One week after US President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai agreed to advance the date of power transfer to local forces in Afghanistan, France found itself engaged in a new regional war against Islamist militant forces, this time in the former West African colony of Mali. Backed by the UN Security Council and neighboring African countries, this war is a preemptive one, aimed at checking the advance of militants southward toward the capital Bamako. A takeover of Mali by Al-Qaeda linked groups would not only destabilize the entire region, but threaten France’s interests and security, according to President Francois Hollande.
America had fought its longest war in Afghanistan but failed to achieve a decisive victory against the Taleban or Al-Qaeda. It had managed to kill Osama Ben Laden in Pakistan, but the terrorist organization had survived the 12-year campaign and is now active in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, North and Saharan Africa, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Militant Islam is also a problem in Europe.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been active in southern Algeria and Mali since 2007, attacking foreign interests while vying to destabilize local governments. Its activities have expanded into Morocco, Libya, Mali, Niger and Mauritania. Its recruits include Arabs, Tuareg and others and it has attracted foreign militants as well. Its biggest achievement has been its takeover of northern Mali, in April 2012, and sidelining the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which had declared the secession of the new state of Azawad from Mali following a military coup in Bamako. AQIM has loose alliances with local militants group, Jamaat Ansar Al Din, and both have been in control of most of northern Mali since last summer.
But it was the sudden takeover of the city of Konna last month that prompted the French to intervene. The Malian Army has been trounced more than once by the well organized militants and Paris believed it was only a matter of time before the whole country would fall turning it into a safe haven for militant groups.
Now more than a week since the French military campaign was launched the rebels had retreated. Just like in Afghanistan, aerial strikes would dislodge the rebels from population centers, but the real test would take place on the ground. France said it would only commit 2,500 soldiers, calling on other African countries to send ground troops to help the joint Malian-French contingent fight the armed rebels. So far few hundred African soldiers from Nigeria and Senegal have been dispatched. President Hollande called on Gulf countries to help by financing the costly war.
France’s European allies have so far provided logistical support and there are no signs that they would commit militarily. Washington too is supporting the French campaign but without sending troops.
The immediate aim of the war is to drive the militants out of cities and towns in northern Mali. The big battles will take place when the French and their allies reach the outskirts of Timbuktu, which the rebels have made into their main base. But battle-hardened militants, with weapons secured from Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi, will apply their long knowledge in desert warfare just as they did in Afghanistan. They know the Sahara better than anyone else and they are fighting in a vast region that extends from southern Algeria to central Mali, an area twice the size of France. And as expected the war will have a terrible effect on the peoples of the region with looming humanitarian crises.
Their response will also include attacks against foreign interests in the region and beyond. The surprise takeover of the Algerian natural gas complex in Amenas last week by Islamist militants associated with AQIM represented one of these responses to France’s military campaign in Mali. The standoff ended when Algerian Special Forces stormed the complex to free hundreds of local and foreign workers. At least 80 people were killed in the process.
Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar has claimed responsibility for the hostage-taking which he said was in retaliation to Algeria for allowing France to use its airspace to battle militants in Mali.
France would hope for its operation in Mali to be short and decisive. But it is the militants who will dictate the pace of the confrontations from now on. One Malian Islamist leader said that France “has fallen into a trap much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia.” The Mali war, like Afghanistan, represents the type of 21st century conflicts that will replicate themselves in the future. Al-Qaeda and militant groups affiliated with it are now active in many hotspots stretching from Indonesia to Pakistan, and from Yemen to Nigeria. Today they represent a dire challenge in Syria and Iraq and have a growing presence in Egypt and Libya. They have become a fixture in most Muslim countries underlining the rise of sectarian and religious strife that threatens regional and international stability. But while such wars rarely end in a clear winner, all they do is to destabilize the region even further, as we have seen in Afghanistan.
Will Mali become a new Afghanistan?
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