Recently in Mali Category

"They told me to stop talking or they would take the necessary measures. I told them they might as well do whatever they have planned because there is no way I am going to stop."

"Mali lawmaker tells of threats over al-Qaida talk," by Martin Vogl for the Associated Press, October 30:

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — A Malian lawmaker who has been outspoken about his country's alleged role in providing refuge to an offshoot of the al-Qaida terror network says he was stopped in traffic Sunday in the capital by armed men who warned him to stop talking about the matter.

Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh, a member of parliament from the Bourem region in the north of Mali, where al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is known to operate, says he was stopped at around 11 a.m. in Bamako by four men in a black Mercedes.

"They presented themselves as agents of the Malian intelligence service. I could see they had automatic pistols concealed under their clothes," Assaleh told The Associated Press by telephone just hours after the incident.

"The men told me I should stop speaking about the links between the Malian state and the drugs trade, and the Malian state and AQIM," Assaleh said.

Assaleh said he has since checked with the head of the Malian intelligence service, who said the men were not working for him.

The lawmaker is among the most outspoken members of Mali's government about the problem of AQIM, a terror outfit that grew out of the groups fighting the Algeria's secular government in the 1990s. The groups merged with al-Qaida in 2006, and were pushed into Mali where they were able to install themselves with little resistance from local authorities.

AQIM militants have raised millions of dollars by kidnapping dozens of European aid workers and tourists, nearly all of whom were abducted in the countries neighboring Mali, then transported to Mali where they've been held until a ransom is secured.

Diplomatic cables made available by WikiLeaks indicate frustration in the diplomatic community with Mali's inaction.

Among the sources quoted in the cables is Assaleh, who acted as a hostage negotiator when an Austrian couple was kidnapped by AQIM. Another is the Algerian ambassador in Bamako who told his American counterpart, according to a February 2010 cable, that Mali is "willfully complicit" in the presence of AQIM on its soil. [...]

Assaleh said he had no idea who the men were, but he has no intention of giving in to the intimidation. "They told me to stop talking or they would take the necessary measures. I told them they might as well do whatever they have planned because there is no way I am going to stop," Assaleh said.

The new law "no longer obliges wives to obey their husbands, angering Muslim groups." It is Qur'an 4:34 which insists on obedience so much as to endorse violence as a means of attempting to ensure it. To grant women more rights than that would be to imply that Muhammad as well as Allah himself were mistaken, or that their decrees are less relevant now than 1400 years ago.

As we have seen numerous times, that quickly gets dangerous. An update on this story. "Mali imam living in fear after backing women's rights," from BBC News, May 10 (thanks to Twostellas):

An imam in Mali is living in fear after backing a new family law which no longer obliges wives to obey their husbands, angering Muslim groups.

He has received threatening phone calls and local Muslim leaders have tried to dismiss him.

The new law is currently being given a second reading in parliament after Mali's president refused to sign it because of the Muslim protests.

More than 90% of Mali's population is Muslim.

In April, the imam of Kati, 15km (9 miles) north-west of the capital, Bamako, wrote a letter to Mali's High Islamic Council stating he saw nothing in the new family law which infringed the country's social values, much less Islam, the BBC's Martin Vogl in Mali says.

The High Islamic Council has said imams can only be dismissed by their congregation and it is unclear what weight the decision by local Muslim leaders to sack the imam will have, our reporter explains.

But the incident has highlighted the intense feelings among Muslims towards the new family law.

Its most contentious provisions give more rights to women.

For example, under the law husbands and wives owe each other loyalty and protection rather than obedience, women get greater inheritance rights and the minimum age for girls to marry in most circumstances is raised to 18.

All of those provisions run afoul of Sharia, hence the ferocity of the opposition.

When the law was introduced in August 2009, the parliament building was attacked and it was difficult to find anyone to defend the law in public, our reporter says.

Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure said he was sending the law back to parliament for the sake of national unity.

"As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, 'When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks' (Qur'an sura 47, verse 4)" -- Al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah, (The Laws of Islamic Governance).

This one seems to have been ransomed in exchange for prisoners.

"French hostage freed in Mali," by Angela Doland for The Associated Press, February 23:

PARIS -- A French hostage held captive in Mali for three months by Al-Qaida's North Africa offshoot was freed Tuesday, following a contested court decision ordering a jail release for four suspected members of the militant group that abducted him.

Pierre Camatte, who ran a small organization fighting malaria in Mali, was en route to Bamako, the country's capital, from where he planned to head to France, the French Foreign Ministry said. Officials in Paris did not provide details about his release.

There had been suggestions Camatte's liberation was imminent. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the militant group that captured Camatte in late November, had posted a message on militant Web sites agreeing to hand him over if Mali released four of its members from jail....

Interesting jihadist/FARC connection. "US arrests three Africans in 'al-Qaeda cocaine sting,'" from the BBC, December 19 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

A court in the US has for the first time charged suspected members of al-Qaeda with plotting to traffic cocaine in order to fund terrorism.

The three suspects, who are believed to be from Mali, were extradited to New York from Ghana.

They were arrested this week in an operation involving informants posing as Colombian leftist rebels.

The suspects allegedly offered al-Qaeda protection for moving cocaine from West Africa through the Sahara to Spain.

They arrived in the US on Friday and were ordered to be held without bail after a brief court appearance. They did not enter pleas to charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, US officials said....

The US authorities say the men are associates of al-Qaeda's North African branch and had told US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informants that al-Qaeda could protect major shipments of cocaine in the region, driving the drugs by lorry through the Sahara desert.

All in their 30s, the suspects were named as Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idriss Abelrahman.

Unsealed court papers say Mr Toure and Mr Abelrahman at one point claimed the profits from the drug business would "go to their people to support the fight for 'the cause'".

The DEA infiltrated the group by using informants posing as supporters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc.

In particular, the DEA used a French-speaking informant posing as "a Lebanese radical committed to opposing the interests of the United States, Israel, and, more broadly, the West and its ideals", court papers say.

The informant claimed in secretly taped conversations that the Farc were looking for a secure means of smuggling drugs through western and northern Africa on the way to Europe. ...

They can do this sort of thing with impunity, because one thing they can be sure of is that the Europeans will never stop giving the aid. "Al-Qaeda 'took French and Spanish hostages in Africa,'" from the BBC, December 8 (thanks to Twostellas):

An offshoot of the al-Qaeda network has reportedly said its members kidnapped three Spanish aid workers in Mauritania and a Frenchman in Mali last month.

A spokesman for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb made the claim in an audio recording to the al-Jazeera TV station.

There has been no sighting of the four Europeans since the kidnappings, which took place within days of each other.

The same group is believed to be behind the murder of British hostage Edwin Dyer in June.

Pierre Camatte, 61, was taken from his hotel by gunmen in Menaka in Mali on 25 November, while Albert Vilalta, 35, Roque Pascual, 50, and Alicia Gamez, 35, were snatched from an aid convey near Mauritania's northern city of Nouadhibou on 29 November....

In the audio recording, al-Qaeda spokesman Saleh Abu Mohammad said his organisation had "managed to kidnap four Europeans in two distinct operations".

He added that the group would contact France and Spain at a later date with its demands, but gave no further details about what these were, AFP reported....

The UK recently warned its nationals not to visit northern Mali because of the threat of attack by the North African branch of al-Qaeda.

There goes my spring vacation.

In June this year an American teacher was killed in Mauritania, with al-Qaeda later claiming it had killed him for spreading Christianity in the Islamic state.

From our Stop the Presses Department and UPI, "Analysis: W. Africa may be terror hotbed"

Washington, DC -- A newly declassified Canadian intelligence report warns that West Africa is breeding a militant Islamist threat with "significant potential" for growth for groups such as Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service brief, which was obtained by United Press International, says religious and ethnic divisions coupled with state corruption and severe poverty in parts of West Africa provide fertile grounds for al-Qaida and affiliated groups to recruit supporters and plot attacks on Western interests...

Last week, seven men alleged to be members of Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat, an Algeria-born movement with links to al-Qaida were charged by a Mauritanian court for plotting acts of terror.

The group, known by the initials GSPC, was identified as an "immediate concern" in the CSIS brief. It is estimated to have 300 fighters in the region, is on U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups, and is charged with kidnapping dozens of European tourists in the Sahara desert.

Experts say, however, local authoritarian regimes that continue to denounce Islamic political groups as terrorists in order to stifle opposition may increase sympathy for the movements. They say the Mauritanian government of President Maaouya Ould Taya is not alone in inflating the domestic terror threat as a pretext to repress socio-political freedoms in a manner that could foment radicalism.

I see, opposing them just makes the situation worse. I guess we should just do nothing and hope this little terrorism problem goes away on its own.

West Africa, as we have often noted here, is increasingly becoming a safe haven for radical Muslims. From the Washington Post, :

With the end of the brutal conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, West Africa is seldom in the news or on the policy agenda these days. Yet the region is quietly gaining recognition as what it has long been: a haven for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Weak and corrupt governments, vast, virtually stateless stretches awash in weapons, and impoverished, largely Muslim populations make the region an ideal sanctuary.

U.S. Gen. Charles Wald, deputy commander of the European Central Command, has been warning Congress and the Pentagon for months that al Qaeda-affiliated groups are active in Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger. The trade in diamonds used by terrorist groups, begun under the protection of former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, continues despite international efforts to curb it. "The terrorist activity in this area is not going to go away," Wald warned recently. "This could affect your kids and your grandchildren in a huge way. If we don't do something about it, we are going to have a real problem on our hands."