France

Information about Mali’s polling on Sunday, July 28 is coming from western sources–notably Radio France Internationale (RFI), Deutsche Welle (DW), and Voice of America (VOA). As is usual the day after African elections, the three are upbeat in tone. Already there are congratulations and self-congratulations. According to RFI, French President Hollande, who is heavily invested politically in the elections being a success, welcomed the polling “marked by good turnout and an absence of any major incident.” French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said, “congratulations are in order that the Mali elections went off well. For France, it is a great success,” also according to RFI. The Mali interim president, Dioncounda Traoré said, “I think that this is the best election that Malians can remember since 1960," again according to RFI. Yet there are worms of doubt. Inter Press Service (IPS) reports on the warnings by Malian political groups of widespread fraud in the run-up to the elections. If voter turnout reportedly is as high as 55 percent in Bamako and elsewhere, in the northern Islamist stronghold of Kidal VOA reports that by mid-day on election day, turnout “was in the single digits for polling offices counting hundreds of registered voters.” Alex Thurston, in a July 29 post on his Sahel Blog, raises the important issue of Malian refugee anger at, in effect, being excluded from the vote. In other African countries, the rigging of elections takes place not so much at the polling stations but in the counting of the ballots and collating of subtotals. Pre-polling day warnings of fraud by Malian candidates may set the stage for claims that the polling lacked legitimacy. We will see. It is too early to draw conclusions about the elections and whether they will result in a government seen by Malians as legitimate, especially in the northern Taureg regions.

Alassane Ouattara, president of the Ivory Coast and chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), announced that he received a letter from Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan saying that Nigeria will withdraw part of its peacekeeping contingent in Mali. The ECOWAS and UN force (MUNISMA) was to number 12,600 and replace the French force now in Mali that numbers 4,500. How many Nigerian peacekeepers are in Mali at present is not clear; the official number is 1,200. Nor is it clear how many Nigerians will be withdrawn. One Reuters report states that the Nigerian infantry will leave, but that signals operators and engineers will stay. Another report from the BBC claims that Nigeria will withdraw a full battalion of 850 following the Mali elections on July 28. This would limit Nigeria’s presence in the country “to 140 police, some staff officers, and a field hospital based near the northern town of Timbuktu.” The reality of Nigeria’s withdrawal, however, will become better defined as events on the ground develop further. According to Reuters, quoting the UN peacekeeping department, Nigeria will also withdraw some of its troops from the UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. According to Ouattara, Jonathan said the troops are being withdrawn from Mali “because of the domestic situation in Nigeria.” It is highly likely that this is the reason for the withdrawal from Darfur as well. The “domestic situation” is the Islamic insurgency in the north called Boko Haram. Attempts to quell the insurrection and the state of emergency in three northern states have required the deployment of thousands of Nigerian troops. Up to now, the Abuja government insisted that it has sufficient military force to ensure internal security. However, according to the Nigerian media, a Nigerian Senate investigation concluded that the military is “severely stretched by the fighting with Boko Haram.” The Nigerian media has also carried stories–denied by the government–that Nigerian troops in Mali were ill-fed and not paid. This is not the first time Nigeria has withdrawn troops from Mali to strengthen its efforts against Boko Haram. Immediately following the May 14 state of emergency declaration, Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters ordered a portion of the troops in Mali to return home and participate in the war against Boko Haram. The contraction of Nigeria’s peacekeeping role because of the insurgency in the north should be no surprise. Many–if not most–international observers have questioned the optimistic official reports that Abuja’s efforts to quell the insurrection were succeeding. Nevertheless, the contraction diminishes the country’s international role. Nigeria’s willingness to supply peacekeepers to UN, ECOWAS, and African Union missions over the years was an important source of Abuja’s international prestige and influence.

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, an analyst of African Affairs for the Washington D.C.-based think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, and a contributor for the West Point CTC Sentinel. Boko Haram has carried out hundreds of attacks since September 2010. But the attacks have been restricted almost exclusively to domestic targets. Therefore, when a breakaway faction, Ansaru, carried out a series of kidnappings against a British and an Italian engineer in Kebbi in May 2011; a German engineer in Kano in March 2012, (which was claimed by AQIM); a French engineer in Katsina in December 2012; seven foreign engineers in Bauchi in February 2013; and killed two Mali-bound Nigerian troops in Kogi, the insurgency took on a new dimension. Ansaru’s internationalist tendency is likely the result of an al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) strategy to “shift” southwards by training new pan-West African groups like Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) and Ansaru, which I discussed in a recent article. More recently, I analyzed symbolism in Ansaru’s messaging, focusing on Ansaru’s logo, which features a rising sun over the Quran. This analysis further supports the notion that AQIM influenced Ansaru ideologically and operationally. Ansaru’s logo and the logo of AQIM’s predecessor, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), both have a rising sun over the Quran. Looking further, the 1976 national emblem of Algeria, the country where AQIM and the GSPC originate, also has a rising sun over the Quran. This sun represented the “new era” or “new dawn” for Algeria. Algeria held a referendum to revise its Constitution in 1976. Why would Ansaru copy the logo of the GSPC–and not AQIM? One reason could be that Ansaru’s leader, Khalid al-Barnawi, fought with Mokhtar Belmokhtar in Algeria and Mauritania as early as 2005, before the GSPC became AQIM. Notably, Boko Haram member Kabiru Sokoto, who is on trial for masterminding the Christmas Day, 2011, church bombings near Abuja, said that Boko Haram received funding from an Algerian group called “the group from the sunset” and that disputes over this funding contributed to Ansaru’s split from Boko Haram. This has been corroborated by Nigerian intelligence reports. In Ansaru’s Arabic-language Charter [English], the group says that the guns surrounding the Quran in the logo mean “the implementation of religion by the Holy Book and Iron (weapons),” which comes from Surat al-Hadid (see footnote forty-six). Ansaru interprets Hadid, or “iron,” to represent the “weapons” with which jihad is waged. Others, however, commonly interpret “iron” to mean the power of “human development and progress” or “political power” to allow Muslims to lead the world. Ansaru, like Boko Haram, adopts the jihad interpretation of the Quran. Boko Haram also surrounds the Quran with guns in its logo (see 7:15). There may be a few takeaways from this analysis of Ansaru’s logo. First, militant groups are often deliberate about their external image and strategies, as Usama bin Laden’s and AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel’s confidential documents reveal. Second, a group’s messaging can offer insights about its connections with other militant groups when viewed in context. Third, given Ansaru’s relation to AQIM, how will AQIM’s retreat from northern Mali, which is less than three hundred miles from Nigeria, affect Ansaru’s operations in Nigeria; and if Ansaru is a transnational group, is West African regional cooperation sufficient support for Nigeria to counter Ansaru and other transnational threats? This inquiry about Ansaru could take on additional importance if, as I suspect, the dozens of kidnappings in Borno since the Mali intervention in February 2013, are a sign that Boko Haram’s “special kidnapping squad” is comprised of reintegrated Ansaru members. This may explain why when Boko Haram kidnapped a French family in Cameroon in January 2013, an Arabic-speaking militant said the operation was in response to “France’s War in Mali”—a distinctly Ansaru theme.

France and the United States are leading the push for elections to proceed on schedule in Mali in late July. The urgency reflects the view that elections are crucial to ending the rift in Bamako and to restoring the legitimacy of the Malian government, which was tarnished by a military coup and a subsequent feckless interim government. But, for elections to have meaning, they must take place throughout Mali. The northern town of Kidal, however, remains under the control of the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA), not Bamako, though there is a French encampment just outside of it. Malian troops are advancing on it, and there has been renewed fighting with the MNLA over the past two weeks. In Burkina Faso, under the chairmanship of President Blaise Compaore, talks are underway between the Bamako government and the MNLA with the goal of allowing elections to take place in Kidal, perhaps in return for some autonomy for the region. The Voice of America reports that on June 10, there was an agreement “in principle” that would permit elections next month and the handover of Kidal to the new Bamako government. If only it were that simple. Alex Thurston has reviewed the complexities on his “Sahel Blog.” The MNLA by no means speaks for all of the Tauregs or the numerous other rebel groups and individuals still at large in the north. While the MNLA might allow elections to take place in Kidal, it remains strongly opposed to returning the city to Bamako’s administration. Yet, for many of the political class in Bamako, the return of Kidal is a political necessity for the restoration of the Malian state. The French are supporting the Burkina Faso talks, but the French military camped outside Kidal fear ethnic bloodshed if the Malian forces take the town. Meanwhile, Amnesty International, following a four-week mission, is documenting appalling human rights violations by the Malian military. As for the rebel side, the UN is reporting that Islamic radicals’ damage to the World Heritage sites in Timbuktu is worse than had been initially reported. The Timbuktu monuments have been a source of pride for all Malians and were the basis of the now defunct tourist industry. None of these developments will facilitate reconciliation and a political settlement among the Malians of various stripes. The bottom line: the Burkina Faso talks—even if successful—are far from solving the Mali crisis. Nor will elections—if they take place—necessarily be a step forward.

On April 25, the Security Council approved a UN “peacekeeping” force of 12,600 for Mali. They asked the UN Secretary General to appoint a Special Representative for Mali, and called on member states to provide troops, police, and the necessary equipment. It also authorized the secretary general to approve cooperation between the UN mission in Mali and the UN missions in Liberia and Ivory Coast for the temporary sharing of logistical and administrative support. The new mission will be called the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). It is to begin operations on July 1, taking over from the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA)—unless there is a major military operation “or a continued threat from terrorist forces on the civilian population.” The Security Council also authorized French troops to “use all necessary means to support MINUSMA if it falls under imminent threat and if so requested by the secretary general.” MINUSMA’s mandate is extensive. It is to “use all necessary force” to “stabilize the key population centres, especially in the north of Mali…to deter threats and take active steps to prevent the return of armed elements to those areas.” It is mandated to support the Malian government’s sovereignty throughout the country. According to Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous, MINUSMA will assist the Bamako government in re-establishing a “full constitutional order, democratic governance, and national unity.” He said this would include the projected July national elections. However, Russia has been concerned that UN peacekeepers are assuming a more aggressive role than the usual monitoring of cease-fires. According to the New York Times, Russian ambassador Vitaly I. Churkin said that placing UN forces in the midst of a civil war would have “unpredictable and unclear consequences,” especially for the safety of UN personnel. Ladsous emphasizes that MINUSMA “is not an enforcement mission. This is not an anti-terrorist operation.” But, MINUSMA’s mandate includes establishing security, which likely means anti-terrorist and statebuilding operations, including a role in national elections. At present, there is no peace to keep in northern Mali. MINUSMA’s sweeping mandate appears to go beyond the UN’s traditional peacekeeping role, though there are precedents for each piece of it. Nevertheless, Russia voted for the resolution, and there seems to be little alternative to MINUSMA and its extensive mandate if peace and security are to be restored in Mali. The French have indicated that they contemplate no permanent presence in Mali, and the regional African body, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), lacks the necessary capacity. But the Russian ambassador is right: MINUSMA and its extensive mandate in a civil war environment can have “unpredictable consequences.”    

While attention is focused on the manhunt for the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings, there is good news from West Africa. In a Paris news conference, French president Francois Hollande announced that the French family of seven kidnapped in northern Cameroon—including four children—have finally been released after two months of captivity. Hollande said the release followed several weeks of secret negotiations, and that the French had not paid a ransom. As has been well documented, ransoms paid by European countries in the past have been a significant source of revenue for terrorist operations in West Africa and the Sahel. In March, an alleged Boko Haram video threatened to kill the hostages, presumably including the children, unless militants were released from detention. This is a frequent demand and a high priority for Boko Haram, and it has carried out organized attacks on prisons aimed at freeing detained militants. However, there are many unanswered questions. What group really held the hostages? Did the kidnappers sell the hostages to Abubakar Shekau’s Boko Haram? (Boko Haram has not typically resorted to kidnapping expatriates, while Ansaru, another radical Islamist group, has.) With whom did the French negotiate? Who were their interlocutors, those who held the hostages or a third party? Where did the negotiations take place? What were the terms of the release? Whatever the answers, the horror for one family is over.

The Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF) has done Africa watchers and policy makers an important service by publishing David J. Francis’s analysis of the Mali crisis with his suggestions as to the way forward. Titled “The Regional Impact of the Armed Conflict and French Intervention in Mali,” Francis teases out for the educated non-specialist the highly complicated Malian narrative, identifying key players, groups and events. The study is especially strong on the French domestic political dimensions of President Hollande’s military intervention, and what the likely consequences may be. Americans will note with interest that he raises the potential for “mission creep” with respect to the U.S. drone base in Niger if the military conflict between French-led forces and the radical Islamists persists: “Possible counterinsurgency warfare will include the increasing use of U.S. drones against terrorist and militants, like the U.S. use of drone warfare in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.” That is precisely what so many in West Africa fear. Francis’s recommendations range from the exceedingly practical–coup leader Amadou Sanogo should be removed from the Malian equation by sending him to France on a fully-funded scholarship for five years–to the more obvious: the Mali crisis should be seen “as a regional problem that requires a regional approach to dealing with Islamist extremists, as well as addressing the depressing regional socioeconomic and development issues of poverty, injustice, drought, and famine.” There are generic recommendations, recommendations for the French government, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union, the UN, and the European Union. There are also specific recommendations for Norway, a reminder of the important role engaged European states and non-governmental organizations can play. Francis recommends that Norway should renew its assistance to Mali with verifiable benchmarks, collaborate with the Norwegian Church Aid mediation group to promote political dialogue involving the Tauregs and the Bamako government, and in partnership with the international community, promote governance reform. David Francis holds the Professorial Research Chair in African Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Bradford in the UK. NOREF is a resource center and think tank with ties to the Norwegian foreign ministry. It has an extensive list of publications available online in English.

You read this right. The British media, citing French sources, is having a field day with the report that the camel given to French president Francois Hollande during his February 2013 visit to Mali, has been eaten by its care-takers. According to the French media, the minister of defense broke the news to Hollande. Embarrassed, a Malian official said, “as soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel,” according to Reuters. The French president had left the camel, an expression of thanks for French military intervention in Mali, with a Timbuktu family. The replacement camel will be shipped to a French zoo. A serious side to the story, beyond the camel’s fate; it illustrates the pervasiveness of food insecurity in Mali and, indeed, in the Sahel in general. That said, the British are enjoying the story, perhaps not least because it is at the expense of the French. Sky News headlines, “Camel Given to Francois Hollande Put in a Stew.” The more restrained BBC titled its story “Francois Hollande’s Camel: Mali to Replace Eaten Animal.” Comments posted to the Sky News story include: “I thought the French smoke camels anyway,” and “really what do they think he wants with a camel anyway?” And, “did they go "supersize" for the meal?”

French former president Nicolas Sarkozy criticized the French intervention in Mali in a March 6 magazine interview. He is quoted as saying, “the rule is never to go into a country that has no government,” and, “What are we doing there if we’re not just supporting putschists and trying to control a territory four times larger than France with four thousand men?” Sarkozy’s comments highlight the awkward reality that French intervention was at the request of the Bamako regime that had overthrown the legal government. He is also likely to continue to make partisan political statements the longer the French stay in Mali and the intervention inevitably becomes unpopular in France. That process will accelerate if French casualties mount. Thus far, however, only four French soldiers have been killed. Times change:  Sarkozy is a politician of the French Right, which historically has supported a French forward role in its former colonies. It is the Left, now led by Francois Hollande, the French president, that was skeptical in the past. From the start, French president Francois Hollande has said the intervention would be short and that French troops would be replaced by a UN-approved African regional force. On March 6 Hollande said French troops would start to leave Mali in April, a month later than initially foreseen. He characterized this as the “final phase” as African troops take over. It remains to be seen whether the African regional force will be ready to take over from the French as soon as April. Fighting, sometimes fierce, continues, and the Islamists appear far from defeated in the desert. But, Hollande will be aware of the domestic political costs he may face if the French intervention drags on.

Kidnapping is not a part of the repertoire of the radical, diffuse Islamist group called Boko Haram. Some of its alleged spokesmen have denounced the practice. However, kidnapping is common in the Sahel and ransoms are an important source of revenue for the rival criminal networks also involved with smuggling, some of which have links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AQIM has regularly claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of foreigners. Kidnapping is also a well-established tactic of the criminal groups in the western part of the oil-rich Niger Delta. As in the Sahel, Delta kidnappings are mercenary, with little political content. Most of the Delta kidnappings are of Nigerians, not foreigners–though it tends to be the periodic high-profile foreign kidnappings that make international headlines. In the Sahel, the huge ransoms paid by governments or corporations ensure that most of the victims are foreigners. This month, there have been two high-profile kidnappings in northern Nigeria. A group called Ansaru claimed responsibility for kidnapping seven foreigners on February 16; on February 19, a French family was kidnapped in northern Cameroon and allegedly taken across the border to Nigeria. No group has claimed responsibility, but reports suggest it may be Ansaru. Matthew Bey and Sim Tack have published a useful analysis of Ansaru, “The Rise of a New Nigerian Militant Group,” available on the Stratfor website. They see Ansaru as having separated from Boko Haram over the latter’s killing of innocent Muslims. They also argue credibly that Ansaru has links with AQIM and has an international focus. By contrast, Boko Haram has a specifically northern Nigerian focus, not an international one. Such a focus has made it largely immune to the blandishments of the international jihadi groups. Bey and Tack argue that Boko Haram’s use of suicide bombers and ambushes make it the more dangerous of the two with respect to local civilian populations. But, Ansaru’s orientation toward the far, rather than the near, enemy, makes it the greater danger to Western targets. If Bey and Tack’s approach is correct (and I find it credible), Ansaru is a cross-border terrorist operation with tangible links to non-Nigerian criminal and terrorists groups, while Boko Haram is a grassroots insurgency that uses terrorist tactics to further a domestic agenda.

It’s hard to get the details on the logistical arrangements, or numbers, of the ECOWAS force in Mali. The majority of Nigeria’s promised 1,200 troops are reportedly deployed to a military base in Niger, or still stationed in Bamako. However, the Nigerian media organization Premium Times reports that the Nigerian troops actually in Mali are suffering from inadequate provisions, especially food. Citing a “defense source,” Premium Times  reports that Nigerian soldiers are resorting to, in effect, shaking down their Malian hosts under the guise of making “courtesy calls.” Apparently, they ask for–and receive–food, in one case a cow and fifty bags of rice from a prefect. The story is roundly denied by a Nigerian defense spokesman who is quoted, “we have provided the contingent with enough food and funds to last them for the initial three months. Is Nigeria not bigger than that?” Another Nigerian defense spokesman claimed to a different newspaper that Malian “community leaders” are expressing gratitude to the Nigerian troops “by donating cows to them.” Absent much independent media presence in Mali, it is hard to know where the truth lies. Countries contributing to the ECOWAS force moved quickly to send troops to Mali in the aftermath of the January French intervention. Initially ECOWAS had planned to deploy in September, allowing time for equipping, training, and making the necessary logistical arrangements. Given the haste of the deployments, it is credible that there have been glitches in supply delivery and that some troops are going hungry. Moreover, it is also credible that Malians in Bamako are grateful for the ECOWAS troop presence, and give them gifts.  However, given the cost, the idea of Malians freely gifting cows to foreign troops stretches credibility.  

Throughout the Mali crisis, the role of racism in shaping the conflict has not received much emphasis, at least in U.S. commentary. Yet, it plays an important role on the ground. Mali is on the dividing line between north Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.  It has a small but traditionally cohesive population of Tuaregs and Arabs (approximately 10 percent of Mali’s total population) who regard themselves as “white.” They regard other Malians as “black.” Tuaregs and Arabs participated in the trans-Saharan slave trade, sometimes selling and enslaving “blacks” when they could. Tuaregs and Arabs move freely across the borders of Mali, Algeria, and Mauritania. During the colonial and post-colonial periods, the Malian government in Bamako kept antipathy between “whites” and “blacks” relatively under control. The Islamists associated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who drove the Malian army out of the north and in turn have been driven out of northern Mali’s cities by French and Malian forces, were led by Tuaregs and Arabs. Based on the impressionistic and scanty reporting available today of Islamist rule in the northern cities, the victims of gross Islamist punishments–stonings and amputations–appear mostly to have been blacks. Now, the other shoe has dropped. UN special advisor for the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, is publicly expressing concern about Malian reprisal attacks against ethnic Tuaregs and Arabs. He refers to accusations that the Malian army is carrying out summary executions and “disappearances.” He also refers to incidents of mob lynching and looting of Arab and Tuareg property.  Additionally, there are anecdotal reports of Tuaregs and Arabs going into hiding. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, has warned Mali over possible military abuses, and Dieng welcomed an ICC investigation. The identification of “white” Tuaregs and Arabs with AQIM is likely a factor limiting the group’s influence among “black” populations, including Boko Haram supporters in northern Nigeria.    

The confluence of a radical Islamist push toward the south in Mali, the consequent French intervention, a raid on a natural gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria, and Secretary Clinton’s congressional testimony on Benghazi on January 23, are generating the largely unexamined view that the war on terrorism with an al-Qaeda focus is underway in the Sahel-Sahara region of West Africa. The attack on In Amenas and the resulting tragic loss of life has particularly focused international attention. Scott Stewart in Security Weekly wrote a sober piece that places In Amenas in context. Far from being new, he argues that Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s goals, tactics, and the size of his force are similar to what he has done in the past. And it has little to do with al-Qaeda or the War on Terror, and a great deal with maximizing ransoms. His description and analysis of the attack itself and the Algerian response is fascinating. He also points out–as have a few other commentators–that Belmokhtar broke with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb more than a year ago. I find it hard to fault his conclusion: “militancy and banditry were fixtures in the Sahel well before the jihadist ideology entered the region. [Belmokhtar’s] history–combined with the vacuum of authority in the region brought on by the Malian coup and the overthrow of Gaddafi, the prospect of millions of dollars in ransom, and the large quantities of available weapons—means we will see more kidnappings and other attacks in the years to come.” But, this is far from “the War on Terror.”

What a difference a fortnight can make. On January 7, 2013, the eve of the Islamist feint south, the Jonathan government announced that it was reducing its troop pledge for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Mali intervention force that was to be deployed in September 2013. Nigeria would contribute 450 troops, not 600. It also signaled that it would be unable to bear the lion’s share of the costs, as it had in previous ECOWAS interventions in African states to restore or maintain security. But, in the aftermath of the French intervention, the Jonathan government reversed its course to significantly increase that contribution. On January 17, the Nigerian Senate approved deployment of 1,200 troops. Some Nigerian troops have been on the ground in Mali for a few days already, according to the Abuja government. Press comments by the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika may provide some insight into Abuja’s thinking on the crisis in Mali, and its relationship to the grass-roots insurrection in northern Nigeria labeled Boko Haram. Ihejirika on January 18, commented that “we have evidence” that terrorists operating in northern Nigeria were trained in Mali. Further, “as of yesterday, we are aware of the influx of some chaps trained in Mali into the country.” Hence, his perspective is that Nigerian participation in the ECOWAS Mali intervention force will promote security in northern Nigeria. Ihejirika’s position reflects that of the Jonathan government which has long claimed the Boko Haram insurrection is linked to the international al-Qaeda movement. Given the widespread deployment of the Nigerian army within Nigeria, it remains to be seen where the Jonathan government will find the troops and equipment necessary to fulfill its new pledges.