Recently in Mali Category

For daring to fight back against jihadists in Mali. "Car bomb targets French Embassy in Libya," by Esam Mohamed for the Associated Press, April 23:

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- A car bomb targeted the French Embassy in the Libyan capital early Tuesday, wounding two French guards and a Libyan teenager in an attack that President Francois Hollande denounced as an assault not only on France but all countries engaged in the fight against terrorism.

Two years after the country's civil war, Libya is struggling to maintain security, build a unified army and reining in militias, which include rebels who fought to oust the country's longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

It was the first such assault on an embassy in the Libyan capital. On Sept. 11, four Americans - including the U.S. Ambassador in Libya Chris Stevens - were killed when militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission on the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

Terrorists with al-Qaida's North Africa branch, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, are believed to have played a key role in the Benghazi attack. But no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the French Embassy in Tripoli.

Last week, AQIM, threatened to seek revenge against all countries taking part in the French-led war in Mali, warning that no one who "participated in this ferocious attack" will be safe. It called on "all Muslims to target France and its interests and subjects inside and outside France until it withdraws the last soldier from the land of the Muslims and lifts its support of rulers of the region." That threat came as part of a question and answer session on AQIM's new Twitter account....

The Muslim Brotherhood's Essam Elerian is assuming that the Boston bombings were jihad attacks. He must be a greasy Islamophobe. "Boston attacks began in Mali, top Muslim Brotherhood official says," from Al Arabiya, April 17 (thanks to Pedro):

A high-ranking Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood official has linked the deadly Boston attacks to the U.S.-backed French war in Mali.

Essam Elerian, vice chairman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), wrote in a statement posted in Arabic on his Facebook account that the “events began with the sending of French battalions to Mali in a war against organizations that are said to be part of al Qaeda.”

Elerian expressed sympathy with the families of the victims, but said the attacks “do not stop us from reading into the grave incident.”

“Who interfered in democratic transformations, despite the difficult transition from despotism, corruption, poverty, hatred and intolerance to freedom, justice, tolerance, development, human dignity and social justice?” he asked. “Who created Islamophobia through research and media? Who funded this violence?”...

Who created Islamophobia? Insofar as anyone has any negative feelings toward Islam, they were created by Islamic jihad terrorists.

"God has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of God; they kill, and are killed..." (Qur'an 9:111)

"They kill and are killed..." In other words, they take out some Infidels along with themselves. Only then do they receive "the gift of Paradise." This guy killed only himself -- no Infidels. No virgins for him!

"Suicide attack in Timbuktu wounds soldier: officer," from AFP, March 31 (thanks to B.D.):

AFP - A suicide bomber blew himself up at an army barricade in the northern Malian city of Timbuktu, wounding a soldier, a military officer said.

"A jihadist suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt after trying unsuccessfully to force his way through the barricade at the west entrance to Timbuktu, which was guarded by Malian soldiers," the officer told AFP by phone.

"A Malian soldier was wounded" and the bomber died instantly, he added, saying he could not give further details.

"It was a jihadist, that's all I can tell you for now. He failed," he said.

Several residents of the fabled caravan city at the edge of the Sahara Desert reported hearing a loud explosion Saturday night followed by sustained gunfire.

"Everyone hid inside the house," one resident told AFP. "No civilians were outside. We were afraid."...

Kidnapping infidels and releasing them for ransom or killing them -- whichever is more advantageous for the Muslims -- is fully sanctioned in Islamic law: "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)" — Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance), trans. by Dr. Asadullah Yate, (London), Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1996, p. 192.

"Mali: French Hostage 'Beheaded By Al Qaeda,'" from Sky News, March 20 (thanks to Kenneth):

Al Qaeda says it has beheaded a French hostage in reprisal for France's military intervention in Mali, according to reports.

Its North African arm claimed responsibility, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported, citing a commander for the group.

A French foreign office spokesman said they were trying to verify the report of the killing of Philippe Verdon, adding that "we don't know at the moment" whether it is reliable.

In a telephone call to the news agency, the group spokesman said Mr Verdon had been beheaded on March 10 "in response to the French military intervention in the north of Mali", ANI reported.

The AQIM commander described Mr Verdon as a French spy and said France's President Francois Hollande "bore the responsibility for the remaining hostages"....

No, Al-Qaeda does.

What kind of religious extremism? "Salafist" appears in the headline but the article never says straight out what religion Djamel belonged to. We hear that he is "of Algerian birth," and then that he was taken prisoner among "Islamists" -- but AFP still can't bring itself to say directly what kind of "religious extremism" he "drifted" toward. Anyway, Djamel's life reflects something about which Hugh Fitzgerald wrote many times at Jihad Watch in years past: that in times of personal crisis, some Muslims will turn to religion, and their desire to please Allah will lead them to violent jihad, since Islam's texts and teachings exhort believers to violent jihad numerous times and in numerous ways. Yet that fact remains unexamined, and unresisted, among Western authorities.

"French Salafist captured waging jihad in Mali," by Tony Todd for AFP, March 19 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A French citizen caught in early March waging jihad in Mali against his own country was once a serving police officer, his sister claimed on Monday.

Named only as Djamel, the 37-year-old French national of Algerian birth led his family to believe that he had joined the gendarmerie, a national police force that is part of the French military, at the end of the 1990s.

He then told them that he had moved on to the plainclothes BAC (Anti-Criminal Brigade) and had ambitions of joining France’s notorious CRS riot police, his sister “Sonia” (not her real name) told RTL radio.

But on Tuesday France’s minister of Interior told French daily Le Parisien that Djamel had in fact never belonged to the police force, as his application was rejected twice.

When his marriage broke down, Djamel drifted towards religious extremism before finally setting off to wage holy war in Africa.

He was taken prisoner at the beginning of March during French-led operations in northern Mali to flush out Islamists who had occupied the vast semi-arid region for ten months.

‘The worst thing possible’

Sonia told RTL she was “ashamed of what he has done, ashamed of what he has become”.

“He did the worst thing possible,” she said. “He fought French soldiers, soldiers from a country where he grew up, a country that educated him and a country where he worked, a country that gave him a wife. He has betrayed his family. He has betrayed France. He has betrayed himself.”

Sonia, 30, from Grenoble in south-eastern France where Djamel grew up, said that as soon as her brother turned 18 he had applied for, and was awarded, French citizenship.

His career in law enforcement ended after he was obliged to arrest his own brother, Sonia said, and in 2005 he got married and left Grenoble for Bonneville in the Haute-Savoie region.

“Back then Djamel was like everyone else,” Sonia said. “He liked to party. He went to the Mosque occasionally but that was all. After he got married he started growing a beard and spending more and more time with extremists who were indoctrinating young people.”

Djamel ‘spoke of joining al Qaeda’

When his marriage fell apart he moved back to Grenoble, leaving behind three children under six.

“He had become a Salafist,” Sonia said. “He sometimes spoke of joining al Qaeda, but as far as we were concerned it was just talk.”

In November 2012 Djamel told his family he was moving to Paris - but when he rang his wife and asked to speak to his children, she noticed that he was using a Malian number.

“We had no idea that he could have done something like that,” she said, sounding equally shocked and disappointed.

She concluded: “We live in France, we respect French secularism. And while we don’t deny our Muslim faith, going on jihad against your own country is beyond the pale. I hope he pays dearly for this, but above all he needs to explain to his family and to his country how it could have come to this.”

Djamel, whose wife and mother were interviewed at length by French police, is currently being detained by the Malian authorities and is expected to be extradited to France in the coming days.

Note how al-Qaeda couches its appeal strictly in Islamic terms, and makes use of the established Islamic legal concept that jihad warfare becomes obligatory on every Muslim when a Muslim land is considered to have been attacked. Instead of confronting the theological content of al-Qaeda's appeal and explaining why it is wrong on islamic grounds, so that more Muslims from the West don't end up joining this supposedly false jihad, "moderate" groups in the U.S. such as Hamas-linked CAIR are spending huge amounts of money on an ad campaign designed to convince people that jihad is just getting in your exercise and making friends. Well, Muhammad said it: "war is deceit"!

"Qaeda urges jihad against France in Mali: SITE," from AFP, February 12 (thanks to Lookmann):

AFP - Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has called for jihad, or holy war, to thwart France's military intervention in Mali against Islamist rebels, SITE Intelligence agency reported on Tuesday.

"Supporting the Muslims in Mali is a duty for every capable Muslim with life and money, everyone according to their ability," the Sharia Committee of the extremist group said in a statement reported by US-based SITE, which monitors extremist Internet forums.

AQAP, which has been labelled the most dangerous branch of the global jihadist network, said France's "Crusader campaign against Islam" has no justification and a "declaration of aggression against Islam and its people."

It said jihad is "more obligatory on the people who are closer" to the fight, in an apparent reference to North African nations and those living in countries helping France.

"Helping the disbelievers against Muslims in any form is apostasy from the religion," it added....

The French have been confident that they would roll them up quickly. They are proving more tenacious than expected, just as did the Taliban in Afghanistan after they were "toppled" ten years ago. Also as in Afghanistan, it's likely that one reason for this is that some people are afraid to oppose them for fear that doing so would be tantamount to opposing Islam.

"Islamic extremists attack Malian troops in Gao," by Krista Larson for the Associated Press, February 10:

GAO, Mali (AP) — Black-robed Islamic extremists armed with AK-47 automatic rifles invaded Gao in wooden boats Sunday to launch a surprise attack on the most populous city in northern Mali, two weeks after French and Malian troops ousted the jihadists.

Gunfire echoed for hours across the city of mud-walled buildings. The combat started at about 2 p.m. in downtown Gao and the fighting was continuing as night fell. Later the sound of gunfire was replaced by the clattering of French military helicopters overhead.

The attack in Gao shows the Islamic fighters, many of them well-armed and with combat experience, are determined and daring and it foreshadows a protracted campaign by France and other nations to restore government control in this vast Saharan nation in northwest Africa.

The Islamic radicals fought against the Malian army throughout the afternoon and were seen roaming the narrow streets blanketed in sand and on rooftops in the center of Gao, which had a population of 90,000 before the conflict caused thousands to flee.

Families hid in their homes. One family handed plastic cups of water through the locked iron gate to others hiding on their patio. Piles of onions lay unattended where market women fled when the Islamists arrived. There were no signs of civilian casualties.

The fighting appeared to center near the police headquarters, where Malian soldiers with rocket propelled grenades traded fire with the combatants believed to be from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO. The only sound in the city was gunfire and the bleating of goats. Soldiers were positioned at every corner in the neighborhood.

Ever since French forces took Gao on Jan. 26, the Islamic rebels had clashed with security forces on the city's outskirts. This was the first time they succeeded in entering the strategic city.

The Islamic fighters used pirogues, large wooden dugouts with motors, and other boats to cross the Niger River and penetrate Gao, according to French Gen. Bernard Barrera, who cited Malian officials.

The Islamic radicals had already tried to spread violence into Gao. On Saturday night, a suicide bomber detonated himself at a checkpoint at the entrance to the city, killing himself and wounded one Malian soldier. An earlier suicide bomber on a motorcycle also blew himself up at the same security spot on Friday, killing only himself.

Besides Gao, French and Malian forces have also retaken the fabled city of Timbuktu and other northern towns, pushing the Islamic extremists back into the desert, where they pose a constant threat to Malian and allied forces. But the Islamic fighters made strategic retreats and are dug into desert hideouts, from where they are expected to continue challenging the control of the cities by French, Malian and allied forces. Several African nations have contributed troops to battle the extremists, who imposed their harsh version of Islamic Shariah law when they controlled the northern cities....

Sunday's open combat and the two suicide bomb explosions have frightened many Gao residents.

Fears of suicide bombing attacks in Gao have been high since the discovery of industrial-strength explosives in the city last week. Four Malian soldiers also were killed by a land mine in the town of Gossi, raising fears the militants were planting explosives in the road.

Friday's suicide bomber had been living at a known jihadist hideout in Gao, according to local residents. A guard at the home said that it had been visited three months ago by the one-eyed terror leader Moktar Belmoktar, who claimed responsibility for the attack on the BP-operated natural gas plant in Algeria last month....

"God has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of God; they kill, and are killed..." -- Qur'an 9:111

"French-led forces seize Tessalit in northern Mali," by Katarina Hoije for CNN, February 8 (thanks to Kenneth):

Bamako, Mali (CNN) -- French-led forces battling Islamist rebels seized the town of Tessalit in northern Mali on Friday, France's defense ministry said.

Following air strikes, special forces parachuted in to secure the airport, while an armored infantry regiment moved in on the ground, the ministry said. Chadian forces participated in the operation, which came the same day that a suicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint, the first known attack of its kind since the launch of the French-led offensive.

The attack by a teenager occurred in the city of Gao, authorities said. One Malian soldier was killed.

"The man approached the soldiers at the checkpoint on a motorbike. As soon as he got close, he set off the bomb," said Capt. Oumar Maiga, a spokesman for the Mali army....

The monthlong French offensive has killed "hundreds" of Islamist fighters in Mali, the French defense minister said this week, as his troops prepared to start withdrawing....

Despite the withdrawal, troops will continue operations to flush out militants in "some terrorist havens" in northern Mali, French officials said.

You mean like in Afghanistan?

Islamic extremists carved out a large portion of the north last year after a chaotic military coup.

They banned music, smoking, drinking and watching sports on television, and they destroyed historic tombs and shrines in the region. World leaders feared that the al Qaeda-linked militants would turn the area into a terrorist haven.

No kidding, really?

"Vicki Huddleston said France paid $17m (£10.75m) to free hostages seized from a uranium mine in Niger in 2010. She said other European countries, including Germany, had also paid ransoms amounting to nearly $90m." And by doing so, they were paying for the jihad that the French are now trying to quell. This ridiculous and self-defeating policy is a result of their willful blindness regarding Islamic teachings on hostage-taking, jihad, and a host of other matters.

Kidnapping infidels and releasing them for ransom or killing them -- whichever is more advantageous for the Muslims -- is fully sanctioned in Islamic law: "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)" — Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance), trans. by Dr. Asadullah Yate, (London), Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1996, p. 192.

"Mali conflict: French ransom cash 'funded militants,'" from the BBC, February 8 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A former US ambassador to Mali has told the BBC that France paid ransom money to free hostages and the funds ended up bolstering Islamist groups it is now fighting.

Vicki Huddleston said France paid $17m (£10.75m) to free hostages seized from a uranium mine in Niger in 2010.

She said other European countries, including Germany, had also paid ransoms amounting to nearly $90m.

France has always denied that it pays ransoms for the release of hostages.

It is struggling to maintain order two weeks after French-led troops began an assault on Islamist militants who took over large parts of northern Mali.

On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a group of soldiers in the northern town of Gao, injuring one of them, in an attack claimed by an al-Qaeda offshoot.

Meanwhile, army infighting in the capital left one person dead and five injured when heavily-armed regular soldiers clashed with elite "Red Beret" paratroopers at their base in the capital Bamako.

Trainers arrive

Ms Huddleston said the hostages kidnapped at the Niger mine in 2010 were only released because money had changed hands.

"All the European countries who paid ransoms have denied that they paid ransoms and you know perhaps they can deny it because it's gone indirectly through various channels in the Malian government," she told the BBC's Newshour programme.

"When I was in Mali I actually knew, he was the Governor of Gao, who's now deceased, and he was one of the negotiators with the AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)."

Al-Qaeda branches, she added, are "not releasing the Western hostages out of the goodness of their hearts"....

No kidding, really?

Sorry, pal: the Qur'an only guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111).

"Suicide Bombing in North Mali," by Krista Larson and Baba Ahmed for the Associated Press, February 8 (thanks to Lookmann):

A suicide bomber hit a checkpoint in northern Mali on Friday, killing only himself in the first known suicide bombing since French military forces intervened in this chaotic African nation whose northern half was ruled by armed Islamic extremists....

The suicide bombing happened in the city of Gao, which was occupied by armed Islamic extremists until French-led military forces pushed them out. It was the first known suicide bombing in Mali since France started its military intervention on Jan. 11.

Malian military spokesman Modibo Traore confirmed that a suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint at the entrance to Gao around 6 a.m. on Friday. The bomber, who was wearing an explosive belt, was the only casualty. The bomber was on a motorcycle and blew himself up just before a Malian military checkpoint. Officials at a French military base in Gao declined to comment on the attack.

Friday afternoon, Malian soldiers stood guard at a building near the scene of the attack, splattered in the bomber's blood. The only other evidence of the attack were the mangled, charred remains of his bike. The Malian soldiers said that nearby villagers had taken the man's remains away and buried them before sunset, as local Muslim custom dictates.

Residents who heard the blast from their mud-walled homes on the dusty road nearby said the attack occurred just after 6 a.m.

"It shook so loudly I thought it had hit my house," resident Agali Ouedraogo said.

Fears have been high of such attacks since the discovery of industrial-strength explosives earlier this week. French troops on Thursday were amping up security and searching out Islamic extremists who may be mixing among the population in Gao. On Tuesday, extremists fired rocket launchers at French troops near Gao....

Oddly enough, Western feminists are completely silent about this.

Actually, it isn't odd at all. I have taken feminists to task more than once not only for their failure to stand up for Muslim women, but for their active excuse-making for the oppression of those women. See, for example, my article in FrontPage, "Feminists Betray Muslim Women," on how the feminist writer Laura Briggs justifies the oppression of Muslim women.

See also "Two Women Stoned: Feminists Mum," by David Horowitz, Janet Levy and me; "A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by David Horowitz and me; and my article "The Conservative Vanguard of the Feminist Movement" in National Review.

Other articles I've written in FrontPage on issues revolving around women's rights in Islam include "Covering Up the Plight of Muslim Women"; "There Must Be Violence Against Women"; "Muhammad Mended His Own Clothes!"; Open Season on Muslim Women"; "Women Are Treated Better in Islam?."

Also there are my articles in Human Events, "Unveiled Women and 'Uncovered Meat'"; "Media Ignore Abuses of Women in Islam."

I also coauthored the monograph "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam" (available as a pdf here).

"Timbuktu: the women singled out for persecution," by David Blair in the Telegraph, February 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The harsh reality inflicted on the people of Timbuktu by al-Qaeda and its allies is betrayed by the ordeal of Azahara Abdou Maiga.

Five of the Islamists placed a gun to the 20-year-old's head, ordered her to keep silent or be killed, and then raped her one by one.

"I did not cry out," said Miss Maiga. "I just cried inside of me."

For 10 months, Timbuktu endured occupation by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other extremists. This isolated city of 60,000 people in the Saharan wastes of northern Mali was compelled to discover what life would be like under al-Qaeda's rule. As such, Timbuktu became the unlikely test bed for the world that Osama bin Laden's followers wish to create.

That era, which began with AQIM's capture of the city last March, ended a week ago when French paratroopers and helicopter gunships forced them to flee Timbuktu. In the aftermath, the full story of a brutal occupation is now beginning to emerge.

Perhaps inevitably, the women of Timbuktu were singled out for special persecution. Miss Maiga committed two offences in Islamist eyes: she sometimes failed to cover her face when venturing out. Most heinously of all, she carried pictures of Western pop stars, notably Celine Dion, on her mobile phone.

The latter crime was discovered by four Islamist gunmen who stopped her in the street last November. When they saw the offending images, they beat her with a whip made from camel skin.

"I did not count how many times they hit me," she said.

From then on, they kept track of her movements and watched the home that she shares with her parents and siblings.

In late November, she ventured outside to hang some laundry – and a gunman noticed she was apparently unveiled.

She was immediately arrested and taken to a large sand-coloured building in the city centre which AQIM had commandeered as its security headquarters. Timbuktu's police station and military base were both considered too vulnerable, so the Islamists had taken over the local branch of Mali's biggest bank, transforming its rooms into cells and interrogation centres.

Miss Maiga, terrified by the memory of her previous beating, suffered a nervous collapse.

"I had a breakdown. I lost control. There was no one to help me."

She injured herself by kicking a glass door, covering her left leg in jagged cuts. But her guards refused to treat her, leaving her bleeding in a cell overnight.

The following day, she received some basic hospital treatment, before being returned to her cell, unable to walk. When her father came to plead for her release, he was sent away with a warning: "If you come back again, your daughter will stay here for a month and we will beat her every day."

On the fourth night, she was taken from her cell and into a neighbouring room where five men, all with their faces concealed, took it in turns to rape her. "They put a gun at my head and they said 'if you say a word, you will be dead'."

The following morning, they let her go, but the Islamists were not finished with Miss Maiga's family. When AQIM's gunmen fled the French assault a week ago, her half brother, Mustapha, 35, celebrated by shouting "Vive la France!" on a street-corner. A vengeful fighter shot him dead. He left a wife, Zainab, and a four-month-old son, Yusuf.

Near where Mustapha was murdered stands a street market with a cluster of ramshackle stalls. This was AQIM's chosen venue for public punishments.

Salaka Gikai, 25, was accused of consorting with a married man and sentenced to receive 100 lashes. The judge of the Sharia court decided to show clemency by reducing the total to 95.

Miss Gikai was then forced to squat in the dust in the middle of the market while 10 men took turns to flog her with a stick. "Everybody was there: women, children, every kind of people," said Miss Gikai. "I had blood everywhere."...

The people's verdict on the "strict" version of Sharia that the Islamic supremacists had imposed. Apparently Mali is being overrun with greasy Islamophobes. "Suspected Islamists hunted down and beaten in liberated Mali towns," by Jerome Delay and Krista Larson for The Associated Press, January 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

GAO, MALI—It was payback time Tuesday in the newly liberated town of Gao in Mali, with residents hunting down and beating suspected Islamist extremists who had not fled with their brothers-in-arms as Malian and French military forces closed in and retook the town.

Malian troops bundled the men into an army truck, their hands bound behind their backs. For the better part of a year, the Al-Qaeda-linked extremists had banned music, insisted women cover themselves and began carrying out public executions and amputations in the towns of northern Mali that they controlled.

Now the Islamists' control of the cities has slipped, with the provincial capitals of Gao and Timbuktu coming back under government authority in quick succession with the arrival of French and Malian troops. They also may have lost control of a third key city, Kidal.

France, the former colonial ruler, began sending in troops, helicopters and warplanes on Jan. 11 to turn the tide after the armed Islamists began encroaching on the south, toward the capital. French and Malian troops seized Gao during the weekend, welcomed by joyous crowds. They took Timbuktu on Monday. The Islamists gave up both cities and retreated into the desert.

But not all of them left.

Members of a youth militia, the Gao Patrolmen, went house-to-house hunting down suspected Islamic extremists in Gao. Abdul Karim Samba, spokesman for the group, said men were scouring the town for remnants of the extremist Islamist group known as the Movement for Unity and Oneness of the Jihad, or MUJAO.

“They are the Islamists who have gone into their homes to hide, so we've been rounding them up to hand them to the military,” he told The Associated Press.

On Tuesday, Tuareg fighters from a secular rebel group said they also were now in charge of Kidal.

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad — Azawad is the Tuareg's name for their homeland — appears to have taken advantage of the French-led military offensive to assert themselves in Kidal. Phone lines were down there, making it difficult to independently confirm the group's claim. The loss of Kidal would mean the Islamists no longer control any of the northern provincial capitals that they had seized last April.

On its website, the NMLA said it is ready to work with French troops and fight terror organizations. However, it said it would refuse to allow Malian soldiers in Kidal and the other towns under its control in northeastern Mali, following allegations that the troops killed civilians suspected of having links to the Islamists.

Timbuktu Mayor Ousmane Halle said Tuesday he hopes to return home in the next 48 hours from the capital but that the Islamists had destroyed part of the airport's runway before leaving, making it hard for planes to land.

Halle had a message for Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of the extremist group, Ansar Dine, which imposed strict Shariah law in Timbuktu last year and forced thousands to flee in fear.

“In one of the meetings I had with Iyad Ag Ghali, he told me that the whole world knows he is the master of Timbuktu. But today it's me that is the mayor of Timbuktu, and he is on the run like an animal,” Halle told AP.

To help battle the Islamists in their desert hideouts, a U.S. military official says the Pentagon is considering setting up a drone base in northwest Africa to increase intelligence collection....

The French military operation has so far met little resistance though experts warn it will be harder to hold on to the towns than it was to recapture them from the Islamists....

An act of Islamic piety. As the caliph Umar is supposed to have said when ordering the library of Alexandria to be burned: "If the books agree with the Qur'an, they are superfluous. If they disagree with it, they are heretical."

"Islamist rebels torch Timbuktu manuscript library: mayor," from Reuters, January 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

DAKAR (Reuters) - Islamist fighters fleeing Mali's ancient Saharan city of Timbuktu as French and Malian troops closed in set fire to a South African-funded library there containing thousands of priceless manuscripts, the city's mayor said on Monday.

"The rebels sit fire to the newly-constructed Ahmed Baba Institute built by the South Africans ... this happened four days ago," Halle Ousmane told Reuters by telephone from Bamako. He said he had received the information from his chief of communications who had travelled south from the city a day ago.

Ousmane was not able to immediately say how much the building had been damaged. French and Malian troops were securing the city on Monday.

The mayor said the Islamist rebels, who had occupied the fabled trading town since a Tuareg-led rebellion captured it on April 1 from government forces, also torched his office and the home of a member of parliament.

The Ahmed Baba Institute, one of several libraries and collections in the city containing fragile ancient documents dating back to the 13th century, is named after a Timbuktu-born contemporary of William Shakespeare and houses more than 20,000 scholarly manuscripts. Some were stored in underground vaults.

Fighters from the Islamist alliance in north Mali, which groups AQIM with Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine and AQIM splinter MUJWA, had also destroyed ancient shrines sacred to moderate Sufi Moslems, provoking international outrage.

They had also applied amputations for thieves and stoning of adulterers under sharia law.

"Reza Aslan recalled a saying that likened the Sharia to water, since ‘it takes the form of any vessel it is poured into.’"

It is amazing that the whole audience doesn't erupt into laughter when the clownish Islamic supremacist Aslan emits these howlers. Sharia in reality is marked by a remarkable uniformity: the four Sunni madhahib agree on about 75% of all rulings. Whenever and wherever we see Sharia implemented, it looks essentially the same. Changes and variations come in when Sharia provisions are relaxed or dropped altogether, as in secular Turkey -- but that is not some different version of Sharia, it is no Sharia at all.

Mali Islamic supremacists move to ban music, just as they have in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Mali and Afghanistan are separated by immense distance and differences of language and culture. But Sharia in both is markedly similar.

Hadith Qudsi 19:5: "The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance." (The Hadith Qudsi, or holy Hadith, are those in which Muhammad transmits the words of Allah, although those words are not in the Qur'an.)

Muhammad also said:

(1) "Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance."

(2) "On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress."

(3) "Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage."

(4) "This community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorphosis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones." Someone asked, "When will this be, O Messenger of Allah?" and he said, "When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful."

(5) "There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful ...." -- 'Umdat al-Salik r40.0

"Mali musicians forced out by Islamic rebels," from CBC News, January 27:

As Islamic radicals clamp down on much of Mali, the rich musical culture of the country is threatened.

There are reports of instruments being broken and music being banned in the north, except the singing of verses of the Qur'an.

Canada is weighing whether to extend its mission in Mali, as French and African troops move into the nation to push back Islamic rebels who have taken the north of the country.

Many musicians have fled the country and are in refugee camps in bordering Burkino Faso.

In any case, the conflict has robbed most of them of their livelihood, as they can no longer play at weddings and festivals.

Ibrahima Diabaté, a Malian musician now living in Montreal, says he’s afraid his homeland’s vibrant musical culture is being destroyed....

These misunderstanders of Islam somehow got the crazy notions that Muslims should only submit to Sharia, and that Muslims should physically attack those whom they consider to be the enemies of Islam -- and that such attacks are called jihad. Ahmed Rehab, call your office!

"Jihadist Calls on Muslims in France to Become a 'Trojan Horse' and Attack French Civilians," from MEMRI, January 23:

The following is a message to France from the Mujahideen of Syria that was posted on the Internet on January 23, 2013.

Jihadist: This Message is addressed to the French Republic and its people from the Mujahideen of Syria, following the French government's decision to attack our noble brothers, who instated the shari'a, who fought polytheism, who spread monotheism in northern Mali – the law of Allah, the shari'a, the only legislation to which a Muslim may submit.

The most fundamental right of a Muslim is to live according to his religion, and his duty is to strive to instate it on the lands of Islam.

A Mujahid fights so that the word of Allah may reign supreme.

The simple reason that drives France and its allies to attack and kill those who establish the shari'a in Muslim countries is that they want to maintain the subservient regimes that agreed to be their vassals, to serve their interests in Muslim countries, and to oppress them with their tyranny.

As a result of the decision of the French government, which is not satisfied with preventing our virtuous sisters from donning the veil in accordance with Allah's decree, and with constantly fighting Islam and the Muslims...

Today, in addition to its presence alongside the Crusaders in Afghanistan, France has become the banner of heresy and of the enemies of Allah, by attacking Islamic Mali.

As a bitter consequence, we urge and encourage Muslims worldwide, as well as those living in France, to perform their religious duty like a Trojan horse – to hit French interests, their institutions, their military, and their civilians, on the national territory (of France), as well as abroad.

The aim is to terrorize them, so that the French people will have to blame their Satanic leaders for their decision, leading to the loss of the security and tranquility they once enjoyed.

They will not enjoy them anymore as long as France continues to act as an enemy of Islam and the Muslims.

We remain confident in the true promise of Allah that He will bring victory to those who support His religion, and that those who are slain for the sake of Allah will live in His Paradise, whereas the disbelievers who are killed are tormented in their graves, waiting to be fuel in the Hellfire.

I will conclude this statement by inviting you to join Islam, to read the Koran, and to follow His last Prophet and Messenger, who was sent in compassion to all of mankind to free them from submission to other men and from the worship of idols, and (to direct mankind) to submit to Allah and to worship Him exclusively.

Blow them up wherever they are, and slaughter them.

Expel them for the hills of Jerusalem and defeat them.

Since the government of Qatar is the former owner and still primary funder of al-Jazeera, maybe we will soon see Al Gore making a rose-colored documentary about the virtues of the Mali jihadists: The Inconvenient Jihad Murderers.

"Mali: analyst, Qatar is funding Islamists," by Alma Safira for ANSAmed, January 25 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - DOHA, JANUARY 25 - Qatar supports Mali's Islamists as it believes the movement is potentially key in the country's governance, according to Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in Qatar cited by Doha News. 'The main motivation behind Qatar's support of Mali's Islamists is to ensure its business and the growth of its influence in the Arab and Islamic world', noted the analyst. The level of involvement of Qatar in the activities of Islamist rebels in Mali will soon emerge together with the truth on who is giving them weapons, noted the expert. Qatar denies such allegations but, if evidence proved the contrary, an end of diplomatic relations with France would be a battle which Qatar cannot expect to win, according to Stevens.

The scenario in Mali is for the country to split with a North held by Islamists indebted to Qatar and a South supported by western countries. Such a situation, according to Stevens, is part of Qatar's long-term vision as the country aims to improve bilateral relations with Mali and expand its influence in the Sahel area which is rich with hydrocarbons and precious metal reserves.

'The official version is that Qatar is funding for humanitarian reasons, through non-profit organizations, the areas controlled by rebels but France believes that Qatar is supporting rebels tied to Al Qaeda who are trying to seize power in Mali in order to use the country as a jihadist platform from which to launch a global initiative. The truth is nobody knows how deep relations are between Qatar and the rebels', wrote Stevens in the article published by Doha News....

The Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt sides with the bloody jihadists of Mali.

"French troops recapture key towns in Mali as Egypt sends warnings," from Al Arabiya, January 22 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

French and Malian troops recaptured Tuesday two key towns from al-Qaeda-linked Islamists holding the country’s north, as Egypt warned the Paris-led offensive could spark regional conflict.

The inroads into the central towns of Diabaly and Douentza marked a significant advance in the 11-day offensive led by former colonial power France, whose aim is the “total re-conquest” of Mali’s vast semi-arid north.

But Egypt, a regional powerhouse currently under the grip of Islamists, warmed that breaking the ranks with the global community could turn the vast arid zone of Sub Shara [sic] Africa into a new Afghanistan

“We do not accept at all the military intervention in Mali because that will fuel conflict in the region,” President Mohamed Mursi said Monday.

But in Diabaly, local residents applauded wildly as a convoy of about 30 armored vehicles with some 200 Malian and French troops moved into the town.

French military officials and local residents said the fleeing Islamists had riddled the town with landmines.

“There is a problem with unexploded ammunition,” said Lt. Col. Frederic, in charge of the operations in Diabaly, who identified himself by his first name only in line with French army policy.

Diabaly, which lies 400 kilometers north of the capital Bamako, has been the theater of air strikes and fighting since it was seized by Islamists a week ago.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the town of Douentza, which had been under Islamist control since September, had also been retaken by French and Malian troops.

Douentza is a strategic crossroads town some 100 kilometers east of Konna, whose capture earlier this month by extremists saw the French army swoop to the aid of the crippled and weak Malian army.

“The military operations to liberate the occupied regions of our country are panning out well and the need to install a peaceful social climate throughout the country,” a government statement said....

Mali’s crisis first erupted when the nomadic Tuaregs, who have long felt marginalized by the government, launched a rebellion a year ago and inflicted such humiliation on the Malian army that it triggered a military coup in Bamako in March.

The Tuaregs allied with Islamist groups including Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and seized control of huge swathes of territory including the main northern towns of Gao, Kidal and fabled Timbuktu.

The Islamists soon chased out their more secular Tuareg allies and began imposing an extreme form of sharia, or Islamic law, flogging, amputating and sometimes executing violators.

There is no "moderate form of Sharia." Every form of Sharia contains those "extreme" elements. They are just not always implemented.

Their success in seizing a vast stretch of desert territory raised fears they could use northern Mali as a base to launch attacks on the region, Europe and beyond.

No kidding, really?

Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. and Europe will dismiss this -- it's just Anjem Chaudary and his group, who are known "extremists." Yet what are Muslim groups in the U.S. and Europe doing to counter this view of Islam? Why, nothing. What are non-Muslim law enforcement officials doing to counter this view of Islam? Why, nothing.

"British Islamists Protest French Campaign in Mali: Hollande Is a 'Son of Pharoah', Islam Will Dominate France and England," from MEMRI, January 12:

Following are excerpts from a video of London Islamists protesting against the French military campaign in Mali. The demonstration, which was held outside the French Embassy, was posted on the Internet on January 12, 2013.

British Islamist Anjem Chaudary: We are here to expose the French regime and to say: Hands off Muslim land.

Crowd: Hands off Muslim land.

Anjem Chaudary: Hands off Muslim land.

Crowd: Hands off Muslim land.

Anjem Chaudary: Hands off Muslim land.

Crowd: Hands off Muslim land.

Anjem Chaudary: Hands off Muslim land.

Crowd: Hands off Muslim land.

Anjem Chaudary: Shari’a for Mali.

Crowd: Shari’a for Mali.

Anjem Chaudary: Shari’a for Mali.

Crowd: Shari’a for Mali.

Anjem Chaudary: Shari’a for Mali.

Crowd: Shari’a for Mali.

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad for Mali.

Crowd: Jihad for Mali.

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad for Mali.

Crowd: Jihad for Mali.

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad for Mali.

Crowd: Jihad for Mali.

Anjem Chaudary: What do we want?

Crowd: Jihad.

Anjem Chaudary: When do we want it?

Crowd: Now.

Anjem Chaudary: What do we want?

Crowd: Jihad.

Anjem Chaudary: When do we want it?

Crowd: Now.

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad!

Crowd: Jihad!

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad!

Crowd: Jihad!

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad!

Crowd: Jihad!

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad!

Crowd: Jihad!

Anjem Chaudary: Jihad!

Crowd: Jihad!

Anjem Chaudary: Say: “Allah Akbar.”

Crowd: Allah Akbar.

[...]

Anjem Chaudary: A caliphate for Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq... The Islamic nation is boiling. We got rid of some of our dictators – Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Al-Qadhafi. Now it’s time for the dictators in Mali, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, and all over the Muslim lands to be removed and replaced by the shari’a, by Islam.

[...]

British Islamist: There is no god but Allah.

Crowd: There is no god but Allah.

British Islamist: Jihad for the sake of Allah.

Crowd: Jihad for the sake of Allah.

[...]

British Islamist: The call for the shari’a is a global call. It is a choice that these governments in the West will have to face up to. The shari’a is an inevitability. Therefore, you had better accept the shari’a, otherwise you will find us on your own doorsteps, outside your own embassies.

[...]

British Islamist: You talk about Freedom, you talk about democracy, but there is no freedom for Muslims to practice Islam. That is because their idols of freedom and democracy are false idols. They will burn in Hell, just like you.

[...]

Our leader is the final Messenger Muhammad. He is the Messenger. He gave us glad tidings: that we will conquer, we will lead, we will spread mercy, and we will spread justice, whether you like it or whether you don’t like it. Look to your own doorstep in France – your own French women are abandoning their Christianity and donning the hijab and the burqa.

[...]

The Muslims reached the gates of Vienna, I don’t think [unintelligible], because our eyes are on Paris, our eyes are on Brussels, our eyes are on London. We will not stop, as Muslims, until the whole world is governed by Islam.

[...]

British Islamist: My dear Muslims, for how long will we live under oppression? Isn’t it time that we united? Isn’t it time that we returned back to Allah and His Messenger? Isn’t it time that we showed support to the Muslims? Isn’t it time we support the mujahideen, because it is them who are fighting for the religion of Allah? Because of them we are able to walk with our heads high. Because of them we have honor, because of them we have dignity. Isn’t it about time, my dear Muslims? We gather together under one banner of: “There is no god but Allah,” and we support our Muslims. So French government, let that be a warning, or a piece of advice, to you. Take it the way you want, because you will never stop the army of the Muslims. You will never stop Muslims, because this nation is far too large to be stopped. This nation is like a tidal wave – when it starts, it doesn’t stop. It will conquer the east of the East and the west of the West, because that is the prophecy of our Prophet Muhammad.

Say: Allah Akbar.”

Crowd: Allah Akbar.

British Islamist: Say: Allah Akbar.”

Crowd: Allah Akbar.

Islamist (in French): What is happening today in Mali is an act of terrorism launched by François Hollande against the Muslims. This is an act of terrorism, launched by François Hollande, against the nation of Muhammad. Allah warns us in the Koran that the Jews and the Christians will never be pleased with the Muslims until they embrace their religion. What François Hollande is doing is exporting prostitution to Muslim lands, exporting homosexuality to Mali, exporting the exploitation of women to the Muslim lands. What we are saying to François Hollande is that the Muslims throughout the world will not rest until Islam dominates France, until Islam dominates the entire world. Islam will not dominate only Mali, Afghanistan, and Africa, but also France, Paris, and England. François Hollande, you must understand a few facts of life: You are a son of Pharaoh. The blood of Pharaoh courses through your veins.

[...]

The Islamic movement will become a system of life under your nose. Your wife, French women, the people of France, will live under the Islamic movement, even if you don’t like it. We will collect the jizya poll tax.

[...]

We are telling you to remove your soldiers, the unbelievers, who are in the Muslim world. But you don’t understand, you cannot see the message.

[...]

The nation of Muhammad loves death just as you love your pork. It loves death more than you love your pigs. It loves death more than you love prostitution, more than you love wine.

[...]

Shari’a for France.

Crowd: Shari’a for France.

Islamist: Shari’a for France.

Crowd: Shari’a for Paris.

Islamist: Shari’a for the world in its entirety.

Crowd: Shari’a for Europe in its entirety.

[...]

Islamist: Most of the residents of Paris are Muslims. Allah willing, most of the French system will be according to the shari’a. Most of the residents of France will be Muslims, Allah willing.

Say: “Allah Akbar.”

Crowd: Allah Akbar.

"There's really no such thing as just Sharia, it's not one monolithic Continuum - Sharia is understood in thousands of different ways over the 1,500 years in which multiple and competing schools of law have tried to construct some kind of civic penal and family law code that would abide by Islamic values and principles, it's understood in many different ways..." -- Reza Aslan

And yet whenever we see Sharia implemented, it looks the same. Now, why is that?

"Under the Mali militants’ reign of terror: refugees tell of life under Islamist rule," by Colin Freeman for the Telegraph, January 19 (thanks to Lookmann):

Having routed the Malian soldiers who were supposed to keep them at bay, the masked fighters toured the neighbourhood, dishing out sweets to children and stern religious sermons to adults.

Lest anyone fail to get the hint, they also laid waste to Diabaly’s church, used by the small Catholic community that has dwelt among the Muslims there for as long as anyone can remember.

“They removed the church’s cement cross and destroyed it,” said Asseye Touré, 26, who fled Diabaly on his motorbike on Friday, driving 20 miles down a track through rice paddies and onion fields to the government-held town of Niono.

“They said they didn’t want to harm us, but that we should all live under Islamic law.”

Mr Touré, a farmer, was among hundreds who hastily left Diabaly on Friday, some by minibus and others crammed 15-a-piece on the back of rice carts towed by motorbikes.

The militants had rolled into the village in a 40-vehicle convoy on Monday, proving they could still capture new ground despite the onset of the French military offensive against their strongholds across northern Mali.

For proof of just how easily they had done so, Mr Touré brandished a picture he had taken on his mobile phone, showing the corpse of a Malian soldier dumped amid the rushes of a nearby river.

“I saw about three dead bodies there,” he said. “The Malian military could not stop them.”

This weekend, the French military appeared to be having rather better luck, with air strikes forcing the militants to flee Diabaly into surrounding forests near the Mauritanian border.

Even so, officials in nearby Niono remained anxious that the militants might suddenly strike there too, and last night (SAT) a column of French armour arrived to secure the town.

“People are still worried, because there are lots of ways into Niono,” said Moriba Coulibaly, the town’s mayor.

Mr Coulibaly’s words echo fears that Mali’s militants may prove rather more resilient than the French initially thought, and that if they cannot compete in a conventional battle, they will respond with insurgent tactics.

This was demonstrated by last week’s mass seizure of hostages across the border in Algeria.

Critics point out that if a police state such as Algeria cannot stop serious terrorism incidents, then Mali’s coup-weakened government will stand even less chance — with or without foreign military support.

France’s president, François Hollande, ordered the intervention amid fears that Mali, one of the poorest nations in Africa, was on the point of hosting a “terrorist state” on its vast northern desert flank.

The action, expected to involve a total of 2,500 French troops, has been backed by British transport planes, raising fears of a prolonged Western entanglement in another predominantly Muslim region....

In Timbuktu last week, the first hint that the militants might be losing control came in the form of yet another gun-enforced edict.

Having already banned most forms of temptation, including music, dancing, drinking and smoking, the city’s “morality police” warned locals not to take any pleasure in the fact that French warplanes had been bombing their bases and supply dumps.

“On Wednesday night, the Islamist people went round telling everyone not to show any happiness or joy because of the French intervention,” Timbuktu’s mayor, Halle Ousmane, told The Sunday Telegraph.

“They warned that if they did, they would come to their houses and attack them.”

By then, though, the militants’ ability to enforce their threats already seemed to be diminishing.

The French bombardments had already forced many to flee into the surrounding Sahara desert, while those still in the city were said to be panicking every time they heard an aircraft in the distance.

“Until last week, everyone was scared, all the women were covered up except for the eyes,” said Mr Ousmane, 60, who was visiting Bamako when the bombing began.

“But when I spoke to my wife on Thursday morning, she said that she had taken her veil off, as had most of the other women in Timbuktu. The French military intervention has finally brought us some hope.”

The takeover of the north followed a coup last March by the Malian army, whose poorly equipped soldiers were suffering heavy losses in a guerrilla war against the lighter-skinned nomads of Mali’s Tuareg separatist movement.

The Tuaregs, who have long been in tension with the black Africans of the south, had returned to northern Mali with heavy weaponry after fighting as mercenaries in 2011 for Col Muammar Gaddafi.

But while the coup easily toppled the regime of President Amadou Toumani Touré, the ensuing chaos left the north open for takeover by the Tuareg separatist militia, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, more commonly referred to by its French abbreviation of MNLA.

And with the separatists came fighters known by a much more sinister acronym — AQIM, or al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb.

Having initially formed an alliance of convenience with the Tuaregs, AQIM quickly staged a coup of its own, sidelining the separatists and turning Timbuktu not into a Tuareg homeland, but into a mini-caliphate.

At the entrance to the city, twinned with Hay-on-Wye in Wales in 2007, a new sign went up saying “welcome to the city of sharia”.

While the city’s governor and prefect left, Mr Ousmane decided to stay, requesting a meeting with Timbuktu’s self-declared new masters.

It brought him face-to-face with a short, taciturn al-Qaeda leader named Abu Zaid, whose unassuming appearance belies a brutal reputation.

In 2009, he is believed to have ordered the murder of Edwin Dyer, the British hostage, kidnapped along with three other European tourists after attending a Tuareg cultural festival near the Mali-Niger border.

“At first they didn’t even let us speak at the meeting, and Abu Zaid, along with others, just recited verses from the Koran,” said Mr Ousmane.

“They said we have to talk about religion, and I told them that we were already Muslim people, so why were they here? They said they wanted sharia not just in Timbuktu, but all over Mali. And they told me, 'You are no longer mayor’.”

A Taliban-style regime then took hold, turning a city recently famed for its world music festivals into one where the only melodies allowed — even on mobile telephone ring tones — were Koranic verses.

Those who broke the rules were hauled before a sharia court in a former tourist hotel, where punishments such as flogging by camelhair whip were dispensed.

Suspected thieves would be strapped to a chair and have a hand amputed — sometimes with a painkiller administered by a doctor first, sometimes not. Mr Ousmane’s daughter was arrested by the Islamic morality police simply for wearing a veil that was not black.

“They told her it looked too pretty, and that they could smell the perfume she was wearing at 100 metres,” he said.

Mr Ousmane decided the safest thing to do was to tell his fellow citizens to co-operate, fearing they would be killed if they were provoked into retaliation, such as when the Islamists began destroying Timbuktu’s mud-built Islamic shrines for being “idolatrous”.

“It was horrifying when they did that, but what they destroyed is only mud, and we are Muslims in our hearts,” he said. “The day they leave, we can rebuild them.”

Also nursing reconstruction plans is Sadou Diallo, 57, the mayor of the northern city of Gao, whose private property empire incurred Islamist wrath for rather different reasons.

Not only did he own two raucous nightclubs, frequented by hip hop DJs and local ladies of the night, he also had a chain of hotels rented out to US special forces teams, who until last year, were training troops in Gao as part of a counter-terrorism strategy.

“All of my properties were burned down and I lost about £500,000,” said Mr Diallo, whose office wall in Bamako bears a “certificate of appreciation” from 1st Bn, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

“When the French attacked last week, I felt alive for the first time since last year.”

Quite how long Malians’ new-found love affair with their former imperial masters will last is another matter.

While some see it as a benign intervention that could heal old colonial wounds altogether, others think it will simply reopen them, especially if it attracts even more jihadists to the country.

And while France has pledged to stick with the mission “as long as it takes”, the military side is just one aspect of it.

Equally daunting is the task of holding fresh elections, slated for later this year, that will find a credible replacement for the ousted Mr Touré, whose corrupt, ineffectual regime achieved little more than giving democracy a bad name.

“We used to have a usually very tolerant brand of Islam, but bad governance is pushing people into embracing militant causes,” said one Malian development worker....

That leaves open the question of why people choose Sharia in places not significantly marked by "bad governance." Is Turkey re-Islamizing and discarding Kemalist secularism because of "bad governance"?

They're going to give Mali to Israel? Who knew? "Moroccan Salafis condemn French war in Mali as ‘Zionist crusade,’" from AFP, January 17:

Salafist leaders in Morocco have condemned the French military intervention in Mali, calling it a “Zionist crusade” and labelling all Muslims who participate in it “ungodly.”

“No Islamic state should provide facilities, such as the use of airspace, to non-Muslims against a Muslim state. It is forbidden by Islam,” wrote Omar Haddouchi, a well-known Salafist, on his Facebook page late on Wednesday.

“Whoever has given support to non-Muslims (in the conflict) is considered ungodly,” Haddouchi added.

Another radical Islamist, Abderrazak Ajah, said Moroccans must “choose between supporting the Islamist fighters as best we can or the Zionist crusade and its agents,” also posting his comments on social media.

Morocco and Algeria have authorised overflights by French fighter planes, which began air strikes in northern Mali last Friday as part of efforts to help Malian troops contain hardline armed Islamists who have occupied the region.

Rabat has also expressed solidarity with Mali in dealing with the militants.

Sheikh Mohamed Rafiki, another Moroccan Salafist, wrote on his Facebook page that there was “no case for supporting the occupying forces in their aggression against Muslim countries.”

“No foreigner has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of a Muslim state, whatever the reason,” added prominent Salafist leader Hassan Kettani.

The four hardline Moroccan Islamists were sentenced to 10 between to 30 years in jail for inciting violence linked to the Casablanca bombings in May 2003, in which 45 people were killed, including the 12 suicide bombers.

All four were later pardoned.