African Islamists gather in Northern Mali. The number of Islamist fighters in the Sahel has multiplied by twenty in two years.

Ansar Dine rebels near Timbuktu, northern Mali. Photograph: Romaric Ollo Hien/AFP/Getty Images
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/17/islamist-extremists-alqaida-uprising-mali
 

According to a study U.S. security, 6000 terrorists roam the Sahel

By Karim Aimeur - Thursday, July 19, 2012 (lexpressiondz.com - ALGERIA)

Original source: http://www.maliweb.net/news/insecurite/2012/07/19/article,80992.html
(Translated from French to English by Thomas den Hollander)

July 19, 2012 Topic: Insecurity, northern Mali

They are heavily armed and well trained to deal with any military assault.

The Sahel becomes a quagmire. A study by the American security research centre, AGWoold, the number of terrorist activating the Sahel has increased 20 times between 2010 and 2012.

According to this study, 300 to 500 in 2010, it rose to more than 6,000 terrorists, equipped and trained in 2012. A boon for the troops of Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, which wants to establish theological principalities in the region. But how are terrorists recruited in this particular region in northern Mali? "We are many Africans who came from everywhere to join the mujahedeen from Gao," says a young Ivorian. This young man even has changed his name and is now called
Ahmed El Guédir. It is one of hundreds of recruits in the northern city of Mali controlled by radical Islamists.

The young West Africans landed armed in Gao from Gourma, a province in eastern Burkina Faso, Mali's neighbor but also from Senegal. According to the French news agency AFP, within two days, more than 200 Africans, with an average age of 16, were recruited by the Movement for the uniqueness of Jihad in West Africa (Mujao). New recruits are grouped in two camps in the city and have to undergo military and religious training, said one of the terrorist leaders in the region. Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters, a radical Islamist group responsible for numerous attacks in Nigeria, are now present in northern Mali alongside the Islamists, according to Bilal Hassan, a leader of Mujao in Gao. "Here there are Malians, Somalis, Ivorian, Senegalese, Ghanaians, Gambians, Mauritanians, Algerians, Guineans, Nigerians, there are all Muslims here," said he to the AFP, adding that for a Muslim, there is no nationality or boundary. A native of Mali's neighbor Niger, Hisham Bilal was the first black man to lead a katiba, a fighters brigade, in northern Mali. "There will be other blacks (at the head of katiba). The world is the same for black Muslims, white or other colors", he said.
"The President of Niger (Mahamadou Issoufou) says he will attack us. God only knows. 40% of our workforce are Nigerians. Jihad, God willing, we will take it quickly in Niger", he threatens again.

Mr. Issoufou expressed support for military intervention in northern Mali, envisaged by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to drive out the Islamists.

Bilal Hicham removes this risk by running: "What force is stronger than God? Let them come and bomb us. " "We are all Muslims, at least over 90% in the sub-region (West Africa). We can talk together to find a solution. But if someone decides to use force, then the strength of God will be stronger”, he said. For him, Jihad must be everywhere in West Africa. He says they are ready to plant bombs in West African countries "if necessary".

Ansar Eddine (Defenders of Islam)and Mujao, both allied with al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), controlled the three administrative regions of northern Mali, Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu at the end of March, after ousting the secular Tuareg rebels secessionist.

They have begun to impose Sharia in Timbuktu and destroyed mausoleums of Muslim saints, provoking outrage in Mali and abroad. For their part, people feel abandoned by Gao and cope as best they could with the presence of radical Islamists in their territory.

Apart from banks and some buildings destroyed during the capture of the city in late March and the legacy of fighting in June near the Governor's Palace, Gao looks almost normal, except that there isn’t a single bar or hotel because they are all closed by Islamists.

Will Azawad become a safe haven for Islamic terrorists?

For decades Touareg from the Sahara have been fighting for a, as they call it, a "free Azawad" in northern Mali. During the revolt in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Touareg fighters have been reported fighting on both sides. In this conflict they've received training and weapons and when the revolt was over they renewed their offensive against the government of Mali in January of this year under the name of Mouvement National pour la Libération de l'Azawad (MNLA). When a coup d'état by discontent soldiers, the discontent ironically enough came from the lack of support of the troops in their war in northern Mali, in March paralized the Malian government even more as they already were in their battle against the Touareg, the latter grabbed the opportunity and successfully intensified their offensive, occupying almost all of Azawad, including the three largest cities: Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.

After, as they said, "achieving their goals", the Touareg declared an independent Azawad. But as soon as the news of the victory spread, trouble doomed on the horizon. Pretty fast after the occupation of Timbuktu reports came in that not the flag of Azawad was flying over the city, but the black flag of Jihad.

Since the beginning of the new offensive in January, the Malian government claimed that members of  Islamic extremist groups Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Ansar Dine were fighting with the Touareg to "liberate" Azawad. The MNLA always denied that this was the case, but as soon as Timbuktu was occupied, the Islamic extremist fighters of Ansar Dine took control and imposed Sharia law on the city. This is a disturbing development. The main goal of the MNLA was to liberate Azawad, Ansar Dine and other extremist groups fight for imposement of the Sharia in the whole of Mali and reject independence. Another group of Islamic extremists from Nigeria also fight for imposing Sharia in their own country: Boko Haram.

The Malian web medium Maliweb.net reported that a few hundred fighters of Boko Haram were seen in Gao and if this is true then the fate of Azawad is uncertain. With AQIM, Boko Haram and other extremist groups taking advantage of the lack of government in Azawad, there is a chance that they will take up their arms together against the Touareg, try to expel the Touareg and make Azawad or parts of it an Islamic state, based on Sharia law and a safe haven for Islamic extremists. If this will happen, a new Yemen or Somalia (where government control is very limited and in some areas non-existent) isn't unthinkable, this time in the unstable region of North West Africa where governments are struggling to take on and solve their internal problems and where the security situation is vulnerable to extremists who want to topple the imbalanced power of the government over distant and hard to control areas. By doing this they will be expanding their own power base and become a force that will be increasingly hard to defeat.

The near future will determine what the fate of Azawad will be. The consequences of an outcome in which the flag of Jihad will rule the whole of Azawad, can be far reaching.