[billw55]

... and it's not the United States:

France v. Mali

I wonder if the French government will encounter as much public dissent as the US does when this sort of thing happens. Maybe more? Less?

I would love to hear some European and British opinions about this subject.

[Trinidad]

I may certainly be wrong, but I was under the impression that the recognized government of Mali asked for help. That would mean that it is not a unilateral intervention. That was a little bit different in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That doesn't mean that it can't end up like a hornet's nest.

Rik

[Fluffy]

I have been reading all I have found about this conflict tonight.

Mali asked for help to african coalition (don't remeber the name), not for european, althou I gather form what I read tht they are very happilly acepting it.

Who seeked for help for western countries was the secular tuareg MNLA who at first were allied with the islamic factions they are now in war with them.

History is more or less like this:

-January 2012, there are some movements on the north involving 4 factions: MNLA (Secular tuaregs who claim independence of Azawad, wich seems to be a very big chunck of dessert), Al-Qaeda (terrorist islamic anti-western), MUYUO (terrorist islamic anti-algerian) and Ansar Dine (islamic tuaregs). The tuaregs might have got some modern weapons while they were fighting for Gadafi in Lybia in 2011.
-March 2012, there is a military coup in Mali from the army to put down the goverment, not sure of the reasons.
-Following the coup the 4 factions take control of all the north of the country (size of ucrania) including all of the 3 major cities (Goa, Timbuctu and Kidal), fighting a weakened national army at some points.
-MNLA even asked for help from human rights asociations because they claimed Mali's army was bombing civilians with choppers.
-In June 2012 MNLA and Ansar Dine who had agreed to share the power of Azawad, started the Battle of Goa where MNLa were defeated.
-MNLA seem o be very weakened after the conflict, they had to retreat to the dessert and also left Timboktu to the islamists after being threatened. They claim they own 90% of the land, but that is only he desserts. At ths point they asked for help to UN, USA and France.
-Islamist destroyed some monuments in Timboktu as soon as they had control, and started to apply sharia (islamic law)
-After the battle, I think there was a 3-army stall, where each of the armies is awaiting to see if the other 2 fight each other.

-At the end of the year chaos on Mali's goverment finally came to an end, and they seeked help from african coallition who were about to send 3300 soldiers.
-on december there were finally some news that there was going to be international help for Mali's goverment.





-At the start of 2013 the Islamists attacked Konna (they took it thursday 10th), they claimed they did that because they were expcting Mali to attack them anyway. After taking Konna they seemed to be heading south towards the capital, maybe n a rush to take all before help arrives. France has about 6000 civilians in Bamako, and has sent the army to protect them. They have allready retaken Konna, and bombed strategical points in Gao.


UN had already decided to intervent on the conflict, but hadn't just decided on how (probably would have a plan on september I've read). France simply accelerated the bureucrazy.

Now it is believed that getting rid of the islamits on the cities will be very easy, however pursuing them on the dessert will be a lot harder, specially because the 3300 African soldiers have no training at all in dessert fights (most of them come from jungle countries), while the tuaregs have live there all their lives.


EDITED to add my opinions on the 3-army stall

[Fluffy]

Some other interesting things I found:

-The islamist army has been reported to be of only 6000 soldiers, this is in accordance with the very low kills on each side confimed, biggest battle had around 40 deaths total.
-The city of Gao has 90.000 population, its the major city in the north its the only one to have a hospital.
-Some news reported in newspaper from Gao are simply aquired by phoning civilians there who just report situation
-The terrorist factions are very rich (specially al-qaeda, who's magrib cell is thought to be the richest of all), they got the money from ransom/rescue.
-Tuareg factions have been both known to help civilians escape instead of capturing them and ask for rescue.
-There is also a member from Ansar Dine who speaks with media from the phone, he has said that he doesn't care the least of the so known as 'global opinion'. When asked why he was along with terrorists, he said something that I understood as they don't like terrorism, but the only real thing that matters is that the sharia (islamic law) is followed. He also says that France intervention makes everything tough, but they will prevail thanks to Allah.
-After french intervention Al Qaeda has claimed that now, no french citizen can feel safe inside a muslim country.

EDIT: France did actually take an unilateral army intervention, but not in Mali, it was on saturday in Somaliland, where 50 soldiers on at least 5 choppers attempted to rescue Denis Allex (a french spy from what I understand), but they failed because local civilians alerted the islamist of the inminent attack, and defenders were more than a hundred and well armed. Many poeple died including 8 civilians.

This post has been edited by Fluffy: 2013-January-13, 19:59

[billw55]

Thanks for all the info Fluffy. As usual, it is more complicated than one article on yahoo can explain. Broadly speaking, if France has decided that they should or must act to prevent the entrenchment of terrorist religious fanatics, then I think that is their business.

[Fluffy]

I've read twice today from user's coments about other interests such as uranium mines, but yesterday I had read that the mines where in Burkina Fasso (east of Mali), not directly in Mali.

EDIT: The mines are 200 km from the border in Niger, being exploited by France and China. I've read that as much as 8% of uranium production is at stake.

[mgoetze]

I dunno about this "Al Qaeda" business. Seems to me every islamist faction on the planet has been called "Al Qaeda" since about 2002. I have my doubts it's always the same organisation.

[paua]

billw55, on 2013-January-14, 07:50, said:

Thanks for all the info Fluffy. As usual, it is more complicated than one article on yahoo can explain. Broadly speaking, if France has decided that they should or must act to prevent the entrenchment of terrorist religious fanatics, then I think that is their business.

Well, no, it is our business, all of us. Otherwise a powerful country could go in to a smaller country under the guise of "to prevent the entrenchment of terrorist religious fanatics". We had enough of that last century.

[Cyberyeti]

mgoetze, on 2013-January-14, 17:58, said:

I dunno about this "Al Qaeda" business. Seems to me every islamist faction on the planet has been called "Al Qaeda" since about 2002. I have my doubts it's always the same organisation.

This mob are pretty well known and predate 2002 although under another name:

http://en.wikipedia....Islamic_Maghreb

[Aberlour10]

billw55, on 2013-January-13, 11:09, said:

I wonder if the French government will encounter as much public dissent as the US does when this sort of thing happens. Maybe more? Less?

There were many french armed interventions in West Africa over the last 50 years, not always to protect the human rights, mostly due to french geopolitical and economic interests. But these were all small sized operations with less civilian casualties and this is deciding fact why the world public opinion has never protested against it. I wish they would send their Foreign Legion to Ruanda too. They didn't, but it was a shame of the whole UN..

[Fluffy]

I can kind of understand that islamiss want to follow their sacred book word by word, this includes sad things like amputating a hand to a thief. But I have my doubts that the sacred book says anything about television, why are they destroying all aerials?, kind of contradictory to then uploading videos to youtube IMO.

[Trinidad]

Fluffy, stop trying to find sense in the actions of those who follow a sacred book.



Rik

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-15, 08:05, said:

I can kind of understand that islamiss want to follow their sacred book word by word, this includes sad things like amputating a hand to a thief. But I have my doubts that the sacred book says anything about television, why are they destroying all aerials?, kind of contradictory to then uploading videos to youtube IMO.

The ills are mainly in the interpretations rather than the words themselves. There have been many groups over the years who felt that piety demanded not enjoying yourself, so dancing and other entertainment was banned. Presumably TV is an extension of this as well as blocking the propaganda of "the great Satan" the US. If their country's TV contained only muslim prayer, they might be comfortable with it, I don't know.

An example from judaism:

The biblical verse says something like "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk".

This was then interpreted in the Talmud as a prohibition on mixing milk and meat in one meal.

Nowadays orthodox jews may well have separate crockery and dishwashers for milk and meat products.

The biblical verse says nothing about dishwashers. I guess the thing about TV is similar.

[Fluffy]

AQIM (Al Qaeda lslamist Magrib, wich is the proper name, I said just Al Qaeda before but was wrong), has taken during this night 41 occidental civilian prisioners fom a gas station operated by BP and a local enterprise in East of Argelia, close to Lybia border. 41 civilians including several french and british, 3 japanese, 1 norwegian and probably 1 irish along with 7 US citizens have been taken hostages.

Argelia said during this week that Argelian-Mali border had been closed, but they don't seem to be doing a great job.

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-16, 12:16, said:

AQIM (Al Qaeda lslamist Magrib, wich is the proper name, I said just Al Qaeda before but was wrong), has taken during this night 41 occidental civilian prisioners fom a gas station operated by BP and a local enterprise in East of Argelia, close to Lybia border. 41 civilians including several french and british, 3 japanese, 1 norwegian and probably 1 irish along with 7 US citizens have been taken hostages.

Argelia said during this week that Argelian-Mali border had been closed, but they don't seem to be doing a great job.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as I linked above is the normal name, Argelia is Algeria in English. Some people in the know are pointing the finger at Algerian state security forces deliberately turning a blind eye.

[Fluffy]

UPDATE: algerian Sonatrach, british BP and norwegian Statoil where running the gas plant, the number of norwegian hostages is much higher than 1. 9 is what I read now (+3 employess not norwegian). There were around 200 hostages, 150 Algerian, now there is a rumour that 30 of them have escaped (13 Algerian, 17 from other countries), but what is sure is that Algerian army has attacked the plant and many terrorists and hostages have died (34 hostages and about half of that terrorists is been reported). It is believed that terrorists were 60 at the start, and attacked during wednesday night from 2 different points taking control of all the plant.

[Fluffy]

David Cameron has talked today, and he said something that sounds to me like acceptig that Aleria had the rights to act against the terrorists as they pleased, incredible world we live in if someone thinks that an attack against terorists holding hundreds of hostages from his country on his own land needs to be consensuated with foreing powers.

BTW the numbers for hostages I wrote above might be wrong, there are so many numbers around, I read 150 algerians, then 600 algerians, many agreed on 41 foreing citizens from various countries, but many also agree that there are 30 foreing citizens still under terrorists control, and that 30 of them have escaped, and several have also died. English say 30 british were taken wich also makes the 41 number very dubious.

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-18, 11:06, said:

David Cameron has talked today, and he said something that sounds to me like acceptig that Aleria had the rights to act against the terrorists as they pleased, incredible world we live in if someone thinks that an attack against terorists holding hundreds of hostages from his country on his own land needs to be consensuated with foreing powers.

BTW the numbers for hostages I wrote above might be wrong, there are so many numbers around, I read 150 algerians, then 600 algerians, many agreed on 41 foreing citizens from various countries, but many also agree that there are 30 foreing citizens still under terrorists control, and that 30 of them have escaped, and several have also died. English say 30 british were taken wich also makes the 41 number very dubious.

There's more to this than meets the eye.

Algerian security forces are well known for a "no talking ... ever" stance, which means that these things quite often end up with a lot of dead hostages. The Algerian government clearly can do this when it's their citizens being held. It's more complicated when foreigners are involved in that you normally at least say something to the foreign power before doing anything precipitous to avoid a major diplomatic incident.

It appears many of the Algerians were released/escaped in the very early stages of this.

[billw55]

From the Algerian government's point of view, this may be an effective deterrent against hostage seizure in their borders. The terrorists have goals when they do this, and those goals involve live hostages for ransom, bargain, and trade. Dead hostages are no use to them, and most of the terrorists are not keen to die either. Algeria sends the message to the terrorists: hostages or not, the only thing you will get from this is dead.

[Cyberyeti]

billw55, on 2013-January-18, 14:31, said:

From the Algerian government's point of view, this may be an effective deterrent against hostage seizure in their borders. The terrorists have goals when they do this, and those goals involve live hostages for ransom, bargain, and trade. Dead hostages are no use to them, and most of the terrorists are not keen to die either. Algeria sends the message to the terrorists: hostages or not, the only thing you will get from this is dead.

Yup, entirely reasonable stance, but letting a foreign power know you're going to do an operation so that their politicians can prepare to address their nation if 20 or 30 of their citizens die is normal diplomatic courtesy. It may be that something the terrorists did triggered an attack before the Algerians intended.