi, Lieutenant-Colonel Mbarek Akly Ag and Commander Hassan Habré. All three are reported to have headed for the north (El Watan [Algiers], October 20).

Colonel Hassan ag Fagaga, a prominent rebel leader and cousin of the late Ibrahim ag Bahanga who has already deserted the Armée du Malitwice to join rebellions in the north, was given a three-year leave “for personal reasons without pay” by Maliian defense minister Natie Plea beginning on July 1, apparently for the purpose of allowing ag Fagaga to lead a group of young Tuareg to Libya to join the defense of Qaddafi’s regime (Le Hoggar [Bamako], September 16). Ag Fagaga is now believed to be back in northern Mali, preparing for yet another round of rebellion.

The Malian government’s response to these developments was to send Interior Minister General Kafougouna Kona north to open talks with the rebels. General Kona has experience in negotiating with the Tuareg and is trusted by President Touré (BBC, October 17).

According to some reports, Qaddafi offered the Tuareg their own Sahelian/Saharan state to secure their loyalty (al-Jazeera, September 28; El Watan [Algiers], October 20). Only days before his resignation, Dr. Mahmud Jibril, the chairman of the Executive Bureau of the Libyan TNC, suggested that Mu’ammar Qaddafi was planning to use the Tuareg tribes to fight his way back into power, adding that the late Libyan leader was constantly on the move in Tuareg territories in southern Libya, northern Niger and southern Algeria. Rather bizarrely, Jibril then claimed that Qaddafi’s operatives in Darfur were raising a force of 10,000 to 15,000 Rashaydah tribesmen from Sudan (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 19). The Rashaydah are an Arab tribe found in the Arabian Peninsula, but also in Eritrea and the Eastern Province of Sudan, where they moved in large numbers in the mid-19^th century. In general the Rashaydah remain aloof from local politics, preferring to focus on their camel herds. Jibril’s suggestion that large numbers of Rashaydah tribesmen could be rallied to Qaddafi’s cause seems strange and highly unlikely.

Arms Smuggling and Drug Trafficking

The Tamanrasset-based Joint Operational Military Committee, created by the intelligence services of Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania in 2010 to provide a joint response to border security and terrorism issues, has turned its attention to trying to control the outflow of arms from Libya (see Terrorism Monitor Brief, July 8, 2010). The committee, which got off to a slow start, has announced its “first success”; identifying 26 arms traffickers and issuing warrants for their arrest (Jeune Afrique, October 14; L’Essor [Bamako], October 6). The list includes a number of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) commanders and is based on an investigation that discovered three major networks for smuggling arms out of Libya, the “most dangerous” consisting of Chadians and Libyans (Sahara Media [Nouakchott], October 8).

Security sources in the Sahel are reporting that AQIM is expanding its operations into the very lucrative business of people-smuggling by setting up an elaborate network that has the added advantage of allowing AQIM operatives to infiltrate into Europe (Info Matin [Bamako], October 6).

Drug trafficking continues to be another destabilizing factor in northern Mali as well-armed gangs battle over the lucrative trade. In early September at least five gunmen were killed in a battle between Tuareg traffickers and Reguibat Arabs with ties to the Saharawi Polisario Front. The battle ensued after the Tuareg kidnapped three Reguibat, including a senior Polisario officer, Major Harane Ould Zouida (Jeune Afrique, September 20). Such incidents are far from unknown in today’s Sahara; in January a major battle was fought between Bérabiche Arabs running drugs to Libya and Tuareg demanding a fee for passing through their territory (El Watan [Algiers], January 4; see also Terrorism Monitor, January 14). In this environment, drug traffickers are likely to be offering premium prices for military hardware finding its way out of Libya.

Traditional authority is now being challenged in both the Arab and Tuareg communities of northern Mali as AQIM, smugglers, rebel leaders and traffickers compete for the loyalty of young men in a severely underdeveloped region. The “noble” clans of the Arab and Tuareg communities have also suffered electoral defeats at the hands of “vassal” clans, a development the former blame on the vassal candidates buying votes with smuggling money (U.S. Embassy Bamako cable, February 1, 2010, as published in the Guardian, December 14, 2010; Le Monde, December 22, 2010; MaliKounda.com, December 7, 2009). The rivalry has spilled over into a contest for control of trafficking and smuggling networks. Ex-fighters of the Sahrawi Polisario Front (currently confined to camps in southern Algeria) have also entered the struggle for dominance in cross-Saharan drug smuggling. Members of Venezuelan, Spanish, Portuguese and Colombian drug cartels engage in frequently bloody competition in Bamako that rarely attracts the attention of the police (El Watan [Algiers], January 3).

A Tuareg Member of Parliament from the Kidal Region, Deyti ag Sidimo, has been charged by Algeria with involvement in arms and drug trafficking. The MP may be extradited to Algeria if his parliamentary immunity is lifted (Info Matin [Bamako], October 13; Le Combat [Bamako], October 4; Jeune Afrique, October 9-15).

Attack on the Abeibara Barracks

An example of the government’s inability to secure the Kidal region of north Mali was presented on October 2, when gunmen arrived at the site of a military barracks under construction in Abeibara. The gunmen sent the workers away with a warning not to return under pain of death before blowing up the construction materials. A National Guard unit tasked with protecting the work was apparently absent at the time of the attack. Military officials admitted that they did not know if the gunmen were AQIM, soldiers just returned from Libya or part of a criminal gang involved in the trafficking the construction of the barracks was meant to prevent (Info Matin [Bamako], October 26; AFP, October 3). It has also been suggested the attack was the work of local companies that had been outbid on the construction contract (Le Prétoire [Bamako], October 5). Fifteen soldiers were killed when a military garrison at Abeibara was attacked by a Tuareg rebel group under Ibrahim ag Bahanga in 2008 (Reuters, May 23, 2008).

Burned-out AQIM vehicle in the Wagadou Forest

Mauritanian Raid in Mali’s Wagadou Forest

Mauritanian jets carried out air strikes on October 20 on AQIM forces gathered in the Wagadou Forest (60 miles south of the Mali-Mauritania border), allegedly destroying two vehicles loaded with explosives (L’Agence Mauritanienne d’Information [AMI – Nouakchott], October 20; AFP, October 22). The Mauritanians appear to have hit their primary target, AQIM commander Tayyib Ould Sid Ali, who was on board one of the vehicles destroyed in the air strike. Mauritanian officials confirmed his death, saying Sid Ali was preparing new terrorist attacks in Mauritania after having been active in the region since 2007 (Ennahar [Algiers], October 22). The precision of the attack in difficult terrain suggested that Nouakchott had received accurate intelligence information regarding Sid Ali’s location. Mauritania’s security services had disrupted a Sid Ali-planned attempt to assassinate Mauritanian president Muhammad Ould Abdel Aziz in Nouakchott in February by intercepting AQIM vehicles after they crossed the border (Quotidien Nouakchott, February 3; see also Terrorism Monitor Brief, February 10).

Mauritania’s aggressive French-backed approach to the elimination of AQIM has seen several Mauritanian military incursions into Mali in the last year, including a previous ground assault on an AQIM camp in the Wagadou Forest in June that killed 15 militants and destroyed a number of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons possibly obtained from looted Libyan armories (Sahara Media [Nouakchott], June 25; AFP, June 26; see also Terrorism Monitor Brief, July 7). Mali’s military has played only a minimal role in these operations and questions have been raised in Bamako regarding the government’s prior knowledge of these events and the military’s relative lack of participation.

2012 Elections

With the second term of Amadou Toumani Touré’s presidency coming to an end, national elections will determine a new government for Mali in Spring 2012. Though at least 20 individuals are expected to run for president, the contest is expected to be fought hardly between three prominent candidates, Dioncounda Traore, Soumaila Cisse and Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Mali’s Islamists see a political opportunity in the coming elections, with noted religious leaders Cherif Ousmane Madani Haidara and Imam Mahmoud Dicko making it clear Islamist groups will be involved (L’Indépendant [Bamako], September 29).

Reshaping the Rebellion

Three factors have redrawn the shape and ambition of the simmering rebellion in northern Mali in the last few months:

The arrival in northern Mali (and neighboring Niger) of hundreds of experienced Tuareg combat veterans with enough weapons and ammunition to sustain an extended and possibly successful rebellion against a weak national defense force.

The death of the controversial rebel leader Ibrahim ag Bahanga has removed a powerful but often divisive force in the Tuareg rebel leadership. This has opened space for the development of new coalitions and the emergence of new leaders with a broader base of support.

The July declaration of independence by South Sudan has provided the lesson that a determined and sustained rebellion can overcome internal divisions and foreign opposition to arrive at eventual independence, even if secession means leaving with valuable resources such as oil or uranium.

On October 16 the Mouvement National de l’Azawad (MNA) announced its merger with the Mouvement Touareg du Nord Mali (MTNM), led until recently by the late Ibrahim ag Bahanga (mnamov.net, October 17). The resulting Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) stated its intention to use “all means necessary” to end Mali’s “illegal occupation” of “Azawad” if the Bamako government does not open negotiations before November 5. Azawad is the name used by the Tuareg for their traditional territory in the Sahel/Sahara region north of Timbuktu. The term can also include traditional Tuareg lands in northern Niger and southern Algeria. The MNLA spokesman, veteran rebel Hama ag Sid’Ahmed, (former father-in-law of Ibrahim ag Bahanga) said that a number of high-ranking officers from the Libyan military had joined the group (BBC, October 17; Proces-Verbal [Bamako], October 17).

Two other groups have emerged since the return of the fighters from Libya with the stated intent of achieving autonomy for “Azawad.” The first is the Front Démocratique pour l’Autonomie Politique de l’Azawad (FDAPA), which includes veterans of the struggle for Bani Walid under the command of Colonel Awanz ag Amakadaye, a Malian Tuareg who served as a high-ranking officer in the regular Libyan Army (Kidal.Info, October 18; AFP, October 12; MaliWeb, October 25). The other group is an Arab “political and military movement” called the Front Patriotique Arabe de l’Azawad (FPAA). The group appears to be a kind of successor to the Front Islamique Arabe de l’Azawad (FIAA), an earlier expression of Arab militancy in northern Mali. Like the Tuareg, the Arab nomads of northern Mali have in the past suffered attacks from Songhai tribal militias such as the Mouvement Patriotique Ganda Koy (“Masters of the Land,” founded by Mohamed N’Tissa Maiga), which advocated the extermination of the nomadic Arabs and Tuareg of Mali (see interview with Maiga – Le Politicien [Bamako], July 21). These assaults played a large role in initiating the Tuareg and Arab rebellions of the 1990s and there have been calls in certain quarters of Mali for a revival of the Ganda Koy (Le Tambour [Bamako], November 25, 2008; Nouvelle Liberation [Bamako], November 19, 2008).

Conclusion

Mali is experiencing its own “blowback” as a result of its support for the Qaddafi regime in Libya. No effort was made to prevent Malian Tuareg from joining Qaddafi’s forces; indeed, the government even granted leave of absences to Tuareg officers who wished to fight in Libya. Bamako’s thinking no doubt went along the lines of believing that such assistance might help preserve the ever-generous Qaddafi regime; if, on the other hand, things did not go well for the Libyan regime, Bamako could at least count on the loss of a number of troublemakers and officers of uncertain loyalty. What was likely not anticipated was the return of hundreds of well-trained and well-armed Tuareg military professionals, some of whom have been absent from Mali for decades, along with most of the more recent pro-Qaddafi volunteers. Mali is suddenly faced with the possible existence of a professional insurgent force that needs only to fight a war of mobility on its own turf, territory that has often proved disastrous for a Malian military composed mostly of southerners with little or no experience of desert conditions and tactics. If another round of Tuareg rebellion breaks out in Mali, the security forces will be hard pressed to deal with it, leaving ample space and opportunity for AQIM to expand its influence and power at the expense of the Malian state.

This article first appeared in the October 28, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

What the Tuareg Do after the Fall of Qaddafi Will Determine the Security Future of the Sahel

Posted on September 16, 2011 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

September 16, 2011

At least 1,500 Tuareg fighters joined Muammar Qadaffi’s loyalist forces (though some sources cite much larger figures) in the failed defense of his Libyan regime. Many were ex-rebels residing in Libya, while others were recruited from across the Sahel with promises of large bonuses and even Libyan citizenship. Many of the Tuareg fighters are now returning to Mali, Niger and elsewhere in the Sahel, but for some the war may not yet be over; there are reports of up to 500 Tuareg fighters having joined loyalist forces holding the coastal town of Sirte, Qaddafi’s birthplace and a loyalist stronghold (AFP, September 3; September 5).

Tuareg Regions of North Africa

The Regional Dimension of the Libyan Regime’s Collapse

Media in the Malian capital have warned that the “defeated mercenaries” are back from Libya with heavy weapons and lots of money to prepare a new Tuareg rebellion, labeling themselves “combatants for the liberation of Azawad” (Le Pretoire [Bamako], May 9). Mali has not yet recognized the Transitional National Council (TNC) as the new Libyan government; Mali’s reticence in recognizing the rebels as the new government in Libya may have something to do with the large investments made in Mali by the Qaddafi regime (L’Independant [Bamako], September 6). The Libyan leader has significant support in Mali and other parts of West Africa and a number of pro-Qaddafi demonstrations have been witnessed in Mali since the revolution began in February.

The new president of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, has warned of Libya turning into another Somalia, spreading instability throughout the region:

The Libyan crisis amplifies the threats confronting countries in the region. We were already exposed to the fundamentalist threat, to the menace of criminal organizations, drug traffickers, arms traffickers… Today, all these problems have increased. All the more so because weapon depots have been looted in Libya and such weapons have been disseminated throughout the region. Yes, I am very worried: we fear that there may be a breakdown of the Libyan state, as was the case in Somalia, eventually bringing to power religious extremists (Jeune Afrique, July 30).

Algeria has its own concerns, fearing that instability in the Sahara/Sahel will provoke further undesirable French military deployments or interventions in the region.

Convoys Out of Libya

Tuareg troops escaping from Libya have been observed using 4X4 vehicles to cross into Niger (El Khabar [Algiers], August 29).On September 5, it was reported that “an exceptionally large and rare convoy” of over 200 military vehicles belonging to the southern garrisons of the Libyan Army entered the city of Agadez, the capital of the old Tuareg-controlled Agadez sultanate that controlled trade routes in the region for centuries (Le Monde, September 6; AFP, September 6). A number of people reported seeing Tuareg rebel Rhissa Ag Boula in the convoy (Le Monde, September 6). Ag Boula was last reported to have been under arrest in Niamey after re-entering Niger in April 2010. Ag Boula mistakenly believed he was covered by a government amnesty against a death sentence passed in absentia for his alleged role in the assassination of a politician.

According to NATO spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie, the convoy was not tracked by the concentrated array of surveillance assets deployed over Libya: “To be clear, our mission is to protect the civilian population in Libya, not to track and target thousands of fleeing former regime leaders, mercenaries, military commanders and internally displaced people” (AFP, September 6). In a campaign that has seen NATO target civilian television workers as a “threat to civilian lives,” it is difficult to believe that a heavily-armed convoy of 200 vehicles containing Qaddafi loyalists was of no interest to NATO’s operational command. There has been widespread speculation that the convoy contained some part of Libya’s gold reserves, which were moved to the southern Sabha Oasis when the fighting began.

Nigerien foreign minister Mohamed Bazoum initially denied the arrival of a 200 vehicle convoy in his country, but admitted that Abdullah Mansur Daw, Libya’s intelligence chief in charge of Tuareg issues, arrived in Niger on September 4 with nine vehicles (Le Monde [Paris], September 8; AFP, September 5). Daw was accompanied by Agali Alambo, a Tuareg rebel leader who has lived in Libya since 2009 and was cited as a major recruiter of hundreds of former Tuareg rebels in Niger. Alambo later described escaping south through the Murzuq triangle “and then straight down to Agadez” after his party learned the Algerian border was closed and the route into Chad was blocked by Tubu fighters who had joined the TNC (Reuters, September 11). Daw and Alambo reached Niamey on September 5 with an escort of Nigerien military vehicles. Libya’s TNC has promised it will request the extradition of leading Qaddafi loyalists from Niger (AFP, September 10).

General Ali Kana, a Tuareg officer commanding government troops in southern Libya, was reported to have crossed into Niger on September 9 with a force of heavily armed troops (Tripoli Post, September 9). A former spokesman for the Tuareg rebel group Mouvement des nigériens pour la justice (MNJ) said that Kana was considering defecting after having angered Libyan Tuareg by leading an attack on a Tuareg town in Libya in which several Tuareg were killed, and by recruiting Tuareg mercenaries from Mali and Niger but failing to pay them the huge sums of cash he was given by Qadaffi for the purpose (AP, September 9). Ali Kana was reported to be with Libyan Air Force chief Al-Rifi Ali al-Sharif and Mahammed Abidalkarem, military commander in the southern garrison of Murzuq (AFP, September 10).

Some Tuareg returning from the Libyan battlefields expressed disenchantment with their time in Libya, complaining they were not allowed to fight in units composed solely of Tuareg (AFP, April 21). Others have complained they were never paid; one fighter said he was part of a group of 229 Tuareg recruited by Agali Alambo with a promise of a 5,000 Euro advance, but had never seen a penny (AFP, September 3). Others did receive smaller payments and the offer of Libyan citizenship. One Tuareg fighter described being assigned to a Tuareg brigade that was later attached to Khamis al-Qaddafi’s 32^nd Mechanized Brigade for battles in Misrata and elsewhere (The Atlantic, August 31).

Some Tuareg leaders in Niger and Mali are urging Tuareg regulars of the Libyan Army to rally to the rebel cause and remain in Libya rather than return to Niger and Mali with their arms but little chance of employment. The tribal leaders have set up a contact group with the TNC to allow Tuareg regulars to join the rebels without threat of reprisal in an attempt to ward off a civil war in Libya (Reuters, September 4, Radio France Internationale, August 23). “Niger and Mali are very fragile states — they could not take such an influx…” said Mohamed Anacko, the head of the Agadez regional council and a contact group member (Reuters, September 4). At the moment, however, crossing the lines to a disparate and undisciplined rebel army remains a dangerous proposition for Tuareg regulars closely identified with the regime.

The Tuareg may not be the only insurgents forced out of Libya; there are reports from Chadian officials that over 100 heavily armed vehicles belonging to Dr. Khalil Ibrahim’s Darfur-based Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had crossed the Libyan border. Ibrahim had taken refuge in Libya after losing his bases in Chad to a Chadian-Sudanese peace agreement. JEM denied knowledge of the movement and also denied receiving weapons from Libya (AFP, September 9).

Libyan Tuareg

The Libyan Tuareg

Besides the West African Tuareg who rallied to Qaddafi, Libya is home to a Tuareg community of roughly 100,000 people, though the regime has never recognized them as such, claiming they are only an isolated branch of the Arab race. Though some Libyan Tuareg have opposed Qadaffi, many others have found employment in the Libyan regular army, together with volunteers from Mali and Niger. As a result, many Libyans tend to identify all Tuareg as regime supporters. Near the desert town of Ghadames local Tuareg were threatened by rebels seeking to expel them from the city before Algeria opened a nearby border post and began allowing the Tuareg to cross into safety on August 30 (Ennahar [Algiers], September 1; El Khabar [Algiers], September 5). Five hundred Algerian Tuareg were reported to have crossed into Algeria while the border remained open (Le Monde, September 8). Some of the refugees promised to settle their families in Algeria before crossing back into Ghadames with arms to confront the rebels (The Observer, September 2).

The Death of Ibrahim Ag Bahanga

The most prominent of the Tuareg rebel leaders, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, was reported to have died in a vehicle accident in Tin-Essalak on August 26 after having spent most of the last two years as an exile in Libya (Tout sur l’Algérie [Algiers], August 29). [1] It was widely believed in Mali that Ag Bahanga was preparing a new rebellion with weapons obtained from Libyan armories (Nouvelle Liberation [Bamako], August 17; Ennahar [Algiers] August 27).

He was reportedly buried within hours, preventing any examination of the cause of death despite some reports his body showed signs of having been shot repeatedly. Some claim that Ag Bahanga was actually killed by other Tuareg in a dispute over weapons, though others in Mali have suggested the Tuareg rebel leader was killed by a landmine or even a missile after his Thuraya cell phone was detected by French intelligence services, though it seems unlikely the veteran rebel would make such a mistake (L’Indépendant [Bamako], August 30; Le Pretoire [Bamako], September 6; Info Matin [Bamako], August 29). Despite Ag Bahanga’s resolute opposition to the Malian regime, President Ahmadou Toumani Touré was reported to have sent a delegation to Kidal province to offer official condolences on the rebel’s death (Le Republicain [Bamako], August 29). Ag Bahanga was a noted opponent of the political and military domination of Mali by the Bambara, one of the largest Mandé ethnic groups in West Africa (Jeune Afrique, September 8).

The veteran Tuareg rebel had many enemies, including the Algerians, who were incensed by his refusal to adhere to the 2006 Malian peace agreement mediated by Algiers. His rebellion only came to an end when former Tuareg rebels and Bérabiche Arabs joined a Malian government offensive that swept Ag Bahanga and many of his followers from northern Mali in 2009 (see Terrorism Focus, February 25, 2009).

Ag Bahanga returned to Libya, where he became an active recruiter of Tuareg fighters from across the Sahel when the Libyan revolution broke out in February (L’Essor [Bamako], August 29). One returning fighter described seeing Ag Bahanga fighting with loyalist forces at Misrata: “He was with many former rebels from Mali. They were fighting hard for Qaddafi” (The Atlantic, August 31).

If the many reports of Ag Bahanga shipping large quantities of heavy and light weapons and large numbers of 4X4 trucks back to Mali are true, Ag Bahanga was about to become an extremely powerful man in the Sahel. His death will satisfy many, but there are still concerns about the dispersal of his arms, which would certainly be of interest to buyers from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has developed contacts with some young Tuareg by employing them as drivers and guides in unfamiliar territory.

In an interview conducted only days before his death, Ag Bahanga expressed discontent with his one-time patron, offering what might be a bit of revisionist history: “The Tuareg have always wanted Qaddafi to leave Libya, because he always tried to exploit them without any compensation… The disappearance of al-Qaddafi is good news for all the Tuareg in the region…We never had the same goals, but rather the opposite. He has always tried to use the Tuareg for his own ends and to the detriment of the community. His departure from Libya opens the way for a better future and helps to advance our political demands… Al-Qaddafi blocked all solutions to the Tuareg issue… Now he’s gone, we can move forward in our struggle” (El Watan [Algiers], August 29). Ag Bahanga, who at one point had unsuccessfully offered to turn his rebel movement into a transnational security force capable of expelling al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) from the Sahel/Sahara region, also came out against AQIM’s Salafi-Jihadists: “Our imams advocate and educate our youth and families against the religion of intolerance preached by the Salafists, which is in total contradiction with our religious practice. In fact, on an ideological level, the Salafis have no control over the Tuareg. We defend ourselves with our meager resources, and we envision a day soon be able to bring Bamako to account” (El Watan, August 29).

Conclusion

Hundreds of thousands of workers have returned to Niger and Mali, which are unable to provide employment to the returnees. There are also 74,000 workers returning to Chad. Moreover, the loss of remittances from their work in Libya will devastate many already marginal communities reliant on such transfers. Many of the returnees suffered rough treatment at the hands of rebels who consider all black Africans and Tuareg to be mourtazak (mercenaries). Motivation, money, arms and a lack of viable alternatives form a dangerous recipe for years of instability in the Sahel/Sahara region, particularly if it is fuelled by a political cause such as the restoration of the Qaddafi regime or the establishment of an independent Tuareg homeland.

Ana Ag Ateyoub has been mentioned as the most likely rebel leader to succeed Ag Bahanga. Ag Ateyoub has a reputation for being a great strategist but is considered more radical than Ag Bahanga (L’Essor [Bamako], August 29; August 30). Ag Bahanga’s group remains a regional security wild card. If their late leader was actually intending to launch a new rebellion in Mali with high-powered arms obtained in Libya, will the group follow through with these plans?

Former security officials of the Qaddafi regime recently told a pan-Arab daily that Libyan intelligence has conducted extensive surveys of the more inaccessible parts of the country and areas of Niger and Chad while building ties to the local populations in these places (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 8). According to a TNC report based on a communication from former Libyan intelligence director Musa Kusa, Qaddafi is now moving between al-Jufrah district in the center of the country, home to a strategically located military base and airstrip at Hun, and the remote Tagharin oasis near the Algerian border, where he is guarded by Tuareg tribesmen (al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 5).

Much of southern Libya and its vital oil and water resources remains outside rebel hands and might remain that way for some time if the Tuareg oppose the new rebel regime in Tripoli. It is possible that Qaddafi may threaten the new government from the vast spaces of southern Libya if he can gain the cooperation of the Tuareg. Despite signs of disenchantment with Qaddafi among the Tuareg tribesmen, there is still the lure presented by the vast sums of cash and gold loyalist forces appear to have moved south on behalf of Qaddafi, who has always understood the need to keep a few billion in cash under the mattress, just in case.

Tuareg rebel leader Agali Alambo believes Qaddafi could lead a prolonged counter-insurgency from the deserts of southern Libya: “I know the Guide well, and what people don’t realize is that he could last in the desert for years. He didn’t need to create a hiding place. He likes the simple life, under a tent, sitting on the sand, drinking camel’s milk. His advantage is that this was already his preferred lifestyle… He is guarded by a special mobile unit made up of members of his family. Those are the only people he trusts” (Fox News, September 13).

Though small in numbers, Tuareg mastery of the terrain of the Sahara/Sahel region, ability to survive in forbidding conditions and skills on the battlefield make them a formidable part of any security equation in the region. Historically, the Tuareg have been divided into a number of confederations and have rarely achieved a consensus on anything, including support for the Libyan regime or the ambitions of those seeking to establish a Tuareg homeland. However, the collapse of the Saharan tourist industry due to the depredations of AQIM and a worsening drought in the Sahel that is threatening the pastoral lifestyle of the Tuareg will only enhance the appeal of a well-rewarded life under arms. The direction of Tuareg military commanders and their followers, whether in support of the Qaddafi regime in Libya or in renewed rebellion in Mali and Niger, will play an essential role in determining the security future of the region, as well as the ability of foreign commercial interests to extract the region’s lucrative oil and uranium resources.

Notes

For a profile of Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, see Andrew McGregor, “Ibrahim Ag Bahanga: Tuareg Rebel Turns Counterterrorist?” April 2, 2010, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=2773

This article first appeared in the September 16, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Mali and Mauritania Conduct Joint Operations against al-Qaeda Base

Posted on July 7, 2011 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

July 7, 2011

Fighting continues along the Mali-Mauritania border as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) mounted a July 5 raid on the Mauritanian military base at Bassiknou, in the southeast corner of the country. Mauritanian security sources claim as many as 20 AQIM fighters were slain in the attack, which was repulsed after a half hour of heavy fighting. An AQIM statement claimed only two fighters were killed in the “well prepared” operation that was “carried out with top mujahideen leaders” (Agence Nouakchott d’Information, July 6). Mauritanian air and ground forces were pursuing the raiders to the Malian border. The AQIM assault appears to have been in retaliation for the destruction of an AQIA base in Mali on June 24.

Malian Troops in Training

Joint Malian-Mauritanian military operations in western Mali led to the discovery and destruction of the AQIM base roughly 70 km from the border with Mauritania. The camp was found in the Wagadu Forest in the Nara cercle (subdivision) of the Kouikoro region of western Mali.

Joint operations in the area involving hundreds of soldiers began on June 21 after reports emerged that suspected AQIM members were planting mines in the area around a new AQIM camp. Suspicions were confirmed on June 22, when a camel was blown up after stepping on a mine (AFP, June 24).

The AQIM camp was discovered and destroyed in a June 24 attack. Two Mauritanian soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a mine at the entrance to the camp, but otherwise AQIM took the worst of it in the heavy fighting that followed the surprise strike. Some 15 AQIM fighters were killed and the rest fled into the bush. Locals reported seeing some fugitives heading north toward the Sahara (AFP, June 26; June 28). It was possibly some of these fighters who regrouped to help mount the attack on the Bassiknou military base.

Mauritanian military sources said the AQIM camp had housed anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons that posed a threat to national security. The origin of the weapons was unclear – there are concerns that AQIM has procured weapons from Libyan stockpiles during the ongoing rebellion in that country.

AQIM released a statement on July 4 claiming the raid had been “a crushing defeat” for the Mauritanian military, which it suggested had lost 20 soldiers and 12 army vehicles in the attack, to a loss of only two AQIM members. The statement accused Mauritania’s leaders of carrying out a “proxy war on behalf of France” and said the AQIM unit was under the command of veteran Mauritanian militant Khalid al-Shanqiti (a.k.a. Mahfouz Ould al-Walid) (AFP, July 4). Algerian AQIM commander Yahya Abou Hamam has also been reported to be active in the Wagadou Forest area with the largely Mauritanian “al-Mourabitun Battalion” (Sahara Media [Nouakchott], June 25).

The successful operation nonetheless incurred the ire of the Mauritanian opposition on the grounds it had endangered the lives of soldiers and civilians without consulting parliament (PANA Online [Dakar], June 30). Others suggested the operation would only have a “negative impact” on counter-terrorism efforts and asked why Mauritanian troops were alone in the fight and without the assistance of their counter-terrorism partners, Algeria, Mali and Niger (Sahara Media, June 27). Questions have also been raised about the state of Mali’s sovereignty as Mauritanian troops carry out their third military operation in Mali (Le Republicain [Bamako], June 24).

Malian troops apparently did not take part in the actual attack on the AQIM camp, but were involved along with Mauritanian troops and aircraft in searching for AQIM elements that had escaped the raid (Sahara Media [Nouakchott], June 25). The searchers were forced to proceed with caution, fearing both mines and ambushes in the rough bush country. Mine-clearing teams went to work in the area but were unable to prevent three civilians being killed by a mine on June 28 (Le Combat [Bamako], June 27; AFP, June 28).

Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré made extensive changes in early June to the leadership of the armed forces involved in combatting al-Qaeda, removing a number of officers suspected of collaboration with local criminals assisting bandits and terrorists (Le Politicien [Bamako], June 23).

Mauritania has serious concerns over repeated AQIM raids and infiltrations carried out across the border with Mali. Last February, three vehicles from Mali containing suspected AQIM operatives were intercepted by Mauritanian security forces outside the capital of Nouakchott. It was believed the suspects intended to kill Mauritanian president Muhammad Ould Abdel Aziz with a powerful car bomb, which was detonated by a mortar shell during the fighting, leaving three terrorists dead, nine soldiers wounded and a bomb crater eight meters deep (see Terrorism Monitor Briefs, February 10). Mauritanian security forces were searching Nouakchott in late June for three armed AQIM suspects believed to have infiltrated from Mali to carry out a suicide bombing (Sahara Media, June 22).

This article was originally published in the July 7, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Arabs and Tuareg Clash over Narcotics Smuggling in Northern Mali

Posted on January 13, 2011 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

January 13, 2011

Emerging reports describe a major gun-battle between Bérabiche Arabs escorting a convoy of Moroccan cannabis through the Malian Sahel and a party of armed Tuareg nobles who appeared, in traditional fashion, to demand a fee for passing through their territory (El Watan [Algiers], January 4). The convoy of roughly 20 four-wheel drive vehicles was on its way through northeastern Mali, bound for Libya via Niger. An intense battle lasting several hours followed the convoy’s attempt to bypass the Tuareg gunmen, resulting in the death of five traffickers and two Tuareg, along with an unknown number of wounded.

Armed Tuareg

Some factions of Mali’s Tuareg have been petitioning the government for permission to form government-sponsored anti-terrorist militias (See Terrorism Monitor Briefs, November 4, 2010). Implementation of this plan appears to have been postponed to avoid an “unpredictable reaction” from the al-Qaeda kidnappers of seven foreign hostages (including five Frenchmen) seized at the Areva uranium plant in northern Niger. The hostages are currently being held at AQIM strongholds in northwest Mali.

It has been suggested that al-Qaeda is involved in the flourishing narcotics smuggling in the Sahara/Sahel region, but other sources indicate that while there is an overlap in the use of smugglers and drivers that work in the narcotics trade, al-Qaeda makes ample money from its kidnappings and wishes to avoid the additional security complications that would follow a full-scale commitment to international narcotics trafficking (El Watan, January 3).

Drug cartels from Venezuela, Spain, Portugal and Colombia are reported to be active in the Malian capital of Bamako, where their violent competition often appears to elude the attention of local police (El Watan, January 3). Malian police recently entered a Bamako cement warehouse to find a Venezuelan and a Portuguese trafficker using a chainsaw to cut up the body of a Colombian using a fake Ukrainian passport. The discovery was not part of an investigation and the Portuguese suspect has already escaped (Le Monde, January 3).

Malian authorities reported breaking up a trafficking network during a raid near the Mauritanian border on December 9, 2010. The network was allegedly composed of ex-fighters of the West Saharan Polisario Front, now confined to camps in southern Algeria (AFP, December 10, 2010). Tamensa, located near the meeting point of the Algerian, Nigerien and Malian borders, appears to be a hotspot of trafficking and smuggling activity (al-Hayat, January 1). In the cities of northern Mali, specifically Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, a mini-building boom has followed the influx of kidnapping and trafficking revenues and banks are reported to accept bags of cash without question (Le Monde, December 22, 2010).

There are indications, however, that a Tuareg vs. Arab paradigm may not reflect the reality of the violence in northern Mali. The introduction of democracy by the state has created something of a social revolution in the region. Since the April 2009 regional elections, the traditional leaders of the Arab community, the Arab-Berber Kounta, and the traditional leaders of the Tuareg, the Ifogha, have lost a great deal of their previous influence. The “noble” groups blame this on the alleged use of smuggling money by their respective vassal communities (the Telemsi and Bérabiche Arabs and the Imghad Tuareg) to buy victory in the elections, creating an inversion of the existing power structure in northern Mali. The growing dispute has erupted in ambushes of Arab-Imghad narcotics convoys crossing the region (U.S. Embassy Bamako cable, February 1, 2010, as published in the Guardian, December 14, 2010; Le Monde, December 22, 2010; MaliKounda.com, December 7, 2009; see also Terrorism Monitor, November 4, 2010).

This article first appeared in the January 13, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Mali-Mauritanian Joint Counter-Terrorist Patrols Begin in Sahara/Sahel

Posted on November 11, 2010 by McGregor

Mali-Mauritanian Joint Counterterrorist Patrols Begin in Sahara/Sahel

Andrew McGregor

November 11, 2010

Malian troops rendezvoused with Mauritanian forces roughly 50 miles north of Timbuktu last week as the two nations began joint counter-terrorism patrols in northern Mali designed to eliminate the presence of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s southern command. It is the first time Malian troops have joined their Mauritanian counterparts, who conducted operations with French military support in northern Mali in July and September of this year. The new patrols are expected to cover both sides of the common border in the Sahara/Sahel region.

Mali-Mauritania (BBC)

According to a Malian officer attached to the new force, “Today we are in the Malian desert. Tomorrow, together we can, we will go into the Mauritanian desert. The problems of Mali are the problems of Mauritania and the problems of Mauritania are those of Mali” (AFP, November 4).

Mali’s army chief of staff, General Gabriel Poudiougou, arrived in Mauritania on November 4 to discuss military cooperation between the two nations, which have had serious differences in the last two years over the appropriate response to AQIM’s growing operations in the Sahara/Sahel region (Sahara Media, November 5; AFP, November 4). Mauritania has been criticized in some quarters for acting as a Western proxy, especially on behalf of France and the United States, both of which have been involved in training Mauritanian troops. Mauritanian President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz denounced those who “have been echoing the propaganda of the enemies, accusing us of waging war by proxy… All these rumors, all this false propaganda, will only reinforce our determination to defend our country and preserve its independence and sovereignty” (Ennahar [Algiers], October 24).

The patrols start as four AQIM members were reported killed in an attack carried out by Arab tribesmen from the Timbuktu area, allegedly a well-planned response to the AQIM assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Lamana Ould Bou, a Malian intelligence officer and a leader of Mali’s Bérabiche Arabs (AFP, November 4). The clash would mark an important setback for AQIM, which has worked hard to establish links with the Bérabiche community, though Malian security forces deny the encounter took place. Mauritanian troops have been trying to win over the loyalty of local tribes through the distribution of tea, sugar and medicines (AFP, November 7).

France’s Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE – French external intelligence) and various French Special Forces and Air Force units are deeply involved in the ongoing search for five French nationals and two African employees kidnapped from the French uranium works at Arlit in northern Niger. The men were taken by AQIM in mid-September and are believed to be held at AQIM bases in northern Mali. Though the French are ready to act once the hostages are located, Paris also hopes to avoid a direct military confrontation with AQIM. According to French armed forces chief-of-staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud, France, the region’s former colonial power, “should be careful not to provide AQIM with the enemy it needs to exist and prosper” (Le Monde, November 4).

This article first appeared in the November 11, 2010 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Tuareg Rebels Joining Battle against al-Qaeda in the Sahara?

Posted on November 4, 2010 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

November 4 2010

On October 14 former Tuareg rebels under the command of Ibrahim ag Bahanga attacked a heavily armed convoy of cocaine smugglers roughly 60 miles from the northern Mali town of Kidal. Some 12 people were killed in the clash in which the Tuareg fighters received “material support” from the Malian army, according to a local government official (Reuters, October 18; Jeune Afrique, October 18; Afrique en Ligne, October 20). It is unclear whether the Tuareg fighters were acting under their own initiative as a kind of demonstration of their potential in combating AQIM and narco-traffickers, or whether the action was officially sanctioned by the Bamako government, which has so far been reluctant to rearm the Tuareg. The traffickers were alleged to be running a shipment of cocaine from Morocco to Egypt across the sparsely populated Sahel region.

Ibrahim ag Bahanga

Ag Bahanga is a noted smuggler and rebel commander who is a leading proponent of transforming former Tuareg rebels into armed units tasked with expelling al-Qaeda operatives from the Sahel/Sahara region. Though his proposal was given a sympathetic ear in Algeria, the long-time rebel is little trusted in Bamako and continues to operate from self-imposed exile in Libya. Ag Bahanga’s proposal has elicited little sympathy from Mali’s press. One commentator noted that “in the recent past Bahanga has demonstrated proof of his inconsistency and his warlike inclination by swearing peace one day and indulging in atrocities the next day” (Info Matin [Bamako], October 20). Another commentator complained that Ag Bahanga’s “renewed patriotism” was “hard to understand” and rearming the Tuareg could turn Mali into “another Afghanistan” (Nouvelle Libération [Bamako], October 12).

Nevertheless, the Tuareg attack came only days after Ag Bahanga was reported to have met with Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré on the sidelines of the October 10 African-Arab summit meeting in the Libyan city of Sirte to discuss the reintegration of Ag Bahanga and his men into the Malian army (Nouvelle Libération [Bamako], October 12).

According to former rebel spokesman Ahmada Ag Bibi (now a parliamentary deputy in Bamako), “AQIM wants to dirty the image of our region. We aren’t going to accept that. [AQIM fighters] often seek shelter on our land, and we know the terrain. If we were armed we could easily take care of them… We’re just waiting for the Malian government to give us the green light to chase al-Qaeda from our desert” (AFP, October 10).

The 2006 Algiers Accord between Bamako and the Tuareg rebels provides for the establishment of Tuareg military units under officers of the Malian regular army, but like many aspects of the accord, these provisions have never been implemented. There are indications now, however, that such units may be formed soon – according to an authority in the Kidal administration, their establishment may be only weeks away (Afrique en Ligne, October 20; Ennahar [Algiers], October 10).

A small number of Tuareg are believed to be working for AQIM as drivers and guides, though there are also unconfirmed reports that a Tuareg imam from Kidal named Abdelkrim has become an amir in the AQIM organization (Libération [Bamako], October 31; Jeune Afrique, October 9). Though direct Tuareg participation in AQIM activities may be limited, there are signs, nonetheless, that the massive influx of cash into the region from AQIM-obtained ransoms has had an indirect benefit to the Tuareg and Arab tribes of the region. In the town of Kidal, expansive new villas and shiny 4 x 4’s have begun to appear in a region almost entirely devoid of development (Libération [Bamako], October 31).

A veteran Tuareg rebel, Iyad ag Ghali, has been designated as the government’s official mediator with AQIM forces in northern Mali (Le Républicain [Bamako], October 4). An AQIM katiba (military unit) led by Abd al-Hamid Abu Zaid is believed to have established bases in the rugged Timetrine Mountains of northern Mali (once a refuge for Tuareg rebels) and is currently believed to be holding French and African hostages there who were kidnapped from the French-owned uranium operations in neighboring Niger (Le Monde, October 18).

Many Malian politicians complain that they have been excluded from the decision-making process in regard to the security of northern Mali. Such decisions are now made exclusively by the president, himself a former military commander in the north, and a small group of senior officers, including General Habib Sissoko, General Kafougouna Kone, Brigadier Gabriel Poudiougou and Colonel Mamy Coulibaly (Jeune Afrique, October 9).

This article first appeared in the November 4 2010 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Mali Pays the Price of al-Qaeda’s Asymmetrical Threat

Posted on October 28, 2010 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

October 28, 2010

Over half the world’s kidnappings for ransom occur in Latin America, however, among these nations only Mexico and Colombia merit official U.S. travel advisories that mention the danger of kidnapping. Despite this, Mexico and Colombia continue to enjoy thriving tourist industries. Yet the African state of Mali, with only a handful of such kidnappings each year, has been afflicted with similar travel advisories, not only from the United States, but from other Western nations as well that have devastated a nascent tourism industry with enormous potential. The difference? Al-Qaeda.

Mali’s Military: Up to the Job?

With an economy based on agriculture and gold production, Mali is one of the poorest nations in the world. The development of a tourism industry based on the growing popularity of Saharan tourism (particularly in European markets) promised a new economic sector, a source of foreign currency and a potential solution to the unrest in Mali’s Saharan north, which is largely based on lack of economic opportunity. To the disappointment of Mali’s government, this growing economic sector has come to a halt due to the criminal activities of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), whose Southern Command now focuses on drug trafficking, smuggling and high-profile kidnappings for ransom. The tourism industry of some regions of the north is now operating at only 10-15% of capacity.

On October 15, Mali’s Minister of Tourism and Crafts, N’Diaye Ba, complained of what might be termed “the al-Qaeda effect,” or the disproportional damage caused by even the limited presence of Islamist terrorists:

While it is undeniable that some events that took place in the Sahel-Saharan strip incite prudence to avoid endangering the lives of visitors, it’s equally evident that a zero risk exists nowhere in the world… The use of the terrorist menace, which gives free publicity to the terrorists, seems like a fearful weapon to compromise all the prospects of development of a place, a region, a country (AFP, October 15).

Since al-Qaeda took advantage of Mali’s weak security infrastructure to establish bases in the vast desert wilderness of the country’s north roughly two years ago, Mali has entered a situation in which the presence of the terrorists prevents the economic development that would convince tribal elements in the north (particularly the Arab tribes and to a lesser degree, the Tuareg) from joining or doing business with AQIM units that are rolling in cash as a result of collecting enormous ransoms (estimates vary from 70 to 150 million Euros in total) based on their fearsome reputation.

International vs. Regional Solutions

Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré says that Mali is both “a hostage and a victim” of AQIM: “These people [i.e. AQIM] are not Malians. They came from the Maghreb with ideas that we do not know. The problem is the lack of regional cooperation. Everyone complains about their neighbor…” (Ennahar [Algiers], October 1). Mali’s government has declared a series of measures designed to deal with the concerns about its security:

• A rational occupation of territory by the state administration.

• Increased mobility on the part of troops for prevention and intervention.

• A social mobilization to reduce the influence of sects and criminal groups (AFP, October 15).

The G8’s Counter-Terrorism Action Group (CTAG) held a two day meeting in Bamako in mid-October to discuss the AQIM threat. President Amadou Toumani Touré told the meeting that security alone could not resolve the AQIM issue, saying that development of the Sahel region is necessary to undercut support for militant groups (AFP, October 14). Though the meeting was also attended by representatives of the African Union (AU), the UN, the EU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), its success was hampered by the absence of Algeria, which refused to attend due to the presence of Moroccan representatives (Le Républicain [Bamako], October 14; Ennahar [Algiers], October 13; AFP, October 13). Tensions between the two states remain high due to disagreement over the status of the Western Sahara.

Malian Colonel Yamoussa Camara said in the meeting that foreign forces should avoid operations in Mali and limit themselves to providing training and equipment to Mali’s armed forces to prevent the latter from losing popular support (AP, October 13). There were complaints in Mali in September that Mauritanian troops were operating against AQIM in the north of the country while Mali’s own troops were busy with parades celebrating the 50th anniversary of independence (Jeune Afrique, October 9). Colonel Camara’s remarks were echoed a week later by Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mourad Medelci who said foreign military operations in the area are undesirable. According to Medelci, “We are responsible for security, as the Sahel, of all who live in the area where the situation is worrisome… Algeria has never said that countries that are not part of this area were not affected [by terrorist activities]. If these countries can provide assistance, they are welcome but they cannot establish themselves among us to bring the solution” (Ennahar, October 22).

Mali’s insistence that regional cooperation is the key to solving the AQIM dilemma must overcome significant distrust between many of the countries of the Sahel/Sahara region. Besides the seemingly intractable diplomatic conflict between Algeria and Morocco, there is also suspicion of the motives and activities of Libya’s Muammar Khadafy. Even inside Mali, there are misgivings regarding the sincerity of Algeria’s counterterrorism efforts; according to numerous reports circulating in Mali, the last words of Colonel Lamana Ould Bou (a senior Malian security officer investigating AQIM activities in northern Mali before being gunned down in his home last June by unknown assailants) were, “The Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité [DRS] is at the heart of AQIM” (al-Jazeera, August 29; Le Hoggar [Bamako], October 11). The Algerian DRS is widely believed to have infiltrated operatives into the DRS, with some suspicious Sahel observers even claiming AQIM is a false-flag operation run entirely by the Algerian intelligence service.

The question of allowing foreign military operations in Mali became more complicated when Mauritanian aircraft in pursuit of suspected al-Qaeda fighters killed two civilians near Timbuktu in September (Reuters, September 20). However, with little ability to control its northern region, Mali seems determined to avoid inflaming AQIM by allowing military forces of France (the former colonial power) to be based there (Le Monde, September 22). Mali does, however, accept military training from French forces and has a number of American Special Forces training teams stationed within Mali (see Terrorism Monitor Briefs, June 4). Nevertheless, based on the inability of Mali’s military to even refuel Mauritanian forces during a September 18 clash with AQIM in northern Mali, Algerian authorities have described Mali’s armed forces as “incompetent” (Jeune Afrique, October 15).

The Arlit Hostage Crisis

The latest crisis involves the kidnapping of seven Areva and Satom employees from the uranium mine at Arlit in northern Niger on September 15. The operation was carried out by the Tarek Ibn Ziyad katiba (military unit) led by AQIM commander Abd al-Hamid Abu Zaid (a.k.a. Abid Hammadou) (Le Monde, October 11). Five of the hostages are French; the other two are from Togo and Madagascar. Heavy fighting between AQIM forces under Algerian commander Yahya Abu Hamam and Mauritanian forces was reported shortly after the abductions (Ennahar, October 15; Jeune Afrique, October 9).

The Arlit Hostages

While this latest group of hostages is being held in northern Mali, there are denials from all sides that France ever requested permission to base troops or aircraft involved in the search on Malian territory, though this may be a sop to Bamako’s sensitivity on the issue. The air component of the search is thus based in Niamey in neighboring Niger, while French Special Forces are awaiting deployment in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou. The Kidal airstrip in northern Mali would be useful in the search, but would have the disadvantage of exposing French forces to direct attacks by AQIM (Jeune Afrique, October 9; Air & Cosmos [Paris], September 29; Le Monde, September 22). Not surprisingly, one of AQIM’s reported demands for the release of the hostages is a commitment from Bamako that further French and Mauritanian military operations will not be allowed on Malian territory (L’Indépendant [Bamako], October 12). When and if the time comes for a military intervention on Malian soil to save the hostages, it is expected that Bamako will look the other way until the operation is completed.

Is Regional Security Cooperation a Mirage?

As a result of the Tamanrasset meeting, a joint Sahel information center (Centre de Renseignement sur le Sahel – CRS) was established by the intelligence chiefs of Algeria, Niger, Mali and Mauritania in Algiers on October 7 to collect intelligence from the security services of the four nations and make it available to the new joint military operations center in Tamanrasset (L’Expression [Abidjan], October 7).
In April, Algeria, Niger, Mali and Mauritania formed the Tamanrasset-based Joint Operational Military Committee, designed to provide a joint response to border security and terrorism issues. Ten days after the Arlit abductions, the committee (composed of the military chiefs of the four nations) met on September 26 to establish a coordinated response against the AQIM threat. The committee is currently headed by Malian Brigadier-General Gabriel Poudiougou, but there is little enthusiasm in Bamako for the new security center in Tamanrasset, which is referred to at the highest levels of the government as “an empty shell” (Jeune Afrique, October 15).

The absence of Chad, Libya and Morocco from the new cooperative security infrastructure will certainly hinder efforts to eliminate AQIM from the region. The leaders of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Mali and Chad held a consultative meeting on the sidelines of the Arab-African Summit in the Libyan city of Sirté on October 10, though this did not seem to ease the admission of new members into the four-nation Sahel security grouping. Mali’s efforts to broaden the group have been continually vetoed by Algiers. Earlier this month, however, Libya donated two much-needed Italian Marchetti surveillance aircraft to Mali to combat local unrest (AFP, October 4).

Despite the insecurity in its own northern region and the fact the Arlit hostages were seized in Niger before being moved to Mali, Niamey has been quick to identify Mali as the source of regional insecurity. According to Amadou Marou, president of Niger’s National Consultative Council (which is managing the country in the aftermath of February’s military coup), “Somalia got away from us and northern Mali is in the process of getting away from us” (AFP, October 15).

Conclusion

International crime statistics alone will not solve Mali’s dilemma, nor will claims that it is the object of a “disinformation campaign” (AFP, October 15). So long as AQIM can conduct one kidnapping or hold one hostage on Malian territory each year, it will, in the current perception that there is no kidnapper as deadly as an al-Qaeda kidnapper, prevent the necessary economic development of Mali’s northern region. To enable development, Mali is left in the unenviable situation of having to establish almost complete security in a vast region with precious few security resources or having to turn to foreign military forces to aid in the elimination of al-Qaeda elements – something these same forces have failed to achieve elsewhere. Mali, however, cannot disclaim any responsibility or involvement in the rash of AQIM kidnappings. A sophisticated network of mostly Malian negotiators and mediators has emerged, with these middlemen making enormous profits through receiving a cut of the ransoms. Some mediators are even believed to participate in the kidnappings and then act as negotiators (Info Matin [Bamako], October 14; L’Indicateur du Renouveau [Bamako], October 14; Daily Times [Karachi] October 12). There can be little doubt that, as with the Sahel/Saharan narcotics trade, some of these illicit funds are reaching senior levels of the political and military structure in Bamako. This does not make Mali unique among nations facing similar problems, but the lure of easy money in an impoverished nation represents a threat in itself.

One option being considered in the Malian capital to deal with the security threat is rearming and deploying Tuareg fighters (only recently disarmed after rebelling against the central government) to hunt down and eliminate al-Qaeda operatives. At present, Bamako faces a problem that is more criminal in nature than political or religious, but foreign intervention brings the immediate risk of escalation and an uncertain political future in the event of a popular backlash in Mali. Neither prospect promises a new era of stability, so Bamako will likely continue for now in its calls for a regional security cooperation that may be largely illusory due to the mutual suspicions of the Sahel/Sahara nations.

This article first appeared in the October 28, 2010 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Has al-Qaeda Started a Feud with the Tuareg?

Posted on August 19, 2010 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

August 19, 2010

Fallout continues in North Africa from the July 22 raid on elements of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The joint operation by French and Mauritanian security forces on Malian territory was intended to free 78-year-old hostage Michel Germaneau. The raid failed and Germaneau was killed in retaliation, but six AQIM operatives were killed by security forces, infuriating AQIM leaders, who continue to hold two Spanish hostages in northern Mali. An AQIM statement described the six dead al-Qaeda members as being three Tuareg, an Algerian, a Mauritanian and a Moroccan (Reuters, August 16).

Abd al-Hamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid, an AQIM commander responsible for a number of kidnappings and for the execution of British tourist Edwin Dyer, is reported to be suspicious that the Tuareg provided the precise information that enabled the joint commando force to locate and kill the six AQIM operatives. Abu Zaid took his revenge by abducting and murdering a Tuareg customs officer named Mirzag Ag al-Housseini, the brother of a senior Malian Army commander, Brahim Ag al-Housseini (El Khabar [Algiers], August 12). No ransom was sought for the captive, who was executed on August 12 (Radio France Internationale, August 13). A soldier abducted at the same time as Mirzag and another abducted civilian were released by AQIM on August 16 (AFP, August 16).

The leader of AQIM in Mauritania, Abu Anas al-Shanqiti, warned that AQIM would carry out reprisals against the “traitorous apostates, children and agents of Christian France” as a result of the raid (Agence Nouakchott d’Information, August 16; AFP, July 24). The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to these “threats uttered by assassins” by announcing that France’s security apparatus was “fully mobilized” (Le Monde, August 17; AFP, August 17).

Reports from Mali claim President Amadou Toumani Touré “is seething” over the Franco-Mauritanian commando operation in northern Mali. The President was apparently not informed of the operation in advance, nor were Malian forces called on to participate (Jeune Afrique, August 16).

Mali is still struggling with a simmering Tuareg insurgency in its vast and poorly controlled northern region. Colonel Hassan Ag Fagaga, a noted Tuareg rebel, has threatened to resume the insurgency if the government does not implement the terms of the 2008 Algiers Accord (El Khabar, July 15). Colonel Ag Fagaga brought 400 Tuareg fighters in for integration with Mali’s armed forces in 2009. He has already deserted twice to join the Tuareg rebels in the north. Al-Qaeda has tried to ingratiate itself with the disaffected Tuareg of northern Mali but has had only marginal success. Some former rebels have even offered to form Tuareg counterterrorist units to expel the mostly Arab al-Qaeda group from the region.

This article first appeared in the August 19, 2010 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Ibrahim Ag Bahanga: Tuareg Rebel Turns Counterterrorist?

Posted on March 31, 2010 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

March 31, 2010

Western anxiety over the spread of al-Qaeda-style Islamist militancy in the vast and inhospitable Sahara/Sahel region of Africa has had unforeseen consequences for the survival of hardcore Tuareg rebels operating in the same region. For rebel leaders like Mali’s Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, the new emphasis on security threatens a traditional way of life based on control of Trans-Saharan trade routes. Growing security cooperation between the nations of the region (instigated and supported by the United States, France and others) is driving old-school rebels like Ag Bahanga to adapt to new circumstances. In this case, Ag Bahanga appears to be using the threat posed by al-Qaeda to effect a transition from rebel commander to counter-terrorist leader.

Ibrahim ag Bahanga

A Smuggler’s Paradise

Ag Bahanga’s hometown is Tin-Zaouatene, an oasis located on an old Tran-Saharan caravan route near the Algerian and Mauritanian borders with northwest Mali. The town is still believed to be the center of a lively cross-border smuggling operation. According to the Algerian press, gangs of Arab drug traffickers have had to pay large fees for “permission” to run their products north through Tuareg territory in the Kidal region. A small battle broke out earlier this year when Arab smugglers refused to pay Tuareg gangs for protection of a major cocaine shipment. The Tuareg reportedly seized the vehicles and drugs, but the Arabs responded by kidnapping a local mayor (El Watan, Algiers, January 27). As well as drugs, the lucrative smuggling trade moves cigarettes, fuel, migrants and arms across the poorly guarded borders.

A Life in Rebellion

The hopes of some Tuareg for an independent nation in a post-colonial Africa were dashed when their territories were split up between the nations of Algeria, Niger, Mali, Libya and Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso). An early post-independence rebellion in 1963 was quickly suppressed by Malian authorities. At times the Tuareg of Niger and Mali have cooperated in launching large-scale rebellions, such as that of 1990-1995. During this period, Ag Bahanga was active as a fighter in the Mouvement Populaire de Libération de l’Azawad (MPLA), a group based largely on fighters from the exile communities in Libya and Algeria.

Though a 1995 peace deal was effective for a time in Niger, groups of Tuareg remained disaffected in northern Mali. Open rebellion resumed in 2006 with the emergence of the Mai 23 Alliance démocratique pour le changement (ADC). After several months of fighting, the Tuareg ADC agreed to a peace deal with the government. It appears Ag Bahanga accepted a commission in the Malian army as a part of reintegration efforts before deserting in 2007. Not all the Tuareg rebels were interested in a deal with the government and some of these elements reemerged under Ag Bahanga’s command with a series of attacks on military bases in August, 2007. Designed to equip rebel forces with weapons, the attacks marked the beginning of the 2007-2009 rebellion in northern Mali and northern Niger, though Ag Bahanga’s faction of the ADC, known as the Alliance Touareg Nord Mali pour le Changement (ATNMC), never enjoyed the same support in this conflict that the mainstream ADC had received. The ATNMC number two and military commander was Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Ag Fagaga, notorious for deserting the Malian army twice, in 1996 and 2007. Ag Bahanga’s father-in-law, Hama Ag Sidahmed, another rebel veteran, acted as spokesman for the movement.

By September, 2007 Ag Bahanga’s forces had surrounded the government garrison at Tin Zaouatene and fired on a U.S. C-130 aircraft dropping supplies to the troops (al-Jazeera, September 14, 2007; Radio France Internationale, September 14, 2007). For a year Ag Bahanga and others carried out devastating raids and ambushes from their bases in the Tigharghar Mountains, but when most of the Tuareg rebels reached an agreement with Bamako in August 2008, Ag Bahanga left for Libya, only to announce his return in December 2008 with a new series of attacks in northern Mali. By April, 2008 Malian helicopters were brought in to strike Tuareg positions outside the town of Kidal to prevent the rebels from besieging it (Rueters, April 2, 2008).

Negotiations between Ag Bahanga and the Mali government in the summer of 2008 went nowhere, with the rebel leader unable to convince Bamako of the need to create an autonomous Tuareg region of Kidal or to reduce the number of Malian troops present in the north (El Khabar [Algiers], July 26, 2008).

A Malian offensive involving ex-Tuareg rebels who had become tired of Ag Bahanga’s irreconcilable attitude and the delay of development efforts in north Mali due to continued insecurity, succeeded in driving Ag Bahanga and his forces from northern Mali. By February, 2009 Ag Bahanga had once again left for Libya with some of his supporters. Ag Bahanga denies receiving Libyan military supplies, claiming his movement’s arms are obtained from the Malian army as a result of military operations. Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi has sought to exploit Tuareg unrest in his own interest for decades, going back to his incorporation of Tuareg fighters in Libya’s “Islamic Legion” during the 1970s.

In 2008, Ag Bahanga claimed to have three thousand fighters under his command, all drawn from the Mali Tuareg, though this figure is likely significantly inflated. At the time, he insisted that his movement did not seek separatism, but only “the improvement of the Tuareg situation”

Accusations of Association with al-Qaeda

Ag Bahanga has rejected accusations from Bamako and elsewhere that he is associated with al-Qaeda operatives in the north Mali border region:

The terrorist groups are based far from the regions in which we are established; they are based in Timbuktu. We are waging a war against these groups… [but] they have fled to the surrounding regions for fear of being pursued by our elements. We will not tolerate their presence in these regions as our cause is different from their cause; we will not hesitate in tracking them down (El Khabar [Algiers], July 26, 2008).

Mali’s government and media have frequently accused Ag Bahanga of being a drug smuggler cloaking his activities under the guise of a desert rebel fighting for the rights of his people (Le Malien [Bamako], December 22, 2008). In the Tuareg community of Mali, Ag Bahanga appears to have at least as many opponents as supporters, and there are many who will state the militant does not speak for them.

Tigharghar Mountains

Ag Bahanga led a raid on a military base at Nampala (close to Ag Bahanga’s hometown of Tin-Zaouatene) on December 20, 2008, killing between nine and twenty soldiers, including at least three Tuareg in government service. The government described the assailants as drug traffickers eager to eliminate the government presence near the border (Radio France Internationale, December 20, 2008; AFP, December 22, 2008). Ag Bahanga in turn demanded the government honor the 2006 peace agreement, which called for development of the Kidal region in exchange for the Tuareg dropping demands for autonomy. It was not long before the government and the Malian press began to tie Ag Bahanga to kidnappings and other activities carried out by the Algerian Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC – later reconfigured as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – AQIM) (L’Aurore [Bamako], January 26, 2009). Ag Bahanga has always denied involvement in the GSPC/AQIM kidnappings of foreign nationals in the Sahara/Sahel region, but frequently succeeded in capturing Malian soldiers in groups of 20 to 30 at a time, suggesting these troops were poorly trained, ill-led and possibly uneager to combat the Tuareg on their own forbidding turf. The Mali government negotiated the release of these prisoners by sending representatives to Tripoli for talks with Ag Bahanga’s representatives with the mediation of the Libyan ruler’s son, Sa’if al-Islam Qadhafi (al-Jazeera, March 26, 2008).

The 2008-2009 Campaign

President Amadou Toumani Touré described the Nampala attack as “unacceptable,” as the target had “no strategic interest” (L’Essor [Bamako], December 22, 2008). In a military sense the president may have been correct; for smugglers, however, the base at Nampala was of major strategic interest. The government responded to this incident and the continuing capture of government troops with a major offensive using helicopters, Malian regulars, Tuareg loyalists and Arab militias (L’Indépendant [Bamako], December 29). The offensive succeeded in overrunning a number of rebel bases in January 2009, including Ag Bahanga’s main base at Tinsalek in the Tigharghar Mountains (AFP, January 25, 2009). With government forces refusing to accept an offered ceasefire, Ag Bahanga’s lieutenant, Hassan Ag Fagaga, deserted his leader, bringing 400 fighters with him to a government base as the first step in disarmament and integration into the Malian army, though this move may only have been designed to preserve the Tuareg fighting force for another day rather than risk its annihilation in a campaign that was suddenly going badly. By early February, Ag Bahanga appeared to have fled in the direction of Algeria, though not without first pledging continued armed conflict (Radio France Internationale, February 6, 2009).

Transition to Counterterrorism

By January, 2010 Ag Bahanga appeared to have given up on his demands for Libyan mediation and was reported to be in Algeria, expressing his commitment to reviving the 2006 peace agreement with the help of Algerian mediators (El Watan [Algiers], January 23). Ag Bahanga’s arrival was reported to have followed preliminary talks in which his aides had offered the movement’s services in driving AQIM out of the Sahara/Sahel region (L’Observateur [Bamako], January 27).

There were reports Hassan Ag Fagaga and Hama Ag Sidahmed were also in Algeria at this time, attempting to persuade Algiers of the ATNMC’s usefulness as counter-terrorists (L’Observateur, January 10). A source described as close to Ag Bahanga, Osman Ag Mohamed, claimed the ATNMC was tracking the AQIM unit holding three Spanish aid workers hostage and would take action if they could be pinned down. Osman Ag Mohamed denied the movement had any association with AQIM: “The order is not to have relations with [al-Qaeda]. In 2006 there were clashes with them and we do not want these to be repeated because that would benefit the Malian army” (ABC.es, January 18). In a 2008 interview, Ag Bahanga challenged the government’s accusation of cooperation with terrorists, comparing the record of his group with that of the government:

I say that terrorism in this area has always been a fabricated project by Bamako in order to tarnish the image of the Tuareg every time they demand their rights and dignity. We know that they have tried to attribute terrorism to the Tuareg for 18 years. Mali has never confronted terrorism, but we have confronted terrorist groups in this area. Many of us were killed in many battles, and we are against the presence of Salafi groups in the entire region, contrary to the Malian Government, which encourages them and always says that the Tuareg are the main support for terrorism. However, everyone knows that we not only denounce terrorism, but we also fight it in this region despite the fact that we are small in number.

Conclusion

Some Tuareg continue to jealously guard their traditional (and profitable) role as the guardians of the Trans-Saharan trade routes (though Tuareg “protection” could often resemble extortion). The arrival of national borders and government security forces in the vast deserted regions they once controlled is designed to put an end to a traditional way of life. One man’s smuggling is another man’s time-honored trade, and Ag Bahanga is undoubtedly both rebel and smuggler. It remains to be seen if Algeria will sponsor Ag Bahanga’s fighters as counter-terrorists. Ag Bahanga would probably like nothing more than to be reintroduced into the frontier region with fresh arms and an official government sponsor. Algerian forces have already negotiated the “right of pursuit” to allow cross-border incursions in hot pursuit of terrorists. Though the Algerians are not fond of Ag Bahanga’s repeated sabotage of their attempts to mediate a peace settlement in northern Mali, they are actively considering a wide range of new strategies to secure their southern borders and there is still a chance that Ag Bahanga may become part of these designs. The mainstream ADC has already agreed to act as a counter-terrorist force in northern Mali, but Bamako has clearly stated Ag Bahanga is no longer welcome in Mali (Tout sur l’Algerie, July 20, 2009; L’Aurore, July 20, 2009).

This article first appeared in the March 31 issue of the Militant Leadership Monitor.

Aberfoyle International Security

Category Archives: Mali

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Mali Pays the Price of al-Qaeda’s Asymmetrical Threat

Has al-Qaeda Started a Feud with the Tuareg?

Ibrahim Ag Bahanga: Tuareg Rebel Turns Counterterrorist?