# Soldiers overthrow government in Mali



## High_Gravity

Mali Mutiny: Renegade Soldiers Reportedly Depose Amadou Toumani Toure, Seize Power 









> BAMAKO, Mali -- Drunk soldiers looted Mali's presidential palace hours after they declared a coup on Thursday, suspending the constitution and dissolving the institutions of one of the few established democracies in this troubled corner of Africa.
> 
> The whereabouts of the country's 63-year-old president Amadou Toumani Toure, who was just one month away from stepping down after a decade in office, could not be confirmed. The United States Embassy issued a statement dispelling rumors that he had sought refuge in their compound.
> 
> The scene in this normally serene capital was unsettling to those proud of Mali's history as one of the mature democracies in the region. Soldiers smelling of alcohol ripped flat-screen TVs, computer monitors, printers and photocopiers out of the presidential palace, carting them off in plain sight. Others in pickup trucks zoomed across the broad avenues, holding beer bottles in one hand and firing automatic weapons with the other.
> 
> The mutineers said they were overthrowing the government because of its mishandling of an ethnic Tuareg insurgency in the country's north that began in January. Tens of thousands of Malian civilians have been forced to flee. The soldiers sent to fight the separatists have been killed in large numbers, often after being sent to the battlefield with inadequate arms and food supplies, prompting fierce criticism of the government.
> 
> The coup began Wednesday, after young troops mutinied at a military camp near the capital. The rioting spread to a garrison thousands of kilometers (miles) away in the strategic northern town of Gao.



Mali Mutiny: Renegade Soldiers Reportedly Depose Amadou Toumani Toure, Seize Power


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## TakeAStepBack

Oh, boy.....


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## High_Gravity

TakeAStepBack said:


> Oh, boy.....



When Gaddafi was overthrown alot of those Libyan weapons ended up in the hands of the Tuareg insurgents in the North, Gaddafi recruited alot of Tuaregs to fight for him and those guys came back to Mali with a shitload of fire power.


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## TakeAStepBack

Well, that explains part of it. Way to go team NATO.


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## High_Gravity

TakeAStepBack said:


> Well, that explains part of it. Way to go team NATO.



Nobody really cares about Mali, its a very poor country of little significance to anyone, this story is barely making the news anywhere.


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## Ropey

> Mali coup: soldiers loot presidential palace after seizing power
> 
> Rebels claim they have put an end to 'incompetent regime' of President Touré *but promise to restore democrac*y








> But the CNRDR's claim to have democratic intentions was dismissed by international organisations, which were swift to condemn the coup. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for calm and said grievances had to be settled democratically.
> 
> Jean Ping, head of the commission of the African Union continental grouping, said he was "deeply concerned by the reprehensible acts currently being perpetrated by some elements of the Malian army".



Mali is ~90+% Tribal Muslim majority, thus this is a lather, rinse and repeat of Muslim internecine tribal warfare which can be see all over the Middle East as well. Ebb and flow...

Tribalism

Tribalism in Africa

Look at the flash points all over the world. Watch Mali and see if there's a 'Spring' there.  Not so, it's simply more thugs replacing thugs.  

Soldiers Loot Palace


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## Douger

I guess their tourism will take a hit ? It looks like a lovely place. Much like Dee_troyt or South Shitcago, but warmer.


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## High_Gravity

Douger said:


> I guess their tourism will take a hit ? It looks like a lovely place. Much like Dee_troyt or South Shitcago, but warmer.



Fuck you Douger.


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## High_Gravity

Mali Coup: President Amadou Toumani Toure Whereabouts Unknown 








> BAMAKO, Mali  Ethnic Tuareg rebels in Mali say on their website that they have taken a northern town a day after mutinous soldiers declared a coup in the capital.
> 
> The rebel National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad said in the statement that they had moved into the town of Anefis without resistance. The town is between the strategic northern outposts of Gao and Kidal.
> 
> Soldiers in the capital stormed the presidency Wednesday. They say they are angry over the handling of the Tuareg insurgency in the north. The uprising has cost the lives of many soldiers.
> 
> As of Friday, the whereabouts of President Amadou Toumani Toure were unknown.
> 
> Many worry that the rebels in the north will take advantage of the power vacuum to take strategic towns.



Mali Coup: President Amadou Toumani Toure Whereabouts Unknown


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## syrenn

Amazing.


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## High_Gravity

Mali: Big Trouble in a Poor Country Awash in Post-Gaddafi Weapons








> To the clatter of gunfire and under the cover of darkness, the President who ushered Mali into an unprecedented era of multiparty democracy fled the West African country's sleepy capital, Bamako, last night as an army mutiny rapidly escalated into a full-blown coup attempt. The renegade soldiers had claimed to have seized the country after storming the presidential palace during the night. But President Amadou Toumani Toure's reappearance at a nearby military cantonment, apparently at the head of a crack bodyguard of red-beret paratroopers, now leaves Mali on the brink of a civil war  apart from dealing with the thorny Tuareg rebellion that helped precipitate the military uprising. In less than 24 hours, one of Africa's most stable democracies has turned upside down.
> 
> Across Bamako, growing numbers of the military, gendarmerie and police switched sides, locking down the capital, firing sporadically and establishing roadblocks. Shops stayed shuttered, crowds stood uneasily on street corners, and old men in traditional robes lounged in deck chairs as they waited for news. "Pow-pow-pow," said Abdoulai, a taxi driver, mimicking gunfire as troops insouciantly loosed off rounds to cow the population. Gendarmes commandeered a silver station wagon; a soldier strolled casually down a half-deserted street, can of Coke in his hand; and a policeman riding pillion behind a driver on a moped flashed a V sign and shouted: "We've won."
> 
> In fact, the situation is a lot less certain than that. Around noon on Thursday, news emerged that Toure had successfully slipped past the renegade assault on the presidential palace, which bestrides a limestone cliff overlooking the center of Bamako, and was regrouping at Kati, the barracks where the mutiny began Wednesday morning. He is, however, without several key senior government members who are under lock and key. Meanwhile, mutinies continue to take place across the country. Former colonial power France, which retains close links to Mali, said it was suspending military assistance and called for the restoration of the constitution, which the mutineers suspended overnight. The U.S. and the European Union echoed that call, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for grievances to be settled democratically. The African Union said it was "deeply concerned by the reprehensible acts currently being perpetrated by some elements of the Malian army."
> 
> Situated in the heart of West Africa, Mali is deemed a key ally by Western powers, who will want to see Toure restored to power as fast as possible, particularly because terrorist groups are spreading rapidly in the region, and the Sahara is awash with weaponry looted from Libya. The country's northern desert is a thoroughfare for arms smugglers, a safe haven for al-Qaeda's regional franchise and a lucrative route for cocaine traffickers headed north to the markets of Europe. With an apparent standoff looming, there is every prospect of security deteriorating before it gets better.



Read more: Mali Coup: Trouble in Country Full of Post-Gaddafi Weapons - TIME


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## High_Gravity

Rebels Take Timbuktu in Mali



> JOHANNESBURG  Tuareg rebels overran the ancient desert crossroads of Timbuktu over the weekend, according to residents of the city and local officials, virtually sealing the rebels control of the northern half of the troubled West African nation of Mali.
> 
> The fall of Timbuktu, a backwater deep in the Sahara, is the latest in a series of steady advances by the rebels and another setback for a nation struggling to come to grips with a coup that deposed its elected president last month and replaced him with a junta of junior military officers.
> 
> On Sunday, a convoy of trucks carrying fighters from the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, the main Malian Tuareg rebel group, paraded into Timbuktu, residents said. The Associated Press reported that another rebel group, Ansar Dine, was also in the city. Residents reported seeing its black flag flying, and said fighters from the group, which espouses an Islamist philosophy, were on the streets to prevent looting.
> 
> Fida Ag Mohammed, a Tuareg elder who tends a library of crumbling ancient manuscripts near Timbuktu, said that the rebellion had rattled the ancient city.
> 
> They have taken the whole of the north, Mr. Mohammed said in a telephone interview. He said that the price of food had risen, and that people in Timbuktu were worried about what the rapidly evolving events in Mali would mean for them. Asked if the citys Tuaregs were supporting the rebellion, he replied: The people support whoever is in power. What else can they do?
> 
> The fall of Timbuktu and other cities in the north have greatly undercut the rationale of the coup leaders, who argued that they needed to overthrow President Amadou Toumani Touré because he had failed to properly arm and equip the military in its fight against the rebels. But in the days since the military coup, the rebels have made some of their most significant gains yet, taking control of towns like Gao and Kidal.
> 
> The coup leaders faced another major setback on Monday, when the landlocked nations neighbors in West Africa closed their borders to all nonhumanitarian trade with Mali and froze its accounts in the regional bank, news agencies reported. The regional bloc, known as the Economic Community of West African States, had threatened the coup leaders with such sanctions last week if they did not surrender power and restore democracy.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/africa/rebels-take-timbuktu-in-mali.html?_r=1&hp#


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## Truthmatters

poor people who live there.

I doubt it turns out well for them


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## High_Gravity

Mali Rebellion: Islamist Group Plants Flag In Timbuktu 








> BAMAKO, Mali  Just 12 days after they stormed the presidential palace, the young officers that seized control of Mali in a coup were slapped Monday with harsh financial sanctions that could cause the country to run out of gasoline.
> 
> The body representing nations in West Africa announced Monday that starting immediately they are closing the land borders with Mali. The landlocked nation of over 15 million imports nearly all its petroleum products from neighboring Ivory Coast, and economists say gas stations could run dry within weeks. The country's account at the regional central bank has also been frozen, meaning that the junta will struggle to pay the salaries of government employees, including the very soldiers whose loyalty they need to retain power.
> 
> "All of the measures are applicable starting today and until the constitutional order is restored," said Alassane Ouattara, the president of Ivory Coast who is the chair of the Economic Community of West African States, after an emergency summit in Senegal. "The measures taken by the junta are in the right direction, but are not sufficient," he said.
> 
> The regional body representing 15 nations in West Africa had issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the soldiers that grabbed power, which expired Monday. In an effort to stave off the sanctions, the captain who led the coup held a press conference Sunday to say he was reinstating the constitution and planning to hold elections.
> 
> Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo refused to give a timeline on when the elections would be held, however, and dodged questions on whether he would continue to be president during the period leading to the election.
> 
> Meanwhile, the government on Monday also lost control of the northern half of the nation, as rebel flags were hoisted over the last three major towns still under government control. In just three days, the Tuareg rebels swept across the north, taking the regional capital of Kidal on Friday, the largest city of Gao on Saturday and the fabled desert outpost of Timbuktu on Sunday.
> 
> Commentators on television are already talking about the possible partition of Mali, which has weathered numerous rebellions by the lighter-skinned Tuaregs who have long felt marginalized by the darker-skinned Bambaras, who dominate the south where the seat of government is located.



Mali Rebellion: Islamist Group Plants Flag In Timbuktu


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## Ropey

The western style economy is not of great concern to those who are fundamentalists of Islam.  Well, to get along with that is eh?


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## High_Gravity

Mali Coup: Ceasefire Declared By Rebels After Northern Push 








> BAMAKO, Mali  The rebel group that recently seized control of Mali's remote north in a maneuver that effectively partitioned the country in two announced a cease-fire Thursday, saying they had reached their military goal.
> 
> Moussa Ag Assarid, a spokesman for the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, said the group was declaring the cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid to resume in the north, where shops were looted.
> 
> In Ivory Coast, the military chiefs of the nations bordering Mali met Thursday to hash out their plan for a military intervention. Deputy Ivorian Defense Minister Paul Koffi Koffi said military action is being considered both to reverse the coup that deposed Mali's president last month, as well as to preserve Mali's territorial integrity after the rebel advance in the north.
> 
> He instructed the army chiefs of the 15 nations in West Africa to draft a detailed plan, including how many troops each intends to send, how quickly they could ready them and what logistical means they plan to contribute.
> 
> In Paris, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France is ready to help African forces on a logistical level. The chief of staff of the French army, Adm. Edouard Guillaud, traveled Thursday to Burkina Faso to discuss details with the president.
> 
> The rebels launched their insurgency in January, saying they wanted to establish an independent Tuareg homeland in the north, known as the Azawad. They only succeeded in taking small towns until March 21, when disgruntled soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the distant capital of Bamako, overthrowing the democratically elected president.



Mali Coup: Ceasefire Declared By Rebels After Northern Push


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## High_Gravity

Mali Tuareg Rebels Declare Independence 








> BAMAKO, Mali  Mali's Tuareg rebels, who have seized control of the country's distant north in the chaotic aftermath of a military coup in the capital, declared independence Friday of their Azawad nation.
> 
> "We, the people of the Azawad," they said in a statement published on the rebel website, "proclaim the irrevocable independence of the state of the Azawad starting from this day, Friday, April 6, 2012."
> 
> The military chiefs of 13 of Mali's neighbors met Thursday in Ivory Coast to hash out plans for a military intervention to push back the rebels in the north, as well as to restore constitutional rule after disgruntled soldiers last month stormed the presidential palace and sent the democratically elected leader into hiding. The confusion in the capital created an opening for the rebels in the north, who have been attempting to claim independence for more than 50 years.
> 
> France, which earlier said it is willing to offer logistical support for a military invasion, announced Friday that it does not recognize the new Tuareg state.
> 
> "A unilateral declaration of independence that is not recognized by African states means nothing for us," said French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet. The European Union concurred.
> 
> "We will certainly not accept this declaration. It's out of the question," said Richard Zinc, the head of the European Union delegation in Bamako.
> 
> The traditionally nomadic Tuareg people have been fighting for independence for the northern half of Mali since at least 1958, when Tuareg elders wrote a letter addressed to the French president asking their colonial rulers to carve out a separate homeland called "Azawad" in their language. Instead the north, where the lighter-skinned Tuareg people live, was made part of the same country as the south, where the dark-skinned ethnic groups controlled the capital and the nation's finances.
> 
> The Tuaregs accuse the southerners of marginalizing the north and of concentrating development, including lucrative aid projects, in the south. They fought numerous rebellions attempting to wrestle the north free, but it wasn't until a March 21 coup in Bamako toppled the nation's elected government that the fighters were able to make significant gains. In a three-day period last week they seized the three largest cities in the north as soldiers dumped their uniforms and retreated.
> 
> Their independence declaration cited 50 years of misrule by the country's southern-based administration and was issued by the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, or NMLA, whose army is led by a Tuareg senior commander who fought in the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's military.
> 
> The group is secular and its stated aim is creating Azawad. However, they were helped by an Islamist faction, Ansar Dine, which abides by the extreme Salafi reading of the Quran. They are now attempting to apply Sharia law to Mali's moderate north, including in the fabled tourist destination of Timbuktu, where women have been told to wear veils and not be seen in public with males who are not relatives.



Mali Tuareg Rebels Declare Independence


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## High_Gravity

Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure Hands In Resignation After Coup 








> BAMAKO, Mali  From one of the hiding places where he has been holed up since last month's coup, Mali's president penned a resignation letter and handed it to an emissary to deliver to the country's new leaders, while reporters looked on.
> 
> The move paves the way for Mali to name a new interim president, the next step in the nation's return to democratic rule. President Amadou Toumani Toure was just months from finishing his last term, when soldiers on March 21 stormed the presidential palace, sending Toure into hiding and canceling a democratic tradition stretching back more than two decades.
> 
> Under intense international pressure, however, the officers that seized power last month signed an accord on Friday, agreeing to return the country to constitutional rule. They did so after much of the capital only had 12 hours of electricity a day, a result of the severe financial sanctions imposed by the nation's neighboring Mali, including the closure of the country's borders, which made it impossible for landlocked Mali to import fuel.
> 
> The accord signed by the leader of the March 21 coup called for the application of Article 36 of Mali's constitution. The article states that in the event the president is unable to serve out his term, the head of the national assembly becomes interim president for a transitional period, before new elections can be held.
> 
> For that article to be able to be applied properly, however, Mali's constitutional court needed to confirm that the president cannot carry out his term.
> 
> Reporters from state television and French television station France 24 were allowed to film President Toure at a villa in the ACI 2000 neighborhood of the capital where he has been hiding. Looking thinner than before, the 63-year-old leader appeared in a flowing white robe and traditional bonnet. He said he was resigning of his own accord.
> 
> "I am doing this without any pressure, and I am doing this in good faith, and I am doing it especially out of love for my country. I have decided to hand in my resignation letter," Toure said.
> 
> His resignation will allow the court to declare the vacancy of power, paving the way for the head of the national assembly, Dioncounda Traore, to become interim president, as called for in the constitution.



Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure Hands In Resignation After Coup


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## High_Gravity

Loyalists of Malis Overthrown Leader Appear to Be Attempting Countercoup








> BAMAKO, Mali  Gunfire rang out over this West African capital Monday night as soldiers loyal to the president, who was deposed in a coup in March, appeared to be attempting a countercoup against the ruling military junta.
> 
> But by early Tuesday morning the junta aired a message on state television saying that it controlled the positions that had been under attack, including the state broadcaster, the citys international airport and a military base in Kati, the garrison village at the edge of Bamako where the military junta and its troops are based, Reuters reported.
> 
> A witness near the broadcasters main building told the news agency, however, that gun and heavy weapons fire continued near the building.
> 
> Shots could be heard Monday night coming from the Djicoroni paratrooper camp, where many of the loyalists troops who support Amadou Toumani Touré, the ousted leader, are based. A junta soldier, running from the scene, yelled, The camp paratroops are attacking us! He was heard calling for reinforcements on his phone.
> 
> Witnesses near the base, close to the United States Embassy here, said they had seen well-armed soldiers in armored vehicles driving past.
> 
> Gunfire was reported in Bamako on Monday night around the area of the state broadcaster, and the national television station failed to broadcast its regular news program. The international airport also appeared to be under attack. The airport is being evacuated, said Tieman Coulibaly, the president of a handling company that works at the airport and a leading opposition figure. The Red Berets are trying to take it, he said, referring to the loyalist troops.
> 
> Fighting was also reported in Kati. The soldiers told us to stay inside, and they are all in the streets now, said Sidiki Keïta, a resident. All the streets are occupied by the Green Berets  the junta troops  and they are looking for the Red Berets.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/w...-have-countercoup-as-goal.html?_r=1&ref=world


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## High_Gravity

Malis Fog of War: Refugees Tell of Terror, Hunger and Rape








> It took Ibrahim Touré three weeks to escape from Timbuktu after rebels seized the desert town, but, in his heart, he hasnt really left. The 26-year-old shopkeeper studies the floor as he talks, cradling a welter of scabs and fresh scar tissue on his right elbow. Sometimes he stops to rub his head with an uncertain hand  the unforgiving sun, maybe, or a reaction to the horrors he has witnessed and suffered. If what he says is true, then the fog of war in northern Mali  where Tuareg separatists, Islamic militants, Arab militias and a hodgepodge of terrorist groups are vying for control following a spectacularly successful military campaign  is concealing a grisly spate of human-rights abuses, humanitarian suffering and war crimes.
> 
> The shadows were lengthening one Friday after mosque, he relates, when he saw three truckloads of gunmen from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) pounce on two young women. One was an old school friend called Isata, Touré says  a girl who was always laughing. The rebels fired wildly in the air and stuck a gun in her face. Hidden in a nomads tent, Touré felt his guts contort as he watched them rape her. I didnt think these kinds of things could happen in reality, he says. After the gunmen left the two violated women on the ground, other women went to comfort them. Isata couldnt even talk, says Touré. Her whole face was destroyed where theyd hit her. There was blood everywhere.
> 
> Tourés own problems were just beginning. As he surveyed the ruins of his electronics shop days later  looted, he reckons, by MNLA fighters  Islamic militants from a faction called Ansar Eddine took issue with his livelihood. Spotting a computer, they asked him what he wanted with a white mans things. They knocked him to his knees, gripped his hands and held a flaming torch to his arm. Someone struck him on the leg with a knife. I was so scared, he says. I cant remember what happened after that. Hungry, wounded and destitute, Touré has wound up on a dusty sidewalk in Malis capital, Bamako, one of hundreds of people arriving each day on overcrowded buses from the countrys disintegrating north. His nephews Oussman and Hamar (ages 12 and 5) lie in the dirt nearby. Their mother died about a month ago from sickness and starvation.
> 
> Stories like this are almost impossible to verify. TIME found no second source to confirm Tourés pitiful tale. Timbuktu, so long the mystic city of Western imagination, has been largely isolated from the world since rebels put the Malian army to flight on April 1. Emboldened by the chaos, terrorists from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are said to be operating more freely, limiting the extent to which aid organizations can penetrate Malis hinterland. There are good reasons, too, to reserve judgment on what information does emanate from the north, not least because other parties to the conflict  the military regime in Bamako, for example  have an interest in playing up perceptions of rebel depredations. The truth, to borrow a metaphor from the limited literature on northern Mali, is shrouded in a haze of dust.



Read more: Mali's Fog of War: Refugees Tell of Terror, Hunger, Rape | Global Spin | TIME.com


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## ScienceRocks

Quite typical. Lets not transfer anymore of this into the western world...thanks.


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## High_Gravity

Mali Uprising Proves No Threat to Junta Leaders Vision of Authority









> BAMAKO, Mali  This onetime model of African stability remained in a precarious state on Tuesday as the new military junta fought back an attempted countercoup by loyalist troops and asserted victory by days end.
> 
> Hours before the revolt broke out Monday, the juntas leader, a youthful American-trained captain named Amadou Haya Sanogo confidently declared a leading role in Malis future in an interview at his barracks outside Bamako, the capital. There was no hint that his authority would be challenged later in the day, but soldiers were busy building a substantial protective wall in front of the dilapidated two-story military building that is his headquarters.
> 
> There were sporadic bursts of gunfire on a rainy May Day holiday, but soldiers on the street, diplomats and a high-ranking member of the junta said control had been re-established in Bamako, at least temporarily, after a night of shelling and tracer fire. Key positions  the state television station, the airport and the loyalist Djicoroni barracks  were under their command, said the soldiers, who appeared calm for the most part. Still, gunfire crackled over the Djicoroni barracks late into the afternoon.
> 
> The apparent triumph of Malis military bosses, less than six weeks after they chased the elected president from his palace overlooking the capital, seemed a further step in the consolidation of their control, despite pledges to restore civilian rule and democracy. It was a show of firepower, capped by the overrunning of the short-lived uprisings center in the Djicoroni barracks. The high-ranking member of the junta, who asked not to be quoted by name, said there had been deaths on both sides, but could not say how many.
> 
> Captain Sanogos coup on March 22 caused the immediate collapse of the Malian Armys resistance to nomadic rebel and Islamist forces sweeping across the vast northern half of the country. That area, now outside government control, has been the scene of serious human rights abuses, including rapes, public floggings and amputations, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Monday. The swift breakdown of the armed forces has led, in turn, to questions about the effectiveness of a United States-led regional counterterrorism program that had taken the Malian Army under its wing.
> 
> Across Bamako, somber black billboards have sprung up, depicting the map of Mali as a giant face shedding tears from its northern half, and with a big question mark planted in its southern section. Refugee accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch and clandestine footage aired on France 2 television depict a vast region of West Africa, including the historic city of Timbuktu, now under the repressive sway of militant Islamist factions like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/w...t-to-amadou-haya-sanogos-plans.html?ref=world


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## High_Gravity

In Mali, a shaky debut for the would-be country of Azawad








> A month ago, ethnic Tuareg fighters seized the northern stretches of Mali as it reeled from a coup, declaring a new state of their own called Azawad. Mali has so far failed to dislodge the rebels, but the Tuareg stab at independence has fallen flat internationally, winning scant support.
> 
> The would-be state has been rejected by the African Union, the European Union and the United States since it declared itself.  The African Union shuns changing any borders, let alone creating new nations, as part of a pact agreed to decades ago to quash conflict.
> 
> "If that door opened, almost every ethnic group might want its own separate state," said Calestous Juma, professor of international development at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "Africa's road to hell is paved by tribal intentions. Nobody wants another Somalia."
> 
> Others have overcome the resistance of the African Union to new nations, most recently South Sudan. But whereas South Sudan came into being after a long civil war and was legitimized by an agreed-on referendum, Azawad emerged from sheer force and the power vacuum following the Mali coup.
> 
> Azawad is also seen skeptically because of its ethnic roots. Giving a Tuareg state the African Union's blessing could encourage ethnic minorities in neighboring nations to split away, or allow Azawad to spread into other countries with Tuareg populations.
> 
> Such a state is problematic in the first place: Although the rebels are Tuareg, much of the territory they claim is home to a diverse set of ethnic groups, especially toward the south. Exact numbers are elusive, but it is believed that only 3 million out of 14.5 million people in the northern stretches of Mali are Tuaregs, said J. Peter Pham, Africa director at the Atlantic Council.
> "If you had a vote today about whether to break away, I don't think they'd [the rebels] win," said William Moseley, a University of Botswana visiting scholar. "It's not even clear if all the Tuaregs support that."
> 
> Adding to the wariness are fears that the new nation might not be economically viable, with few sources of food. The deserts may have oil deposits, but experts say it isn't clear how profitable they could be.



In Mali, a shaky debut for the would-be country of Azawad - latimes.com


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## rus2012

How is situation are there? Are this military man still in power?


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## High_Gravity

West African mediator opens talks with Mali rebels



> (Reuters) - West African bloc ECOWAS has opened talks with Mali's rebel groups, including fighters linked to al Qaeda, as part of its effort to restore constitutional rule in the country in the wake of its March 22 coup, Burkina Faso's foreign minister said.
> 
> The talks are the first publicly acknowledged negotiations with the armed groups by the regional bloc since a mix of separatist rebels and Islamist gunmen took control of northern Mali following the coup in the capital.
> 
> "We have to ensure that all factions feel involved in the peace process ... it is better for them all to be present at negotiating table," minister Djibril Bassole told journalists late on Thursday.
> 
> Burkina Faso is one of ECOWAS's lead mediators in the Mali crisis. Bassole gave no details on any progress made.
> 
> ECOWAS is trying to map out a political transition and has said that it has a 3,000-strong force ready to be deployed to Mali, though analysts have questioned the bloc's readiness and appetite for desert warfare against heavily armed rebels.
> 
> The two main groups occupying Mali's north are the Tuareg-led MNLA, which wants an independent state in the desert north, and Ansar Dine, an al Qaeda-linked group which is seeking to impose Islamic law, sharia, across Mali.
> 
> But other groups including AQIM, al Qaeda's North African wing, MUJWA, which is an AQIM splinter group, and foreign fighters are also operating in the area, fuelling regional fears it has become a haven for extremists and international criminal gangs.
> 
> ECOWAS has offered to help Mali retake control of its north but plans remain vague and, before any force comes to the country, the bloc will have to resolve the political crisis.
> 
> The current interim president's term runs out this weekend and the military has proposed a national convention to choose a successor, but regional leaders and many of the country's politicians have rejected the plan.
> 
> "It is about proposing a plan that brings together the transitional government, the armed groups and other actors to find a way out of this crisis," Bassole said.



West African mediator opens talks with Mali rebels | Reuters


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## High_Gravity

Diancounda Traore, Mali Interim President, Attacked By Protesters 








> BAMAKO, Mali  Demonstrators forced their way into the office of Mali's interim president on Monday and attacked the elderly leader, who was later brought to a local hospital unconscious, a witness and an associate of the president said.
> 
> Dioncounda Traore was treated at the Point G Hospital for an injury to the head, said Sekou Yattara, a medical student there. The interim leader was not conscious when he arrived at the hospital though he regained consciousness later, Yattara added, explaining that he learned of the president's condition from the doctors treating him.
> 
> "He has been badly injured but the information I have is that his life is not in danger," said Iba N'Diaye, the vice president of Traore's party. "This was an attempt on his life."
> 
> Thousands of people descended on the presidential palace in Bamako on Monday morning, angry over a deal brokered by regional powers that extended the time Traore would stay in power.
> 
> The demonstrators carried sticks and branches from trees with which they hit portraits of Traore, others ripped photocopies of the interim president's photograph. One group carried a dummy wrapped in cloth lying on two long sticks, meant to represent Dioncounda's dead body.
> 
> Just months before it was to hold elections, Mali was thrown into chaos when soldiers staged a March 21 coup, driving the country's democratically elected leader into exile and reversing two decades of democratic rule in one of the only stable countries in this volatile patch of Africa.
> 
> Mali's neighbors reacted swiftly and the body representing nations in the region, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, imposed strict sanctions until the junta agreed to restore the country's constitution in early April.
> 
> The constitution called for the head of the national assembly  Dioncounda Traore  to become interim president for a 40-day period, before new elections could be held. The 40-day window expired on Thursday, and ECOWAS wanted Traore's term extended for another year, in order to give the country time to properly plan elections. The junta leader agreed over the weekend to allow Traore's term to be extended in return for receiving a lifetime salary, and the status of a former head of state.
> 
> Even as officials on Monday were announcing the new deal, thousands of demonstrators allied with the soldiers that seized power poured into the streets, and made their way up the steep hill, known as Koulouba, where the presidential palace sits. It appears that they were able to penetrate the palace with the help of soldiers belonging to the junta.



Diancounda Traore, Mali Interim President, Attacked By Protesters


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## High_Gravity

Libya weapons aid Tuareg rebellion in Mali








> SABHA, Libya  Abdallah takes out his pistol and hands it to a friend. He says he is in good company, so he does not need it.
> 
> Dressed in military camouflage gear and scarves, Abdallah and his six Libyan Tuareg companions sit under a tree that provides scant protection from the Saharan sun in southern Libya. They have been smuggling munitions to Tuareg insurgents in northern Mali for much of the last eight months.
> 
> "We know the desert; there is nobody who can stop us," says one of the men, Omar.
> 
> Since the beginning of last year's insurgency against longtime Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, weapons have streamed out of Libya, looted from depots and sold on the black market. Difficult to track and impossible to quantify, they move in many directions.
> 
> Smugglers from Zintan in the northwest move south with ease into the remote regions straddling Chad and Niger, selling munitions to militants in the Sahel region south of the Sahara desert. Israeli officials say that weapons have flowed into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, pouring out from Egypt through tunnels. The North African-based Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, through long-established links to drug dealers and gunrunners, reportedly acquired Libyan arms as early as March 2011.
> 
> According to a United Nations report released in late January, smuggled weapons include "rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with antiaircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light antiaircraft artillery (light-caliber bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles."
> 
> Substantial numbers of weapons have moved south, ending up in Mali, the report says, bought by Malian Tuareg mercenaries who fought for Kadafi.
> 
> Racked by drought and food shortages, the Sahara-Sahel strip is host to some of the world's busiest smuggling routes. People. Weapons. Colombian cocaine. All pass through this sweltering desert expanse.
> 
> The U.N. Security Council has called on Libya's interim authorities to take action to stem the flow of weapons, fearing transnational destabilization in the Sahel, which is experiencing a severe food crisis and political turmoil.
> 
> "We are concerned about the porous nature of the border between Chad, Niger and Libya and the risk of weapons, including MANPADS [shoulder-launched missiles capable of downing a low-flying airliner], moving across those borders," Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, said this year during a Security Council briefing in New York.



Libya weapons funneled to Tuareg rebels in Mali - latimes.com


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## GodSaveAmerica

Its good to see Amadou ousted at last. The youtube videos of his thugs gunning down peaceful protesters were horrendous.


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## High_Gravity

Mali Conflict: Children Recruited Into Armed Groups, U.N. Says 








> GENEVA  The level of violence against children and cases of cholera in northern Mali are rising at an alarming rate since the area was seized by al-Qaida-linked Islamist fighters and Tuareg rebels following a March coup, U.N. officials said Friday.
> 
> At least 175 boys between the ages of 12 and 18 have been recruited into armed groups, at least eight girls were sexually assaulted and two teenage boys were killed by land mines and unexploded ordnance since the end of March, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF reported.
> 
> UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said school closures in Mali have affected 300,000 children, making them more vulnerable to violence and recruitment as child soldiers.
> 
> "These numbers are reason for alarm especially because they represent only a partial picture of the child protection context in the north  an area where access for humanitarian workers is limited," Mercado told reporters at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva.
> 
> Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said hospital officials in the northern Mali city of Gao told U.N. officials on Thursday that they had 24 cases of cholera.



Mali Conflict: Children Recruited Into Armed Groups, U.N. Says


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## High_Gravity

Will the World Go to War to Save Mali?








> Another clash with global consequences looms, apart from the awful conflagration in war-ravaged Syria. On Oct. 12, following weeks of French pressure, the U.N. Security Council set a 45-day deadline for intervention into Mali, the northwest African nation that has seen roughly half of its territory overrun by rebels and militias with links to al-Qaedas North African wing (AQIM). Frances Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian insisted Tuesday it was a matter of weeks, not months before decisive action would be taken to reclaim a vast stretch of desert and semiarid scrubland that has become a terrorist sanctuary. The instability of the past half-year in Mali has sparked fears on both sides of the Mediterranean of a broader regional crisis. Six French nationals are currently being held hostage in the Sahel. Only the integrity of Mali, said Le Drian, assures Europes security.
> 
> Metaphors of doom now swirl in what was once one of Africas democratic success stories. Some say that Mali is the next Somalia, where a patchwork of warlords and insurgents ranges itself against a dysfunctional, crisis-hit state. Others say it is the next Afghanistan, where extremist militias, some with jihadist connections, make hay in a security vacuum, arming and funding themselves through illicit drug smuggling networks. (Islamist groups in control of historic Saharan entrepots such as the cities of Timbuktu and Gao have instituted Sharia law and, like the Afghan Taliban a decade ago, destroyed ancient tombs and relics considered idolatrous within their own puritanical creed.) And now it may be the next Libyawhere only foreign military intervention, framed as humanitarian action, can stabilize a steadily deteriorating state of affairs.
> 
> Still, despite the confidence of the French Defence Minister, concrete action looks far away. The U.N. Security Council resolution calls on the Malian government and ECOWAS, a bloc of West African states that includes Mali, to jointly prepare a plan to retake the countrys north. While ECOWAS nations all share concerns over the havoc in Mali spreading across its borders, there are pronounced deficits in trust between various parties. Moreover, as related in a report published in late September by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, the ECOWAS armies are accustomed mostly to conflict in forested areas and will need considerable help to launch a successful campaign in the Malian Sahel. The bloc, says the ICG report, displays a rhetorical ambition that goes beyond its capacity to deliver.



Read more: Will the World Go to War to Save Mali? | World | TIME.com


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## irosie91

I have a wonderful idea------Long ago---muslims from Mali ---invaded Sicily      I think someone should remind   THE GODFATHER    about this insult to the prestige of the Mafia-------and  he can  Make for them    AN OFFER THEY CANNOT REFUSE


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## ScienceRocks

I think the mafia should mow down all the fucking muslims. That's just my sane opinion.


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## High_Gravity

What Malis Crisis Means for the Future of Western Military Intervention








> Why should Americans care about Mali? Many probably asked themselves that question during the last presidential debate, when Mitt Romney twice mentioned the northwest African nation, a place most Americans might be hard-pressed to locate on a map. Yet seven months after Islamic militant groups seized control of northern Mali, the Western-designed military strategy to push them out could have real consequences for future antiterrorist operations, including for the U.S., according to some analysts. As the pieces steadily fall into place for a military assault on northern Mali, the intervention could serve as a model for future conflicts, at a time when Americans and Europeans have no appetite to fight another war. Were moving to a form of intervention which is much more typical of the post-Afghanistan era than anything we have seen before, says François Heisbourg, a special advisor to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. If you are looking at future military interventions, it will not be like Iraq and Afghanistan.
> 
> The objective is clear: to seize back control of northern Mali  an area the size of Texas  and crush the Islamic militants who have controlled it since last April. As a measure of how urgent the West believes the situation is, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Algiers on Monday to try to lock in President Abdelaziz Bouteflikas support for a military assault across his border, with an aide telling reporters on the plane headed to Algerias capital that the country was a critical partner in dealing with al-Qaeda in North Africa. And last Wednesday U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told reporters in Washington that the U.S. had to ensure that al-Qaeda has no place to hide and that we have to continue to go after them.
> 
> That will not be easy  especially since no Western troops will be deployed on the ground. The plan, crafted in a frenzy of diplomatic activity in Africa during the past two weeks, will instead rely on about 3,200 West African troops, together with 3,000 Malian troops trained by the E.U. Many of the West African troops are Nigerian, who have little experience in fighting across the remote, vast desert that characterizes northern Mali. In a French-led resolution at the U.N. on Oct. 12, African countries have until late November to craft a plan to get the Islamic groups out of northern Mali. Behind the scenes, U.S. and French Special Forces are increasingly involved in training and advising African militaries, according to Heisbourg, in advance of the attack, which could come early next year. And French officials have said they would likely deploy unarmed surveillance drones of the kind the U.S. already has at hand in the area.



Read more: What Mali&#8217;s Crisis Means for the Future of Western Military Intervention | TIME.com


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