Northern Mail an international terrorist base

Mohamed Bazoum calling for Algeria to "wake up"pointed out that the CEMOC grouping of the Sahel's armed forces under Algeria had failed to meet the challenge of the growing  Tuareg terrorist threat in Northern Mali which it was created to address with teh backing and advice of senior western armed forces officers .Mr Barzoum said that the crisis needed an international response and could not be taken on by ECOWAS on its own. He said that the UN Security Council was being called upon to sanction an African Union force backed by the West.

President Mahamadou Issoufou and his Foreign Minister confirmed the presence of Afghan and Pakistani jihadi
fighters in Northern Mali.

Following a meeting with President Mahamadou Issoufou, President François Hollande said  "There is a threat of terrorist groups setting up in northern Mali. There is outside intervention that is destabilising  Mali and setting up groups whose vocation goes well beyond Mali, in Africa and perhaps beyond," he added.

He said that the threat exists, and that it was for the Africans to avert it and for them to decide. ECOWAS was he said, at once "the judicial instrument for that and the possible military instrument," Hollande told journalists.

He said it was for the Africans to go to the Security Council,and that France would back the ECOWAS motion.

"If an intervention is decided upon, it's for the Africans to lead it, France like other powers putting themselves at the service of the United Nations." This is what former President Nicholas Sarkozy also said when asked about the situation in Mali. Now there appears to be some supportive activity on the ground with EU security experts arriving in Niger and visiting Agadez and the North of the country.

EU experts have also been reported in Mauritania to advise President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz   and to assist with army exercises recently. The fact that the European and American response to the situation in Mali has been muted and rather slow is perhaps partly due to the large number of armed conflicts and theglobal financial crisis.

Following the successful revolt in Libya against Gaddafi and the exodus of heavily armed Tuareg with multiple rocket launchers and reportedly ground to air missiles through Niger to Northern Mali America and its allies have been reluctant to intervene directly because of the fear of deepening the crisis.Libya is still highly unstable and the Sahel countries are weakened by prolonged drought and malnutrition.

The lastest assault on their agriculture is a huge swarm of locusts coming from the south of Libya and Algeria to Niger and Mali.

As an article in VOA notes islamist Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda appear to be edging out the more secular MNLA and anarmed conflict in Kidal recently suggests there are divisions which those who forces who  wish to reverse the situation and restore the unity and democracy may be able to play on.

President Blaise Campaoré of Burkino Faso, who is aso the Ecowas mediator, is reported to be talking to the MNLA and he has a good reputation as a mediator in the region having secured the release of a number of European hostages.

There is a danger that if Northern  Mali goes jihadist (and it is most of the way there it appears) there could be a domino effect in the other Sahel countries weakened as they are by malnutrition and drought with many rootless and unemployed young people easy prey for Al Qaeda.

The increasing activity of Boko Haram in Nigeria in West Africa and Al Shebabin Somalia and in Kenya in the East shows the  potential for instability and conflict faces far more than just the Sahel.

The USA and its allies have been providing support and special forces training in the region for years including Mali (the coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo was US trained) and the fact that they did not see the effect of the exodus of the Tuareg andthe danger of Libyan weapons falling into the wrong hands is an astonishing failure of
military intellegence, although there are many conflicts in the world.The role of  the US Africom in intellegence gathering and support remains unclear.

Ecowas has 3,000 troops on standby but they need logistic support to move hence the approach to the UN Security Council. In fairness to them they probably do not have the experience in mobile desert warefare which the Tuareg have par excellence, nor to they have the heavy weaponary that the MNLA and Ansar Dine have. Even if an African Union force is raised with the sanction of the UN, it will take a longtime to raise and finance

.As it is the United States and Europe that is threatened by Al Qaeda and its offshoots they may be thought to have an interest in ensuring prompt and resolute action as the Sahel countries are running out of resources and time. The longer the situation is left the worse it will get. Perhaps the US and Europe with the blessing of the UN Security Council to make their action legal will assume the responsibility they are trying to avoid. 

The ambassador of Niger to the United States, Maman Sidikou,has called on the U.S. to step up military collaboration with African countries to support a potential intervention in Mali.