Gendarme of Africa back in service in Mali

[Deleted]

After trying its best to stay out of this, France finally started a military operation in Mali today, supported by forces from Senegal and Nigeria. You may or may not know that Islamist extremists seized the northern half of the country several months ago. They have been chopping off hands, forcing women to cover themselves completely and have destroyed the (Muslim) religious tombs of Timbuktu, which were the main international tourist attraction of the country.

Keep an eye on what happens next.

[Deleted]

From the New York Times:

PARIS — French airstrikes overnight in Mali pushed back Islamist rebels from a key village and destroyed a rebel command center, France said Saturday, as West African nations authorized what they said would be a fast deployment of troops to Mali in support of the weak government there.

France intervened Friday, dropping bombs and firing rockets from helicopter gunships and jet fighters after the Islamist rebels who already control the north of Mali pressed southward, overrunning the village of Konna. The French, who had earlier said they would not intervene militarily but only help African troops, took action in response to an appeal by the Malian president.

France, the United States and other Western nations have been increasingly anxious about the Islamists’ tightening grip on the north of the country, which they said was becoming a haven for militants, including those with links to Al Qaeda, who threaten not only their neighbors, but the West. On Saturday, Adm. Édouard Guillaud, the chief of staff of the French armed forces, said that French forces had no current plans to extend operations to northern areas controlled by the Islamists, but would expect to help African forces do the job when they arrive.

“The quicker the African mission is on the ground, the less we will need to help the Malian army,” Admiral Guillaud said. He said more military planes had been sent to Africa for possible use in Mali. “We are in the build-up phase of operations,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council had earlier agreed that troops from the 15-nation regional bloc known as Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States, and European Union trainers would help the fragile government in Bamako win back the north of the country, where the Islamists have set up harsh rule under Sharia law in the nine months since the army fled the area. But both groups had been slow to deploy.

With the fall of Konna and the movement of the Islamist fighters south, the Ecowas commission president, Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, said Saturday that the group had authorized an immediate deployment of troops “in light of the urgency of the situation,” according to news reports. But he did not specify how many troops would be sent to Mali or give a date for their deployment. Also on Saturday, the foreign minister of Mali’s neighbor, Niger, said that the country would send a battalion of 500 soldiers to fight alongside Ecowas troops.

In the fighting Friday, one French helicopter pilot, Lt. Damien Boiteux, died from small-arms fire, the French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said at a news conference. Mr. Le Drian said that French forces, led by helicopter gunships, had driven the Islamists back from Konna, but it remained unclear if Malian forces had established control. Konna is about 45 miles north of the major town of Mopti, a port city on the Niger River that the Mali government feels it cannot lose.

A spokesman for the Islamist group Ansar Dine told The Associated Press that he could not confirm if some of the group’s fighters were still in Konna. The spokesman, Sanda Ould Boumama, told Reuters that French intervention in Mali will have “consequences, not only for French hostages, but also for all French citizens wherever they find themselves in the Muslim world.”

Fear of those consequences, at least for several French hostages held in North Africa, may have been a motivation for a failed French rescue mission early on Saturday in Somalia, where French commandos tried to free a French intelligence agent held there since 2009.

Mr. Le Drian said that France needed to act in Mali to forestall the collapse of the government there and the establishment of another area controlled by radical Islamists with ties to terrorist groups. “The threat is the establishment of a terrorist state within range of Europe and of France,” he said. France is also acting because it has some 6,000 citizens in Mali, a former French colony. French troops have been moved into Bamako, the capital, to protect citizens there.

By STEVEN ERLANGER and SCOTT SAYARE
Published: January 12, 2013

[lagatta]

Yes, very upsetting. I'm no fan of neocolonial interventions, but I also know (Malian) people in Mali, who would most certainly be persecuted by this fanatical crap.

Didn't the fundies also destroy historic mosques?

[Deleted]

They destroyed just about everything because the people of Timbuktu had a very relaxed attitude regarding their religion.

[bjd]

I think the last sentence in the article above is the important one -- protecting the French and their interests in the country, rather than any concern about terrorism or Mali itself.

That said, pushing back and perhaps even eliminating the Islamists is necessary and useful for the people forced to live under their fanatical rule. I do wonder how much of Islamists' push is religious and how much is sheer power grabbing. They are obviously incapable of governing anything -- just destruction and punishment of anyone who infringes their weird and narrow interpretation of the Koran.

[Deleted]

(from BBC News - 13 January)

French warplanes have bombed the town of Gao in eastern Mali, extending their attacks deep into rebel-held territory.

France's military has been in action against Islamist militants in Mali since Friday, helping government forces recapture the central town of Konna.

A resident in Gao told AFP news agency all Islamist bases in the town had been destroyed and the militants had fled.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the Islamist advance in Mali had been brought to a halt.

"Stopping the terrorists, that's done," he told RTL radio. Had France not intervened, there was a risk that the Islamists could have advanced as far as the capital, Bamako, he said.

[Deleted]

[mich64]

I seen a quick report that Canada was dispatching a plane today to Mali with aid aboard. The report did not define what "aid" was being delivered and whether or not it was a military flight or commercial?

[Deleted]

Most western countries providing assistance prefer not to give too many details of what they are supplying.

Today President Hollande was in the U.A.E. hoping to get a big cheque. In the old days, invading assisting countries used to pay for these operations with their own taxpayers' money. Now it is done more Mafia style. You go to another rich country and have them pay for "protection." "See what might happen if people like us are not around if there is a terrorist raid? If you can provide a small significant contribution, we'll leave our phone number in case somebody threatens you in the future."

There is an unconfirmed rumour that Saudi troops are assisting the French in Mali right now. They were training Saudi soldiers in Corsica a few months ago for an upcoming operation that could require Saudi money expertise in Islamic purity, as well as assistance in language matters.

[Deleted]

This is very upsetting news indeed.
How much pressure do you think
Hollande was/is under to have ordered this attack?
And he was being labeled a 'woos' by the press.....

[bjd]

I couldn't begin to guess about the pressure on Hollande, but every day the mission is becoming "more complicated" and planned to continue longer than was said at first.

Since the Islamist militants have threatened to attack targets in France, since yesterday barriers have been put up around schools (and other public buildings?) just in case. Mind you, at the school where I go for Pilates classes in the evening, the two barriers were around the bike rack! Just in case the terrorists arrive on bikes, they won't be able to attach them.

[Deleted]

Jeez....what a mess and yes, from what I'm hearing, mind you, I'm not really on top of all this, not a real news fanatic, it does sound to me as though it is getting "more complicated" by the day....

[mich64]

Canada's Minister of Defense released a statement this afternoon regarding Canada's role in assisting the French Government in Mali.

Basically what he said was that Canada will aid France with logistical support by sending a military transport to provide heavy equipment lift assistance for a period of one week and that we are not expected to take any part in combat operations. Because Canada has a long standing relationship with France and the French Military, Canada has accepted this very specific request.

Hopefully the barricades in France are unnecessary but retaliation is a likely possibility.

[Deleted]

I get to talk about this every day on a very personal basis, because a number of the orderlies at the nursing home are from Mali. So of course we already started the discussion 7 months ago when the northern part of Mali was seized.

Today I was asking Diarra what she thought of the situation. Her family is mostly in Bamako, which has been relatively safe. The threat of a sudden invasion of Bamako is what caused France to unexpectly decide to attack, because if Bamako was lost, the entire country was lost. She said she talks to them every day and they say that things are fine "but they are not saying everything, I can tell." She also said that they were almost more worried about her and the possibility of terrorist reprisals in Paris than she is worried about them. She and I both know that the fact that she lives like I do in a neighbourhood which is extremely mixed ethnically and religiously -- and which also has thousands of Malians -- makes it unlikely that this area would ever be targeted, but her family in Bamako knows nothing about how Paris is -- they just see the same reports on television that everybody else sees: Paris on red alert with troops in the streets.

She told me that one of the sons of her oldest sister is in the army, and he is in the combat zone -- and that worries her immensely. We had this conversation while I was holding my mother in my arms and she was washing her nether regions.

[Deleted]

Well, I have been blocked twice in two days by metro stoppages due to "suspicious packages" and that will probably increase until further notice. People are going to be very jumpy, especially with the new hostage situation in Algeria.

[nautiker]

I wonder what the French think about the lukewarm assistance from its allies (well, at least Germany deploys twice as much planes as Canada does... )?

[mich64]

The state of our "Air Force" is almost a comical situation here in Canada Nautiker, we do not have much to contribute. The day the C-17 departed for Paris it had constant delays due to mechanical issues, surprised it actually made it off the ground. While our troops are well trained and dedicated servicemen and women, the Country fails miserably in providing them with adequate equipment.

[Deleted]

They mentioned on the news that just about everybody's defence budget in Europe has dropped dramatically and that France and the UK represent more than 50% of the entire EU defence spending.

Meanwhile, it appears that some of our allies are beginning to squirm after the massacre in Algeria this afternoon. I had already read this morning that the main fear was that Algerian anti-terrorist forces would use exactly the same methods as the Russians use. And apparently that is exactly what happened.

[Deleted]

It does seem to be getting scarier by the minute and that is only what the media is telling us. Who knows what's really going on? Jeez....

[mich64]

Kerouac, your recent post reminds me of when we visited The Invilades in Paris and read the information on how after WW1 the French Government let there defenses dwindle believing that they would never see a war like that again and were totally unprepared when they were invaded again.

When defenses are down, advantage is taken, I think that is what is happening this day in our world. There are only a few countries minding the fact that while we wish there was no reason to waste our funds on Defense Departments, these atrocities are still occurring and there will never be a time when we do not have to pick a side and help out.

[Deleted]

There are about 100,000 Malians living in France, mostly in the Paris metropolitan area. I heard that they have called for a march to support France this coming weekend. It will be interesting to see how many people go to the march.

[Deleted]

Troubled times. Stay safe, Kerouac. It's startling how quickly things are accelerating.

[Deleted]

Just to show how international these terrorist organisations have become, the Algerian authorities have reported that of 11 of the terrorists killed today, there were 2 Algerians, 3 Egyptians, 2 Tunisians, 2 Libyans, 1 Malian and 1 French.

I find this particularly disturbing, because it indicates that a finger can no longer be pointed at a specific country. Extremists are flowing out of a variety of countries and coming together to do as much damage as possible. And it's no longer a question of one country winning over another one but just groups of the discontent choosing targets almost at random to prove a point that is difficult to understand.

[fumobici]

If we want to play war in other countries and regions there will obviously be blowback. For those keeping score, the recent death toll is something like 1,000,000 to 10,000 "them" vs. "us". The powers that be require an other/enemy to scare us into willingly relinquishing control to them, who is surprised when we deliberately manufacture more by sticking our @#$% into the hornets nest and spilling blood again and again? If the West wants to play World Cop and take sides and violently meddle in other countries' affairs, we should at least harden the hell up and not fall to pieces or feign outrage when the inevitable blowback reaction occurs. I'm not wholly isolationist but we should at the least be very, very very cautious about where we choose to start dropping bombs on people on practical if not moral grounds.

I wrote this a few days ago, it kind of fits in here,

"A few thoughts on Israel, Terror and the US:

Israel's militarization and descent into extremism prodded on by terror attacks is distancing Israel culturally from the more civilized nations of the world and inexorably driving a wedge between the two. The more extreme, violent and nationalist Israel becomes, the less it will have in common with modern world. We can see this in the eroding support for Israel in the UN where only the US and a few outliers and US puppet states can be relied upon to provide the essentially unconditional support Israel could once count on from the West. In a similar way, the US has been seriously weakened by the 9-11 attacks, not because of the attacks themselves whose actual effects were frankly insignificant in a country the size of the US but because of the irrational responses made in their wake--the blind lashing out at the Arab world such as the fraudulently rationalized war on Iraq, the massive diversion of finite resources from economically and socially productive ends to an irrational expansion of military spending far beyond what even was done in the Cold War era, destroying the American economy and the shocking abandonment of the principles of civil liberties held since the republic's foundation. American exceptionalism, if not killed outright, was crippled by the cultural descent brought on by its insane over-reaction to 9-11. Nobody objective can look at post-9-11 America and not see incalculable losses in every facet of American life, from its economic and moral leadership position in the world to its economy decimated by insane diversions of resources to unproductive military spending and associated the fetishization of military culture to the embrace of an unchecked and unaccountable security/police state where civil liberties guaranteed in the founding documents of the country are blithely ignored. Bin-Laden just lit the fuse; we did the real damage to ourselves.

Terror works, not in the ways it is commonly presumed to work, but because of the irrationality and moral failure it provokes in its targets. It isn't the bombs or the rockets or diverted planes that do the damage; it is the affected states' self destructive reactions to the traumas. The militarization of a culture--not as an ad hoc response to a threat that can be dealt with and ended, but as an essentially permanent state of affairs destroys the culture from within. No modern industrial state can survive as a permanent paranoid armed camp, the values of such a state are incompatible with democracy, with a vibrant and diverse trade economy and with the freedom and civil liberties of its citizens.

Terror attacks have the power to make successful modern liberal democracies abandon the very principles that made them successful. If we are to be honest though, the damage is almost entirely self inflicted."

[mossie]

Well put, Fumobici.
The rot set in when we had the Mandate over Palestine after WW11. Then later militant Israelis started colonising the place, insidiously peacefully at first, but becoming more and more aggressive as their strength grew. All the while they were strongly backed by America, keen to get one over on the Imperial Colonialists. Now, despite UN resolution after UN resolution, America blindly encourages Israel in displacing and repressing, ever more native Palestinians.
They are starting to draw back but it is too late, the damage is done. Bin Laden etc is just a natural Arab reaction. Until heads are very strongly knocked together, and meaningful discussions leading to a just solution take place, nothing will change. We will go on experiencing terror attacks and also encourage the Iranians to press more strongly to get their nuclear weapons. Do not forget that America has provided Israel with some 200 nuclear warheads and Iran wants parity.
I am pleased that I do not have much longer to see this sorry saga unfold and degenerate into WW3

[Deleted]

Fumobici - just wanted to say how much I enjoy what you write. And it all makes so much sense.

mossie, yes, exactly.

[Deleted]

Jan 17, 2013 23:12:33 GMT kerouac2 said:

Just to show how international these terrorist organisations have become, the Algerian authorities have reported that of 11 of the terrorists killed today, there were 2 Algerians, 3 Egyptians, 2 Tunisians, 2 Libyans, 1 Malian and 1 French.

I find this particularly disturbing, because it indicates that a finger can no longer be pointed at a specific country. Extremists are flowing out of a variety of countries and coming together to do as much damage as possible. And it's no longer a question of one country winning over another one but just groups of the discontent choosing targets almost at random to prove a point that is difficult to understand.

That is scary. Who do we blame now?

[Deleted]

Here is where the French military normally maintains troops in Africa.

[Deleted]

While not directly related to the business in Mali, the Algerian hostage crisis has decided for opportunistic motives to tack itself on to the festivities.

The problem is that it is very difficult so far to figure out what happened at the gas plant. One of the very first things that I read, however, was the the Algerian anti-terrorist squads had been trained in Russia and would use Russian methods to end the situation. That certainly turned out to be true.

Here is one of the most recent articles.

[bjd]

I also heard a report on the Algerian reaction on the radio or TV news -- no mention of Russian methods, but rather that the Algerian action was related to their anti-Islamist radical actions during the 1990s, when there were so many problems in Algeria. That the Algerian military has a lot of influence in the country, they like to do things with no input from anyone else, and also that the government goes along with them to show that Algeria is capable of dealing with these problems on its own.