generalspeaking

Labels: Africa, France, Jihadists, Mali, Military, MINUSMA, Political Realities, Sahel

posted by Pieface @ Monday, March 09, 2020

Welcome, Canada!

"We give the French invading forces and their henchmen glad tidings of more strikes with permission from Allah."
"And what is coming is more grievous and bitter."
"[Grad missiles target] French forces that invaded the lands of the Muslims."
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Timbuktu, Mali

"[There were 228 al-Qaida-linked attacks in the region in 2016, many  in northern Mali.] This represents a significant increase in the al Qaeda-led insurgency in northern Mali since last year, which has also spilled over the borders more frequently than the prior two years."
The Long War Journal

It is primarily France that has committed to battling the Islamists in Mali. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has established its fighting forces in the region and it means to drive all western military powers from the area. France's military was successful in dispersing the Islamists from Timbuktu at a time when priceless religious heritage artefacts and sites were being looted and destroyed. But there is that about an religion-inspired ideology, it lives on and metastasizes.

Al-Qaeda is evidently not too proud to learn the strategies of public relations fundamentals from its rival Islamic State, and to that end it has posted photographs on social media showing two Grad missiles firing at Timbuktu airport targeting French forces. The UN peacekeeping office at Gao airport was destroyed in its turn, by a truck weighed down with explosives. While Ansar Dine, associated with AQIM, celebrated its attack on a French armoured vehicle with the use of a mine.


The message directed to France, will, it seems, soon be extended to Canada as it appears on the cusp of committing the contribution of 600 Canadian military and 150 police officers to Mali, to bolster the united Nations peacekeeping mission there. The Gao bombing was claimed by AQIM-linked Al Mourabitoun which, according to the Public Safety Canada website has a "goal ... to spread jihad across North Africa".

U.N. peacekeepers stand in front of a camp used by Chinese peacekeepers in Gao, Mali, June 1. The camp was attacked by Al-Qaeda militants on May 31, killing one Chinese soldier.   STR/AFP/Getty Images

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Canada, Conflict, France, Mali, North Africa

posted by Pieface @ Friday, December 02, 2016

Mali crisis: France in big offensive against Islamists 

About 1,000 troops are sweeping through a river valley believed to be a logistics base for the armed Islamists near Gao, AFP news agency reports.

This is said to be the last major French-led operation before France starts reducing its military presence.

The militants have been driven out of northern cities and towns since France intervened militarily in January.

However, the Islamists have carried out several suicide attacks in Gao, about 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) north of the capital Bamako, and the ancient city of Timbuktu.

France wants to search as much of the remote region as it can for militant hideouts before it starts scaling down its troops from the end of this month as this the kind of operation that African forces may not be able to carry out once they take over, he says.

No Islamist fighters were encountered on the first day of the operation, launched at dawn on Sunday, AFP quotes a journalist travelling with the troops as reporting.

The French forces neutralised around 340 artillery shells and high-calibre rockets found stashed under acacia trees in ravines, it reports.

French soldiers will spend the coming days combing the 20km valley with the help of Malian soldiers and police officers who will first go into the nomad camps and mud houses which line the dry river basin.

"We surrounded the valley north of Gao, which we believe serves as a logistics base for jihadist groups, and we began to search methodically," AFP quotes French land forces commander General Bernard Barrera as saying.

"This is the fourth wadi [valley] we have gone into in the Gao region. There will no doubt be other such operations but perhaps not to the same extent."

France plans to start withdrawing the first of its 4,000 troops later this month, and hopes to have only 1,000 soldiers in Mali by the end of the year.

The regional African force in Mali currently numbers about 6,300 soldiers.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has suggested that a 11,000-strong UN peace force, made up of African troops, be deployed in Mali, once France reduces its presence.

Mr Ban also called for the creation of a second force to fight militants.
Remaining French troops could be part of this force, correspondents say.

Labels: Conflict, France, Islamists, Mali

posted by Pieface @ Monday, April 08, 2013

Insurgent raids into Timbuktu and Gao in supposedly secured northern cities put a question mark over France's aspirations to wrap up its military intervention in Mali soon.

Handfuls of Islamist radicals are slipping in and out of towns in northern Mali on hit and run operations, putting a question mark over France's aspirations to neatly wrap up its military intervention soon.
This weekend brought a suicide car bomb in Timbuktu that rattled residents and sparked a brief, intense skirmish with French and Malian troops who say they will now more strongly garrison the ancient trading post town. The French deployed air craft to crack down on rebels, whose identity in this attack remains unclear. Malian officials said 21 rebels were killed.

As French politicians and senior officers prepare to partly exit Mali this month, having largely assuaged fears of a new Afghanistan developing in northeast Africa, they are facing a new low-level radical insurgency of yet uncertain numbers, capability, and intent.

"The fighting is heavy and it is ongoing," Malian Army Capt. Modibo Naman Traore told Reuters on Sunday, adding that the Army was in the process of "encircling" the militants.

Last week in Gao, the largest city in the Malian north, rebels killed six locals in a similar attack. That operation, which French forces reportedly rebuffed quickly, was claimed by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, a group that partly controlled the city last fall.

In January the French quickly drove out a loose but effective Islamist insurgency that last year took over huge swaths of Mali using weapons siphoned out of Libya after its civil strife ended.

But having liberated Gao, Timbuktu, and other northern towns, the French have focused on Islamists in the northern mountains; days back French forces confirmed killing a significant rebel leader Abou Zeid. Yet apparent French indifference to, or even collaboration in recent weeks with, ethnic Tuareg rebels, reported here by Peter Tinti in The Christian Science Monitor, has strained relations between government, military, and local populations.

Much of the media coverage and information of sensitive war operations in Mali by the French is under strict control. The New York Times today, reporting out of Paris, writes about the rebels in Timbuktu that,

“They had said Timbuktu was secured,” the mayor [of Timbuktu] lamented. The fighting had ceased by about 3 p.m. on Sunday, he said, though military aircraft, presumably French, continued to circle in the skies above Timbuktu. Two patrols of French fighter aircraft had been sent to Timbuktu, according to Colonel Burkhard, the military spokesman, but they did not fire any munitions.

Analysts continue to ask whether, after a successful effort to put Al Qaeda-linked rebels on the run, Mali itself can continue to hold together.

Mali has announced new elections in July and the French force levels are to draw down from more than 4,000 to 2,000 by that time.

Labels: Conflict, France, Islamists, Mali

posted by Pieface @ Monday, April 01, 2013

Al Qaeda in desperate plea for more terrorists in North Africa

Al Qaeda has issues a plea for more fighters to join its terrorist activities in North Africa

Read more on: al qaeda, al qaeda in the islamic maghreb, Mali, and France

Labels: Conflict, France, Islamism, Mali, North Africa, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Islamist militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar 'killed in Mali'

His death was announced on Chadian state television but has not been confirmed by other sources.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar is a former al-Qaeda leader said to have ordered January's attack on an Algerian gas plant where at least 37 hostages were killed.

Chadian troops are fighting Islamist militants in Mali as part of an international force led by France.
"Chadian forces in Mali completely destroyed the main jihadist base in the Adrar de Ifhogas mountains... killing several terrorists including leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar," the army statement on Chadian TV said.

Weapons, equipment and 60 vehicles were seized, it added.

If confirmed, the death would be a major blow to Islamist militants in Mali, the BBC's West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy says.

Reports of the killing came a day after Chadian President Idriss Deby said the country's forces killed al-Qaeda militant Abdelhamid Abou Zeid during clashes in northern Mali.

Abou Zeid - whose death is still to be confirmed by DNA evidence - is said to be second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is fighting foreign forces in Mali.
The French military - which is leading the military offensive in northern Mali - has not confirmed either death.

On Friday French President Francois Hollande said the operation was in its final stages.
Islamist militants took refuge in the remote mountains in northern Mali, close to the Algerian border, after being forced out of the main towns and cities by French troops backed by jets and helicopters.

Mali's army and troops from several African countries have also been involved in the fighting.
Islamist rebels took control of northern Mali a year ago after a military coup in the capital Bamako, in the south.
'Mr Marlboro'
 
Algerian-born Mokhtar Belmokhtar has been fighting as an Islamist militant for more than two decades.

He claimed to have received military training in Afghanistan before returning to Algeria, where he lost an eye fighting in the Islamist insurgency in the 1990s.

He then joined AQIM - which operates across the Sahara - before breaking off to lead his own group.
The attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria - which he claims he was behind - was his group's first large-scale armed attack.

He is also known as "Mr Marlboro" because of his alleged role in cigarette smuggling in the region.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Abu Zeid have also been involved in numerous kidnappings.

If confirmed, their deaths raise concerns about the fate of several foreign hostages believed to be in their power, our correspondent says.

Labels: Atrocities, Defence, Islamism, Mali, Security, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, March 03, 2013

Senior Al-Qaeda leader Abu Zeid killed in northern Mali: TV

Labels: Conflict, France, Islamists, Mali, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, February 28, 2013

Involved and Mired

North and north-west Africa represent a hotbed of tribal rebellions overlaid with lividly-obnoxious Islamism. From Sudan to Somalia, Algeria to Mali, Libya and Egypt, reflecting other Muslim and Middle East countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon, Islamism appears unstoppable. Its malign ideology and militant politics has unsettled vast tracts of geography. And in the struggle to overcome opposition from reigning tyrants, theocracies, sheikdoms and dictators traditional in that world, brutal atrocities have proliferated.

The West felt itself compelled to present a united front of opposition against the broad march of violent jihad. Earlier bloody messages in the form of attacks against western embassies and military installations gave warning, but the full alarm failed to be raised until the attacks on the United States of 9/11, when the world was given full notice that Islamism had successfully infiltrated homeland defences.

In a self-protective collaborative approach the West responded collectively combining their military forces to launch their own reprisal attack against al-Qaeda and rout it along with their host, the Afghan Taliban from Afghanistan. What has never been solved in the quest to combat an ideology so invested in violence and mass murder to deliver a message of determined mass conquest, was how to fully squelch the movement itself.

The more it presents as a religious political ideology, the greater the backlash from among all the ummah, the great Muslim collective, who have been convinced and manipulated to believe that "Islamophobia" motivates the response from the West, attacked by violent jihadists, not the threats and bloodshed emanating from the fanatics within their community.

And that belief leads to the successful recruitment of young Muslim men into the war on the non-Islamic world. Recruits deliver themselves to the training grounds in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere. They become infused with the ideology of revenge and sacrifice, skilled in the manufacture of bombs and the use of firearms and set out to wage war.

And there are those recruited from Europe and North America where as part of the larger immigrant community, they were born and educated and socialized, but never severed from tradition and heritage. The opportunity to return back to those countries of their citizenship and wreak havoc there for the greater glory of violent jihad in Islamism finds countries like Spain and England, France, Holland, Indonesia and the United States waiting targets.

In an effort to prevent the firestorm of jihad from invading Western shores it seemed reasonable for the West to take itself to the crucible of the violence. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, where foreign forces became mired in a costly and time-consuming struggle to contain the flood by maintaining the dikes. But it proved to be a temporary solution, since there is never a shortage of new recruits.

So should Canada join France in Mali in the hopes that by aspiring to destroy the ambitions of jihad our own shores will be protected? Works in theory, not so much in practise. We have more than ample evidence of that, having left Afghanistan after over a decade of involvement with little to show other than temporary advances in civilized facade overlaying the medieval cultural scaffolding.

Afghanistan involvement solved little; from failing to entice farmers to grow edible crops instead of poppies whose sale benefited both war lords and the Taliban, to persuading tribal cultures that the education of females would result in huge benefits for the entire society. Involvement in unseating Libya's Moammar Ghadafi brought self-congratulations, and eventually the invasion of Mali by Islamist forces armed with looted Libyan munitions.

Libya remains mired in tribal and sectarian misery with the central government incapable of cementing a global administration and of accomplishing its primary task of disarming the tribal militias. And the arms depots that had been pilfered during the Libyan revolution enabled the Tuareg to return to Mali as trained mercenaries prepared to fight for their sovereignty, pairing with Islamists to contain northern Mali for their own.

Canada invested treasury in Mali, and its military trained Malian military in the hopes that it would succeed in helping that country to become a robust democracy. And then the Malian military marched in a coup to unseat the democratic government, finding itself no more capable than the government it faulted in dealing with the Tuareg rebellion. And calling upon France for help finally, when it feared Bamako would be invaded by Islamists.

With the experience of Iraq - at a remove - and Afghanistan from close encounters, along with Libya and its fallout, is there really any need for Canada to involve itself deeply once again in African/Islamic affairs, since nothing any foreign intervention attempts to achieve seems to come to any meaningful conclusion?

Labels: Africa, Canada, Europe, France, Islamism, Mali, Middle East, Terrorism, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 16, 2013

Western Intervention, Islamist Conquests

We've seen Afghanistan close up and personal. Canada, like other NATO countries, responded to the U.S. call to arms, sanctified by the United Nations in a world reeling at the malevolence of a religious political ideology that brought us a kind of tragic-horror theatre that none could have imagined being cleverly mounted with the audaciously lethal attack on the United States by al-Qaeda operatives.

Afghanistan, a country of barbaric backwardness, tribally ferocious and religiously fanatic, was steeping in the vividly nasty juices of fanatical Islam. Another fanatically Islamic country was involved in contriving that Afghanistan would remain in the clutches of the Taliban, whom Pakistan had involved itself in funding, sheltering, training and arming. Aided covertly, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, by the U.S. CIA.

Of all the Islamic countries of the world, Pakistan likely represents the most neurotically paranoid. In invading Afghanistan, NATO forces came to understand that its neighbour, Pakistan, which declared itself a committed supporter of Western determination to battle the forces of terrorism, and whose greed for American financial support ensured it parroted the resolve to secure Afghanistan against jihadism, fuelled the very terrorists it claimed to detest.

The collaboration of NATO and UN-aligned forces along with international NGOs to build a better country for Afghans out of the ruins left by the Taliban seemed as though it was destined for success. At huge cost to the West of treasury and the lives of their military personnel, the realization gradually dawned that nothing was going to really change Afghanistan; the culture was deeply engrained with tribal and religious fundamentalism.

All the NATO and UN-allied forces were eager to depart that sad dead-end trap of failed aspirations. Just as intervention in Iraq with an invasion that toppled a murderous dictator led to the ouster of Saddam and his minority Baath party, and despite the presence of thousands of Western military personnel, unleashed a brutal storm of hatred and bloodshed between Sunni and Shiite gave some indication of the interrelated difficulties inherent in reconciling such societies toward democracy, we have the added complications of the Arab Spring.

Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain have all been altered significantly by an Arab and Muslim re-awakening. One that the West celebrated as surely an indication that the greater populations of all those countries clamoured for freedom, liberty, liberal democracy. When in fact, the greater majority given the opportunity, just as occurred in the Palestinian Territories, voted for Islamism and elevated Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists to the fore.

In the ongoing bloodshed in Syria we see through breathless news coverage of atrocities committed by the Alawite Baath regime of President al-Assad the classic collision between an Arab Muslim tyrant and an oppressed population. And lurking behind the protests of the oppressed, awaiting their opportunity to aid and assist the civil-war-protest of the Sunni majority are the ranks of the tried-and-true Islamist militias.

From Sudan to Somalia, Algeria to Mali, Islamist terrorism is on the march, as well. The French have taken the initiative in Mali where jihadists have been so hugely benefited by the fall of Libyan tyrant Moammar Ghadafi to take possession of looted weapons depots. Groups associated with al-Qaeda, sharing that fascist ideology of Islamist dominated Sharia imposition have been temporarily routed.


Just as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban have receded with a hudna, so too have the Malian Islamists. They lurk in the background, patiently awaiting opportunity. To rearm, to feint, to draw back again, to threaten and to observe. And when those who seek to counteract their malign presence finally withdraw, their opportunity to resume their ascent resumes.

Labels: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Islamism, Mali, NATO, Pakistan, Syria, United Nations

posted by Pieface @ Friday, February 15, 2013

Central Training...

The Islamists destroyed heritage buildings, ancient mausoleums located in Timbuktu, treasured by the people of Mali, and representing world heritage sites.  They destroyed part of an ancient mosque. These are architectural treasures of ancient Islamic tradition that are irreplaceable. Irreplaceable also the ancient manuscripts that were destroyed as representative of idolatrous worship, claimed to be haram by the upholders of fundamentalist Islamist traditions.

Forbidden by an Islam that permits no permutations, no other versions, however ancient, of the purity of Islamic worship. What al-Qaeda's northern African branch did not destroy was a two-story building purpose-built as a military training centre for the Malian military, in that fabled ancient city. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb recognized its potential for use as a sophisticawted training centre. And saw great value in maintaining it for their own purposes.

They operated this training centre for nine months, gathering to it recruits from across the Muslim world, prepared to assume their place as jihadists for the greater glory of Islam. There were Malians, Pakistanis, Algerians and Muritanians, along with Nigerians, members of Boko Haram. Mali's security forces' loss in the facilities represented AQIM's gain.

For the Malian army it was local headquarters of the Gendarmerie Nationale, a paramilitary unit. For AQIM it was a fortuitous training centre, ringed by a perimter fence topped with barbed wire. A valuable hub for the training of AQIM's new recruits. "Every day, new recruits would come; perhaps one or two, or more, every day", said Faraj Mohammed Arbi, a man from Timbuktu who worked there as a cook and cleaner.

There were two Algerians, one as commander in charge, the other his deputy responsible for weapons training. A Pakistani was placed in charge of maintaining the armoury. The armoury included heavy machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles, along with Toyota Land Cruisers and other 4x4s. The Pakistani's specialty was fitting machine guns to the vehicles.

There was a rigid protocol followed every day in the training camp. Prayers at 5 a.m., then physical exercise in military uniforms of desert print camouflage carrying AK047s, running five laps of the camp's perimeter fence, then press-ups. Prayers again at 7 a.m., then target practise followed by marksmanship with AK-47s and heavy machine guns.

A break until prayers at 12:30 p.m. followed by lunch and formal lessons of religious and ideological indoctrination. Prayers at 4 p.m. and again at 7 p.m., when experienced trainees would guard the centre overnight. It is no longer in operation. Wrecked, shattered, pulverized by two French bombs during the initial attacks by French combat planes over Timbuktu on January 10.

By then it had been emptied of recruits, the lights switched on by the evacuees to invite French bombs as a diversion while the Islamists made themselves scarce.

Labels: Armaments, Conflict, Defence, France, Islamism, Mali, Security

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Return of the Islamists

That didn't take long, did it? As soon as the French military and the several thousand African troops that joined them in routing the Islamic radicals - comprised of Ansar Dine, The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb militias - from Timbuktu, Goa and Kidal in northern Mali, retreating in victory, back came black-robed Islamists with their extremist vision of a global Caliphate.

Armed with AK-47 automatic rifles they returned to launch a surprise attack on Gao with its population of 90,000, two weeks after the withdrawal of the French troops, leaving protection of the city to the Malian army.  Combat took place in downtown Gao and continued into the night, with the sounds of gunfire eventually giving way to French military helicopters clattering above. The Islamists are not prepared to abandon their plan to establish themselves permanently in northern Mali.

Families hid in their homes as the jihadists fought the Malian army in the narrow streets of central Gao, and up on rooftops, sniping at the military.  These are hardened fighters, skilled in combat and well armed, forecasting what is to com; a protracted campaign to restore their ownership of the vast tract of Saharan geography for their own, where Sharia is to be permanently installed, and spread further afield as the territory increasingly succumbs to their control.

These are not the skirmishes which have taken place between the Islamists and the Malian army that have taken place on the outskirts of Goa, since the Islamists were routed by the French.  This represented a successful entry of the armed terrorists into the centre of the strategic city to which not all its residents have yet returned after having fled the stifling, frightening atmosphere of Sharia with its public floggings and punishing amputations.

The Islamists left their strategic retreats dug into desert hideouts to resume challenging the government of Mali. Crossing the Niger River to penetrate Gao, they took the less determined, poorly trained and inadequately armed Malian troops by surprise.  Islamist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar who had been gratified at taking possession of looted Libyan weaponry has taken credit for the Algerian In Amenas gas refinery attack.

And he had been present in Gao earlier, staying in a two-story house the militants took possession of last year when they captured Gao, maintaining this one in particular, a luxurious accommodation, for the comfort of their commanders. There were other, more fundamental houses that were commissioned from their rightful owners that the militants assumed for themselves.

Several suicide bombers had exploded themselves on the outskirts of Gao before the latest invasion of the central area.  "I am really afraid. You hear about these kinds of things in Pakistan or Afghanistan", a 30-year old resident of Gao, astride a motorcycle said, at the scene of the two suicide bombings. "Gao is becoming like Pakistan."

Labels: Africa, Algeria, Conflict, France, Islamism, Mali, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Monday, February 11, 2013