Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 80
group changed its name and
began to expand its ties with
international jihadist organizations. AQIM tried to install
an Islamic emirate across the
Sahara and Sahel, between
Mauritania and Chad.
The leaders of AQIM are,
mainly, Algerian. Mokhtar
Belmokhtar, for example, is a
former jihadi fighter turned
smuggler in Afghanistan.
Abdelhamid Abu Zeid is a
hard-line ideologist. Their link
to the ethnic Tuareg population is the Ansar Din movement, led by Iyad Ag Ghali
French soldiers conduct a search for munitions in the Tigharghar Hills in Mali,
and his cousin Abdelkrim,
March 2013.
(Photo courtesy of Defense Staff (État-major des armées), French Ministry of Defense).
both Tuaregs from Kidal.
The anarchy in Mali, in the
a violent reaction of the government against the local
wake of the Tuareg uprising, provided the opportunity
population. A vicious cycle of terrorism and repression
for these jihadists to realize their ambition. In the first
started, fueling ethnic hostility in the north, political
quarter of 2012, MNLA and Ansar Din took control of
dissent in the south, and criticism abroad, and culmithe northern half of Mali. Rapidly, they imposed a strict
nating with the Tuareg uprising of 14 January 2012.
Sharia law on the population of the whole region, causThis last insurgency was led by two newly formed
ing the first rifts between the secular MNLA and the
groups, the Mouvement National de Libération de l’Aza- fundamentalist Ansar Din, along with a flow of 300,000
wad (National Movement of the Azawad Liberation,
to 400,000 displaced persons.
known as MNLA) and its Islamic satellite named Ansar
Ansar Din, with the support of AQIM and
Din (meaning soldier of the faith). The insurgents
MOJWA—one of its splinter groups—managed to
rapidly took the northern towns of Menaka, Aguelhok,
expel the MNLA from the major towns. A few Sufi
Tessalit, and Léré, causing the Malian Army to withshrines were destroyed in Timbuktu, a historic sacred
draw, under pressure, south of the Niger River. The
city—an event reminiscent of the destruction of the
insurgents deprived the government of control over half Bamian Buddhas by the Afghan Taliban in March
its territory (representing only ten percent of its pop2001. The interim Malian government of President
ulation). This setback caused the coup d’état of March
Diocounda Traoré and the international communi2012, when army Capt. Amadou Sanogo overthrew
ty watched helplessly.5 The United Nations Security
then-president Ahmadou Toumani Touré.3
Council unanimously passed Resolution 2085, 20
The rise of jihadists in the Sahel, which started about December 2012, authorizing the deployment of what
the same time in Algeria, was another destabilizing facwas named the “African-led International Support
tor. The Algeria-based AQIM (originally called Groupe
Mission to Mali.” The European Union validated, in
Salafiste de Prédication et de Combat—translated as
December 2012, a plan for a “European Union Training
Salafi Group for Preaching and Fighting) took advanMission” to advise the Malian Army and planned to set
tage of traditional smuggling routes to fund its terrorist
up the mission in February 2013.6
activities with drugs and arms trafficking. In addition,
However, the jihadists started to move south of the
it captured foreign tourists or workers from well-toNiger bend on 8 January 2013. After they captured the
do countries and demanded ransoms.4 In 2007, the
town of Konna from the Malian Army and threatened
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November-December 2014 MILITARY REVIEW