by JOE PENNEY
In late June two Salafist militant groups took over the cities of Gao and Timbuktu in northern Mali, wresting control of the cities from the ethnic Tuareg separatist group MNLA, who want an independent homeland in Mali’s north. The Salafist militant groups, Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), are both allied with Al Qaeda and demand an Islamic state. Shortly before the takeover, a curious article appeared on a news website sponsored by the US Army’s Africa Command. Claiming that “a mystery airstrike” killed Al-Qaeda operatives north of Timbuktu, the article insinuated that Western drones were likely responsible for the attack, and went on to quote a “terrorism expert” who ominously explained that Western powers “don’t want to give the terrorists more time to re-organise themselves and plan to deal with the war that will inevitably come in the days ahead” (emphasis added).
The presumed airstrike—in a remote desert area, targeting a convoy of militants, shrouded in secrecy—bears many of the hallmarks of America’s covert drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia. The story fell through the cracks of most major media outlets and although the strike itself is unconfirmed, the secrecy surrounding America’s drone program is such that there is no way of finding out if the US is using the robotic killers in Mali. When asked in an email whether the US employs drones in Mali, Nicole Dalrymple, a media officer for Africa Command (Africom) replied: “we do not discuss specifics related to intelligence matters or the arrangements we have in place with partner nations.”
Yet even if Western powers have not already begun airstrikes in Mali, it seems inevitable they soon will. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a West African regional body similar the EU in Europe, has held countless meetings across West African capitals to hash out a plan to send its stand-by force of 3,000+ soldiers to fight the rebels occupying the north, but still awaits the OK from the Malian government, as well as confirmation of funding and “logistical support” from France and the US. This support is integral to getting the mission off the ground; African presidents, including those of Mali’s neighbors Mauritania and Niger, have been lining up in recent weeks to ask for foreign intervention in what they term “Africa’s Afghanistan,” usually voicing their concerns on French radio.
France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius’s recent remarks to press in Paris gave form to an impending Western-backed intervention: “At one moment or another,” he said, “there will probably be the use of force.”
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