RE: Mauritanians in Northern Mali

Alex Thurston at the Sahel Blog notes news reports of military exercises being held on the Mauritanian border with Mali. Mauritania’s armed forces have been on heightened altert since at least last November, with increased patrols and excercises on the border in response both to kidnappings and the rebellion in Mali. During last week’s exercises ‘a heavy artillery bombardment could be heard outside Bassiknou for two days. Meanwhile, military aircraft carried out sorties over the area and bombed virtual moving targets as part of a training drill supervised by French experts.’ These sounds caused some local residents to believe there was actual fighting going on, between the Army and AQIM or ‘the Tuaregs’ according to sources. The Mauritanians have been especially active against AQIM in northern Mali, launching several air and land raids across the border in the last three years. In March 2012, the Mauritanian air force bombed convoys in northern Mali, killing what it claimed with AQIM militants, Malian sources told wire services civilians were killed. The Mauritanians retain an aggressive posture. In 2010 and 2011 AQIM had taken to claiming its dead — posting statements and obituaries on jihadist forums for example, following up on their own accounts of the fighting — or attempting to exploit civilian casualties by claiming the victims of such raids were civilians and not their men. The Mauritanian raids were relatively lethal, causing what were probably embarrassing casualties for AQIM; this coupled with AQIM suffering heavy defeats in northern Algeria during the same time period made it more difficult for the group to put consistent effort into Internet propaganda following more recent raids. Thus there are fewer accounts of the fighting (at least from AQIM’s perspective) for more recent raids and relatively few obituaries for members killed. The fighting has continued and the Mauritanian military and intelligence services undertook offensive measures aimed at intercepting and interdicting AQIM operatives and uncovering its plots in the country (which include plans for kidnapping soldiers and an attack marking the anniversary of Usama Bin Laden’s death), due to increased monitoring on the border and in the refugee camps there as well as apparently, if Algerian media reports and the recent killing of an alleged Mauritanian spy at the hands of AQIM are any indication, a relatively aggressive intelligence gathering activity which may have included the penetration of AQIM itself. These actions were made possible by Mali’s unwillingness to confront AQIM and Mauritania’s perception of northern Mali as a strategic space where AQIM’s presence made the country vulnerable to the group’s emphasis on armed action against the Mauritanian state. The collapse of state control in northern Mali contributes to the sense of urgency on the Mauritanian side of the border.

While Mauritania’s internal politics  have brought the legitimacy of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz into question since his disputed election in 2009 (and those disputes appear to be coming to a head this year) there has been relatively little controversy over the army’s raids into Mali (though members of the opposition did attempt to paint Ould Abdel Aziz as reckless early on, the raids did not appear unpopular in Mauritania and most political parties tended to back them). Ould Abdel Aziz is far more controversial for his internal policies (while range from corruption in financial management and resource allocation to his stalling of the electoral process to what many see as open contempt for the opposition), which continue to provoke agitation and controversy.

The March raid was reported to have resulted in at least a few civilian casualties; the Mauritanians have also killed civilians in previous raids. On one occasion, AQIM used the opportunity to express is sympathy and solidarity with the tribes in the surrounding region (in Timbuktu) in subsequent statements; it is unclear as yet what wider result civilian casualties have had or might have in the future on AQIM’s ability to hold onto control in Timbuktu together with Ansar Ed-Dine. The border zone is an area to look, especially in terms of any potential ECOWAS (of which Mauritania is not a member) intervention in Mali.

Three Brothers

ATGM points out that a trial on appeal confirmed a death sentence for Mohamed Abdellahi Ould Ahmednah (and a three and twelve year prison term for Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Khouna and Didi Ould Bezeid, respectively) for the 2009 murder of American aid worker Christopher Leggitt. Ould Ahmednah is one of three brothers who were recruited in AQIM, sons from a relatively wealthy family but whose father died when they were young. Momhamed Abdellahi Ould Ahmednah’s brother, Abdelkader was killed in combat by a Franco-Mauritanian force in northern Mali in June 2010. A third Ahmednah brother is also in Mauritanian prison; the two of them identified Abdelkader’s body to the authorities after his death. Those clashes and Ahmednah’s death were covered in this post.

Graphics and Concepts: Thinking About Algerian Politics

The slides below were drawn up in 2009 and 2010; this blogger put them together in the course of ordinary research and used them mainly to journalists or others trying to familiarise themselves with the general contours of Algerian politics. More of these will appear on this blog shortly.

The first one deals with Bouteflika’s political ‘legitimacy’ within the Algerian political establishment and wider international community. The themes of the projection of certain images: order, stability, reconciliation, the centrality of the executive, normalcy. These are the sort of things the Algerian government would prefer the world gleaned from the Bouteflika presidency. Some of the points in the cultural and institutional level could be moved into each others’ places; a flaw in the concept here.

The next slide is a generalisation about the process of rule in Algeria in the 1960s and 1970s — what is remembered by some as a time of plenty under Boumediene. The objective with this slide is to draw parallels with Bouteflika’s style of rule, which draws heavily on methods and lessons from the Boumediene period (which were formative years for Bouteflika, when he was Foreign Minister and before that Minister of Sports and Youth, it was also a time of plentiful energy revenues and a post-conflict environment not unlike the 2000s in Algeria; many of the means of control under Boumediene were revitalised or revamped for the multiparty period under Bouteflika, especially the mass organisations and similar institutions). A similar slide used in other presentations adjusts this (no pictures)  to include tribal or other informal and local networks, aside from just categories of state institutions.

The third slide shows three ‘circles’ (really, rectangles) of power and elite influence: indirect elites, advisory elites and decideurs. These generalisations are meant to describe varying levels of influence official decisions and non-decisions, outcomes and processes in Algerian politics, mainly in terms of high politics, but it might be of some utility, with modifications, at lower levels. It draws on Isabelle Werenfels’s work on Algerian elite dynamics (Managing Instability in Algeria, 2007) and on Quandt’s work (Revolution and Political Leadership: Algeria 1954-1968, 1969).

The fourth slide is used to discuss continuity through the various periods of Algeria’s political history after the death of Boumediene. It begins with Chadhli Bendjedid, followed by the post 1988 infitah (opening) and the rise of the FIS, the 1992 coup d’etat and civil war and then the consolidation of Bouteflika’s rule after 1999. A question mark is probably the best adjustment to make at this point. In terms of continuity, the centrality of the price of hydrocarbons, the role of the military (and how this changes) and the direction of decisions made by important individual actors are usually focal points of discussion; the key characteristics of the Algerian regime and the fragmentation of Algerian society are other points of interest. It is not especially useful on its own, and is usually accompanied by other graphics and notes.

Rolled Up in Azawad

Al-Akhbar recently published a video of a man in his forties, according to the write up, confessing to a number of acts of spying on behalf of Mauritania in northern Mali. He collected names, phone numbers, positions and other information about AQIM in the region. He says he was hired by the head of the Bureau d’Etudes et de Documentation, Mauritania’s foreign intelligence service, Gen. Mohamed Ould Meguet, to work with a commander Hbibi Ould Delloul and a captain Kheiry in collecting intelligence on AQIM in Mali. The write up quotes sources close to Ould Meguet the Mauritanians have not investigated the circumstances of his capture or death and did not attempt to negotiate or otherwise obtain his release. He was eventually executed, according to the report. According to the report his family has received ’modest compensation’ from the authorities. The article describes the military’s handling of the affair as ‘cynical’.¹

He also worked at the service of the walis (governors) in the eastern provinces bordering Mali scouting for the military, traveled in northern Mali tracking the movements of AQIM and monitoring westerners traveling on the Rue d’Espoir (the Brazilian-build high way that links eastern and western Mauritania, the Highway of Hope). The al-Akhbar report places the video in the context of AQIM’s leaders’ reported purges of Mauritanians accused of spying for the Mauritanian intelligence service, which has been reported on in the Mauritanian and Algerian press; in late 2010 and early 2012 Algerian papers began reporting on paranoia in the AQIM command (mainly Abu Zaid’s katiba) about penetration by Mauritanian intelligence and more recently there are reports that there has been an effort to diversify the southern katibas’ ranks which for some time were dominated by Mauritanians (estimates are that at as many as 70% of AQIM recruits/fighters to particular katibas in the Sahel were or have been Mauritanian).

This comes amid the dispatching of gendarmerie counterterrorism units to the military garrison at Bassiknou as part of an effort to beef up security on the border after plots linked to AQIM were discovered at a border check point; the article describes Mauritanian gendarmes’ efforts to seek out AQIM operatives traveling in civilian clothes, searching for possible operatives in the camps housing refugees from the conflict in northern Mali. “Mopping up operations on the border began on 12 May 2012, according to Sahara Media.

(1) Last month the Mauritanian press reported that AQIM captured a Malian Arab who had been spying on the terrorist group in the Timbuktu region; he was held out in the city as an example and taken off to the outskirts by the group who at the very least beat him severely, according to rumours. He was accused of scouting and relaying information on the positions of AQIM targets in northwestern Mali to the Mauritanian military, in support of their cross border operations there.

Algeria’s Legislative Election 2012: Indifference, Fraud and Continuity

NOTE: 2012 APN charts are updated (14 May 2012).

NOTE: Readers can also compare this blogger’s recent writing on the election with his initial thoughts (circa December/January) on Islamist prospects in the election at Fair Observer — ‘Islamist Prospects in Algeria.’

The Algerian elections reinforced the FLN and RND’s dominance of the formal political process, ,and exposed the persistence of the Algerian regime’s machinery of fraud. Despite high confidence and reports and rumours of promises of manipulation, the MSP (Brotherhood)-led Islamist Green Algeria Alliance (AAV) roughly as many seats as the MSP itself held in the 2007 legislature. Opposition parties and foreign observers are complaining about irregularities, fraud and manipulation. The FLN came out with the largest number of seats, nearly doubling its share; the RND more or less held steady. Minor opposition parties like Louisa Hanoune’s Workers Party (PT; an interesting story on the party in Blida is here; also interesting about Blida is that the MSP performed poorly there, one of its traditional strongholds, which speaks to the extent of fraud and vote buying) and Moussa Touati’s Algerian National Front (FNA) lost out to new parties and independents. The Hocine Ait Ahmed’s Front of Socialist Forces (FFS; the oldest opposition party), which was alleged by many to be under heavy pressure from the regime to participate aggressively, both in the election campaign and also in regional and local municipal politics this year, recuperated a similar number of seats as those it held the last time it participated in national legislative polls in 1997. In some areas where the FLN did unbelievable well voters were quoted as saying “I cannot believe the results”; in certain semi-rural areas the FLN came close to winning 100 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was low even by official accounts. The 2012 legislative election thus reinforces the dominant electoral trend in Algerian formal politics: low participation and high voter indifference, increasingly intense incumbent success and consistent fraud.

It will important to watch how the FLN delegates behave in the new APN; whether they will carry over the rivalries and dissidence that has characterised much of FLN’s recent internal politics and whether Secretary General Abdelaziz Belkhadem will remain dominant in the party.

The complaints over fraud from parties like the MSP, which are reliant on cooperation with the regime for access to state resources and to maintain their patronage networks, point to longer term tensions within in the elite. It will be important to watch whether the MSP pursues these complaints or seeks to take some symbolic retaliatory action, and if such parties will seek to reenter the ruling coalition (or if they are allowed to).

It was interesting to watch the MSP make its effort at grassroots campaigning, passing out green baseball caps, canvassing and the rest. It still probably inaccurate to say, as one Algerian political scientist did in the New York Times, that ‘in a fair vote, the people would have voted for the Islamists.’ The moderate Green Alliance parties are not mass based, popular parties like the FIS was; they have concentrations of support and relatively narrow constituencies ideologically speaking. They are outnumbered by non-Islamists and more conservative trends, including Salafis who probably command a larger share of young Algerians than any single religious trend aside from “mainstream” Algerian Islam, and who generally refuse to vote, let alone for the Muslim Brothers. It is probably accurate to say, though:  ’The government has lots of money, and it is distributing it … This regime will last another few years.’ Or, as The Economist put it

Some say that certain people in “le pouvoir” know that real democracy cannot be postponed indefinitely. Two days before the elections, Mr Bouteflika said that “my generation has had its time.” The elections will give at least some indication of who might run the country if ordinary people were allowed a real say. There is no sign they will have it soon.

The Economist, the Financial Times and Guardian have carried good summaries of the election.

Below are charts showing the breakdown of the Algerian legislature in 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2012. The last chart shows a gender breakdown of the seats taken by each party (There are more women in the new legislature than any previous one; compare the last chart below with the charts and sheets posted on this blog in 2009 and 2010 for the 2007 legislature . The breakdowns for 2012 are based on a tally from Liberte (here; note this is a provisional tally; a chart with the full count is forthcoming).

Why not Algeria, too?

Yesterday on Twitter Steven A. Cook and several others engaged the following exchange.

A lot of space has been spent on articles and commentary about why Algeria did not see the kind of upheaval that struck Tunisia, Libya and Egypt (and now Syria and Yemen). Much of this was of poor quality to recycled the same arguments and rationales. This blogger never found that conversation particularly interesting and generally avoided it. He is not going to attempt to explain why or why not Algeria has or will or might have an uprising. He is interested in the process of things inside Algeria more than big, hypothetical outcomes, at the moment in any case. What is more interesting is to look at what actually did happen in Algeria in 2011 as opposed to what outsiders think ought to have happened based on considerations about very different polities with very different political regimes from Algeria’s. A lot of time has been spent attempting to frame events in Algeria and virtually every other Arab polity as part of a single narrative — the “Arab Spring” — at the expense of looking at events as functions of the internal logic of very sophisticated and complex societies with actors operating in specific political contexts. While the countries that saw uprisings in 2011 had regimes and leaders with strong structural and psychological similarities these were nonetheless very particular situations. Algeria resembles Morocco or Egypt in more ways than it resembles Ben Ali’s Tunisia, Qadhafi’s Libya or Ba’thist Syria.

But Algeria has a distinct political background and demography that is sometimes downplayed in discussions about the Arab uprisings, which includes the civil war during the 1990s, an opposition that is pitifully fragmented and a regime made up of remarkably cunning political strategists and tacticians. Much of the writing about the events that took place in the Arab world focuses on forces as opposed to individual actors; the force of Tahrir Square, the force of social media, the force of the example of Mohamed Bouazizi, the force of symbols and avatars. One of the reasons uprisings became successful was that they forced regimes into reactive positions where they   were forced to react in aggressive and impolitic ways. Questions of agency and causality seem to be relegated largely to mystical forces as opposed to decisions and specific circumstances. A popular revolution or uprising is treated not only as likely, but inevitable and existential. However likely some kind of uprising may be in Algeria, it will have in three dimensions, not one and not two (as some would like it); and like the other uprisings its trigger will be local and will have built over time, resulting from decisions and circumstances largely sui generis. There are many reasons Algeria’s leadership and opposition and masses have not come together in the kind of cocktail that has hit many other Arab countries over the last year; this is not surprising to people who follow Algeria closely, even those who tend to believe that at any given time Algeria is at something like a 60% chance of exploding into unrest. One of the things brought out very clearly by events in 2011, though, was that things usually are as they are until they are not. Algeria is constantly confusing and offering analysts surprises. This observer sees no reason to believe that it will stop doing so any time soon.

Re: Algeria’s Legislative Elections

This blogger made several posts in 2010 and 2011 on Algeria’s formal political processes. These included charts and tables on various political parties in the lower house of parliament (the National People’s Assembly, APN), the cabinet and on the presidential elections from 1995 through 2009. As time has gone on, voter participation has decreased, especially in national elections; the 2007 legislative election was a fine example of this, where turnout hit a historic low, around 40-something percent — and this was taking into account official exaggerations. Most of those posts (not al, though) can be seen on the “O, Sir, You are Old” page, which includes various posts dealing with Algerian politics. This post will not go too deep on the elections but will only offer general observations and assessments of things as they stand in broad terms, real analysis can be done later.

‘Voting Early’: Kamel Daoud on Algeria’s Legislative Elections (Translation)

Kamel Daoud writes a pithy poignant column, ‘Raina Raikoum’ (My Opinion, Your Opinion) for the Quotidien d’Oran. His novels and short stories have won several awards. He can also be read in Slate Afrique (slateafrique.com)  This skeptical look at Algeria’s upcoming legislative elections ran in the Quotidien d’Oran on April 4, 2012. 

Links and Reports on Mauritania Islamism and Security

In the last couple of months the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put out two reports on Mauritania:

• Thurston, Alex. ‘Mauritania’s Islamists,’ March 2012, Washington DC.
• Boukhars, Anouar. ‘The Drivers of Instability in Mauritania,’ April, 2012, Washington, DC.

Both are substantial and worth reading, even if one quibbles with specific parts of either. Both will be added to the next iteration of the Mauritania Bibliography.

The Algerian newspaper El Watan also recently published several articles on the Salafist trend in Mauritania, including a brief interview with Nouakchott Info journalist Mohamed Mahmoud Abu al-Ma’ali (whose long article on the situation in northern Mali was discussed here).

• Rabia, S. ‘La carte Abou Hafs El Mauritani:  Un numéro III d’Al Qaîda pas du tout encombrant,’ El Watan, 3 May, 2012.
• Rabia, S. ‘Islamisme, misère et autoritarisme, un pays maghrébin en difficulté: la Mauritanie inquiéte pour son avenir,’ El Watan, 3 May, 2012.
•  Rabia, S. ‘Mohamed Mahmoud Aboulmaali. Directeur de Nouakchott info et spécialiste des questions islamistes: Les salafistes pourraient intégrer le jeu politique,’ El Watan, 3 March 2012.
• Rabia, S. ‘Les mahdharas, véritable réservoir du salafisme: Ces Algériens qui partent s’abreuver aux sources du wahabisme,’ El Watan, 3 May, 2012.

Magharebia also has an article on a meeting of shaykhs at Aleg last month on the role of mahadhras (religious schools; these are discussed at some length in the Boukhars report, and should be looked at in ) in promoting moderation, sponsored by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Mauritanian Association of Religious Scholars.

• Omar, Jamel. “Mauritanian sheikhs review mahdharas role,” 1 May, 2012.

A post on this blog on President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is forthcoming, going back to the broader domestic politics in the country and his handling of foreign affairs and crisis situations, which will hopefully be relevant as far as current events in the country are concerned, the protest, democracy and labour movements especially. Stay tuned.

Introductory Algeria Foreign Policy Reading List (I)

This is a short selection of books focused on or include chapters or sections that focus on Algerian foreign policy for more or less English-speaking analysts. This is intended as an introductory list, not a comprehensive or exhaustive one. A longer list of journal articles, reports and dissertations on the same subject is forthcoming. If readers know of recent dissertations on Algerian foreign policy (in English, French, Arabic, German, Italian or Spanish), they are welcome and encouraged to send them to the email address listed on this blog’s ‘About’ page for inclusion in the ‘Dissertations’ section. 

Another Take on ‘The Malian Crisis as seen from Algeria’

‘The Malian crisis seen from Algeria,’ by Thomas Seres (19 April 2012) presents an analysis of Algerian perceptions of the upheaval in northern Mali. This analysis is insufficient in explaining Algerian behaviour in response to the rebellion in northern Mali or to the March coup d’etat and misidentifies Algerian priorities in relation to the ‘Sahelo-Saharan Space’ and Algeria’s relationships with extra-regional actors in the west.  Additionally, its underlying assumptions about Algerian foreign policy in the Sahel and the west do not match with observations of Algerian behaviour in the past or at the present time. Seres’s analysis also highlights some of the problems facing those seeking to analyse Algeria’s foreign policy and the relationship between its internal politics and external behaviour.

This post does not cover all parts of Seres’s analysis. Instead, it looks at the assumptions Seres starts with upfront, examines some of the claims made and thinks out-loud about some of the problems it shows in popular thinking about Algeria’s relationships with its neighbours. Many of these issues have been raised or discussed on this blog at various times on this blog and so this post proceeds casually; it will be followed by a series of posts looking at problems in analysing Algerian politics and foreign policy in the next several weeks.

More on Islamist Performance in Algeria

Many are looking at Algeria’s elections in terms of regional trends in North Africa. Last week, Foreign Policy published “A second chance for Algeria’s Islamists,” by Karina Piser looks at the electoral prospects for Algeria’s Islamist parties in the May elections. The article is worth reading. Piser’s conclusions are for the most part reasonable regarding Islamist performance potential: they may end up with a plurality of seats (or more) but the process itself remains within the control of the regime. The analysis is contestable and in someways leaves out important nuances but is not inherently or grievously wrong, though there are some points which require more unpacking and clarification.

Quick Links

Below are a few links to blog posts and new blogs readers should be aware of and take look at:

• “Mauritania’s Protest Movements” by @lissanup provides a fine overview of the protest movements that have developed in Mauritania over the last year or so and a link to a great list for monitoring Mauritanian internet and social media activity. Her summary also reiterates the many reasons readers should “care” about what is going on in Mauritania. The events there over the last several months reveal the depths to which the country has been shaken by regional trends — environmental, political, economic, military and one sui generis to Mauritania itself — and that there can be no firm separation between events in the “Arab” Maghreb and the Sahel and so-called sub-Saharan or “black” Africa conceptually or practically (Mali shows this in a more jarring and overt way). Clashes between demonstrators and authorities have become more and more common, and the regime’s long questionable legitimacy is increasingly contested.
• The Historical Origins of the Algerian Dialect is a new blog by Lameen Souag, who also runs the Jabal al-Lughat linguistics blog.
• Journalist Eileen Byrne, who has guest blogged here before, has started her own blog, covering Tunisia and the Maghreb. Many great pictures and notes there.
• “Mali: What is really happening,” by Oualid Khelifi at Ceasefire provides excellent insight into the political situation in northern Mali, as well as ethnic and economic dynamics that will help shape the region’s immediate future.

Opportunities Taken in Mali: Ethnic Dimensions & Additional Explanations on the Emergence of MUJWA

Readers should check the TMND Twitter account for news updates on the situation in Mali, Algeria and Mauritania, where links are posted, along with occasional analysis or comments. The feed is hosted on the sidebar on this blog and also here, on Twitter.

New Armed Groups and Changing Ethnic Politics

A new militia in northern Mali, the Front de libération nationale de l’Azawad (FLNA) has emerged, opposed to both shari’ah (promoted by AQIM, Ansar Eddine and MUJWA) and independence for the Azawad in northern Mali (promoted by the MNLA); the group is being described as an Arab armed group, drawn from members of the Arab militia that fled Timbuktu following the advance of the MNLA, Ansar Eddine and associated forces; the group is led by a Mohamed Lamine Sidad (also transliterated as Mohamed Laime Sidat). The Arab ethnic focus speaks to distrust between Arab and Tuareg residents in the Timbuktu region especially. Historically, smuggling groups were often run by Arabs and Tuaregs separately and many Arabs in Timbuktu have feared being dominated by Tuaregs, and losing access to trade routes, during the course of the uprising. This highlights an increasingly important ethnic dimension to the evolving situation in northern Mali which has been ignored in some reporting that takes a macro-level view of the MNLA-led rebellion, although this is becoming less and less the case: Tuaregs are one of several ethnic groups in northern Mali and themselves are divided along tribal and caste lines; not all ethnic groups in the “Azawad” support the MNLA or Ansar Eddine; not all ethnic groups or castes support the rebellion at all. Individual members of one ethnic, tribal or caste group may support secession whilst others may not. The Songhay, Arab, Tuareg and other ethnic groups in northern Mali have not all rallied around the rebellion or any one faction. Many things remain in play.

An article worth reading, or summarising, from Al Jazeera by Mohamed Mahmud Abu al-Ma’ali, a Mauritanian journalist who also has worked with ANI sheds some light on this. “A Salafist Emirate in Azawad….Has the hour of its birth come?” the article discusses the relationships between the main armed groups in the area and the possibility of a “Salafi emirate” being established in northern Mali. The article provides interesting details on the relationship between AQIM, Ansar Eddine and MUJWA, and fits with some other reports about these groups working closely together, overlapping in objectives, personnel and even leadership. The recent announcement that Iyad Ag Ghali, who leads Ansar Eddine was naming Yahya Abu el Hammam (an AQIM man) as the leader of the Timbuktu region also fits into the basic narrative provided by Abu al-Ma’ali. Because there is suspicion of Ag Ghali and Ansar Eddine among many Arabs in Timbutuku, the group has probably allowed AQIM to take a leadership role, since the group has stronger commercial and tribal links there and its membership is more heavily Arab. Other reports have AQIM or MUJWA taking a leadership role in Gao as well.

Abu al-Ma’ali’s article begins with an overview of three of the main armed groups operating in northern Mali: The MNLA, Ansar Eddine (or Harakat Ansar ed-Din al-Salafiya) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa. The essay analyses the social and ideological background of each group, as well as its ideology.

The article describes the MNLA as a grouping of “secularists and independents” whose ideological orientation is not well understood among the general population of the Azawad. Although the MNLA claims to represent all tribal and ethnic groups in the Azawad its recruits and leadership are limited to the Idnan Tuareg.

The writer describes Ansar Eddine as a “popular Salafi-jihadi movement” (without commenting on its size), and describing Iyad Ag Ghali’s transformation from a secular leader of the 1990s Tuareg rebellion and nobleman of the Ifoghass Tuareg  into a Salafi-jihadi leader after spending time as the Malian Consul General in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. It does not mention specific religious scholars, leaders or movements associated with Ansar Eddine or Ag Ghali. “Under the eyes of the al-Qa’ida and with blessings from it, Ag Ghali founded the new organization ‘the Ansar Eddine Movement’. The writer claims that the new movement attracted “hundreds of people from the Ifogass tribe [. . .] and other Tuareg tribes’. Further, “it has become clear that Iyad Ag Ghali took advantage of his social status and the intellectual direction of Salafism to reap the fruits of ten years of work done by al-Qa’ida in this region, who have clearly been spreading the call of  Salafism among the population during that period”. Although the writer believes that al-Qa’ida “planted the seeds of Salafism in the virgin soil” of the Azawad, h writes that Ag Ghali has successfully made the population “respond to [his] call by meeting the dismensions of tribal separatism, Tuareg nationalism, and brining it harmony with the call to jihad”. The article goes on to describe the attacks on  Agelhok and Tassilit, saying that Ansar Eddine established shari’ah in these areas, “preventing women from going out unveiled…making men wear beards in the streets and with people started to talking about life there as they did about life in Kandahar on the eve of the Taliban’s victory.”

The author describes MUJWA as a dissident faction of AQIM, which emerged when leaders refused to take advice from sub-commander about setting up a separate katiba made up “especially from the sons of the Arab tribes in the Azawad”.  The writer says that AQIM’s leaders, “having learned from their experience with internal fighting in Algeria” decided to led the MUJWA men leave the organization while continuing “coordination with them, as a separate movement, allied in direction and goals.” In addition to former AQIM subcommanders Mohamed Ould Lamine Ould Kheirou (Abu Qaqa) and Malian Sultan Ould Badi, the writer claims MUJWA has “attracted dozens” fighters from the tribes in northern Mali and “the interface between jihadi groups and the Arabs of the Azawad just as Ansar Eddine has become the interface of jihadist groups and the Tuareg.”

A previous post on this blog, speculating about varied explanations for the emergence of MUJWA look at only three ways of thinking about the group. Abu al-Ma’ali’s is somewhere in between two of the three (see here). These developments also recall some of the arguments about AQIM’s appeal among Moors, Saharan Arabs, in Mauritania and northern Mali some time ago. This writer and others have speculated that Ansar Eddine would probably seek to use AQIM as a means of making headway in Timbuktu for these ethnic and tribal reasons (see this post) and Andrew Lebovich (see here) have speculated that Ansar Eddine and AQIM would seek to leverage AQIM’s links to the Arab Berabiche communities in Timbuktu and Abu al-Ma’ali’s analysis points in this direction as well.

The next section in Abu al-Ma’ali’s article, “Al-Qa’ida: ‘The Official Sponsor of the Emirate of Azawad’”, describes the evolution of AQIM and its predecessor groups in northern Mali and the Sahel from 2003 onward in terms of changes in strategy in waging jihad against the governments of the region. It describes how members of the organization’s affiliate groups in Mauritania made truces with the government there, setbacks for AQIM in northern Algeria and how it “enhanced its military arsenal and organization” in Libya in 2011. The author then declares that the group has prepared with MUJWA and Ansar Eddine to “announce” the establishment of an emirate in the Azawad.

This is followed by “Preparation for Military Control,” which describes how the the three Salafi-jihadi groups in northern Mali have plotted to control the three main cities in the Azawad. It describes how the group took towns by besieging them or by negotiating with local leaders. Ansar Eddine “waited to pounce” on the Tuareg majority city of Kidal, the author writes. Meanwhile MUJWA and AQIM moved on Gao and Timbuktu, because the groups’ connections to Arab tribes would help allay tensions between Arabs and Tuaregs that might arise “as a result of the chaos that defined Mali after the coup” of Captain Sanogo.

Opportunities — Presented and Seized

This writer has repeatedly stressed that AQIM is not fated, destined or predetermined to be the key actor in northern Mali or the Sahel generally. A particular set of relationships and power relationships between the MNLA, Ansar Eddine, their tribal and ethnic support bases and  the decaying Malian state and its leaders, agents and constituents offered AQIM and MUJWA the opportunity to engage in a new kind of activity and to assume a degree of direct they had not previously in northern Mali.

The MNLA, reportedly the largest of the armed groups in the north (and according to some accounts the better armed) was played by Ag Ghali’s faction, which kept its cards and intentions close to its chest before springing once events began to move more rapidly. They were out politicked and in the course of this phase of the struggle in northern Mali, they have been set back. AQIM, by far, is the winner at this stage in the rebellion. It leaders now stand poised to enter governing positions as opposed to marginal, criminal ones. AQIM is in a different position as a result of the rebellion, perhaps stronger than ever in northern Mali, more deliberately provocative and confident than ever — and surely more visible. This also makes its leaders more vulnerable and open to perhaps the kind of arrogant mistakes that make some men resentful, jealous or wrathful. There are still other armed factions forming and operating in northern Mali; the equation has not been worked out and already regional forces, whose capacity to roll these problems back is unclear, are prepared to enter the fray, adding new variables and uncertainties. If the men speaking confidently with the chests puffed out on Al Jazeera were targets before their “conquest” in Azawad, they surely remain so and offer ever more incentives to their enemies.

Where this group had been a parasite, feeding on state corruption and weak will. There is a view that was held and is probably still held by many that regardless of what name armed or criminal elements in northern Mali went by they were all seeking to exploit the security vacuum in the region; in the autumn of 2011 and winter of 2012 the MNLA seize the opportunity to pursue political objectives, profiting from an arms windfall, desperate socio-economic conditions and crumbling legitimacy in Bamako. This also presented other opportunities for the armed groups, in the way of exposing tribal and ethnic differences and creating a crisis scenario that also produced a race for control, physically and ideationally. Ansar Eddine and AQIM and MUJWA have been the main victors in this phase of the rebellion. AQIM’s Salafi-jihadi ideological framework was given an opportunity — as a result of Ansar Eddine’s need to fill ethnic and military priorities as it moved south and as it competed with the MNLA — to become manifest at a political level. The first step in that direction has been their active participation in taking populated areas during the advance south. This was a group whose origins had largely been as a financing operation for AQIM’s northern operations; it is now in a position to apply a political program. As their relationship with Ansar Eddine is clarified by means of deeds — the application of shari’ah, their dealings with local elites and the MNLA, the handling of the hostage situation with Algeria and so on — the area will become a target for regional militaries and their allies. As things stand there is probably no going back to the way things were before the rebellion, particularly the tolerance allowed to AQIM’s operations (and other groups involved in illicit trade, particularly those linked to the extremely lucrative drug trade) from by the Malian state which allowed the group to fester and grow. Things might have been different if at various points Malian or external actors made different decisions about AQIM, about the Tuareg file, about how to address “root causes” and in which contexts they addressed them. Such things do not just happen, they are made to happen.

A Few Good Articles

Some articles worth looking at given the rapidly deteriorating situation in Mali, from the last couple of years (not intended as an exhaustive or complete list in any way; readers are welcome to share but, please do not post such things as “this list needs to include…” or “this list is incomplete because it does not have such and so”; yes, it is short and incomplete — please share good articles, though!).

Merret. “Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb: A ‘Glocal’ Organization,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 31, No. 6, 2008.

Filliu. “Could Al-Qaeda Turn African in the Sahel?” Carnegie Middle East Program Working Paper No. 112, June 2010.

Taje. “Vulnerabilities and factors of insecurity in the Sahel,” Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD), No. 1, August 2010.

Guidere. “Al-Qaida au Maghreb Islamique: Le tourant des revolutions arabes,” Maghreb-Machrek, No. 208. 2011.

Lohmann. “Who Owns the Sahara?: Old Conflicts, New Menaces: Mali and the Central Sahara between the Tuareg, Al Qaida and Organized Crime,” Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, June 2011.

European Parliament  Committee on Political Affairs. “Working Document on the impact of the Libyan conflict on neighbouring ACP and EU states,” 24 October 2011.

Marret. “Al-Qaida au Maghreb Islamique (AQMI),” 11 January 2011.

Fabiani. “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM): Implications for Algeria’s Regional and International Relations,” IAI Working Papers 11/07, April 2011.

Oris and Arenas-Garcia. “AQIM and Mauritania: Local Paradoxes, Regional Dynamics and Global Challenges,”  IECAH, 2012.

RE: Algerian build up [UPDATED]

[UPDATE: El Watan reports the Algerian diplomats held in northern Mali were freed on Sunday morning; the report does not provide details or locations but presumably their correspondent, Salima Tlemcani (who wrote the El Watan report discussed in this post) will fill in the blanks eventually. Another El Watan report says the Algerians were kidnapped by MUJWA, not AQIM or Ansar Eddine as some outlets had reported (although others did report MUJWA initially) -- or, that is, that MUJWA claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. Another El Watan report says the release of the Algerians was negotiated with Belmokhtar by way of Ayad Ag Ghali, who was pressured by the MNLA to "seek out the hostages himself". The report says the group that seized the Algerian consulate was mainly Algerians together with Ansar Eddine members; the report also describes how the MNLA has been reluctant to move against Ayad because of his tribal influence but how the group does not want other groups operating in its "territory." Another reports have the MNLA furious with AQIM and vowing to hunt down the kidnappers (including an interview with Moussa Ag Ahmed in which he says that after the kidnapping "never again will a weapon that is not in the hands of the MNLA be allowed to circulate."; filed on 6 April). These reports contradict the report about MUJWA and MUJWA is not mentioned in the other reports (the report on the negotiation with Belmokhtar and the report on MUJWA claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and the report about the hostages being freed are all from 8 April). The release of the hostages has not been confirmed by Algiers. [UPDATE, 9 April 2011: Algerian Foreign Minister Murad Medelci confirms the hostages remain captive.]

El Khabar reports that the Algerian gendarmerie is reviewing its patrols of the border with Mali (in the 6th (Tamanrasset) and 3rd (Bechar) military regions, and that Algiers may close the border; the objective is to crackdown on smuggling of “fuel, tires, spare parts and rubber that could fall into the hands of smugglers and terrorists”; it reports that people in a village near the border heard helicopters, gunfire and explosions, speculating this was “an air strike carried out by Algerian forces against armed groups trying to take control of a road linking Algeria and Mali.” The report cites security sources saying many arrests were carried out on the border in the last week. The elite troops deployed to the south may have been sent for this mission, clamping down the border and hitting smugglers and others who might help sustain armed groups operating in northern Mali while increasing leverage for Algerian and MNLA efforts to free the Algerian diplomats; what that would mean for the MNLA which has repeatedly stressed its concern about running out of fuel and arms is as yet uncertain as many things are in the Sahel today.]

Press reports from Algeria (briefly here, and more detailed reports in El Watan and El Khabar, for example) have Algiers mobilising forces in response to the kidnapping of seven diplomats from the Algerian consulate at Gao, in northern Mali this past week. This comes in the context of the MNLA declaring the independence of the Azawad and comments from Ahmed Ouyahia, the Algerian Prime Minister, that Algeria supported the territorial integrity of Mali and that it viewed the partition of the country as a “threat”. Those comments also came in the context of calls for Algeria to play a stronger role in the rapidly deteriorating situation in Mali and comments about the region uniting against AQIM from the French Foreign Minister. Andrew Lebovich, Baz Lecocq, and Gregory Mann all have excellent summaries of the situation up to this point, worth reading in full. Below are some thoughts on the reports about potential Algerian intervention in northern Mali in order to free the diplomats held there.

Media reports have identified the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) as being behind the Gao kidnapping. As a splinter group of AQIM which has thus far focused its attacks on Algerian targets: a kidnapping in Tindouf, a suicide attack at Tamanraset and now the kidnapping of seven Algerian officials in Gao, where the group is said to control military positions. Algerian press accounts pointed to MUJWA, which is believed to have links to Ansar Eddine in Gao, and perhaps elsewhere (the same is said for AQIM, which has taken a strong presence in Timbuktu). If this is the case the Gao kidnapping is a direct challenge to Algeria’s official policy of non-negotiation with terrorist groups, a line it has pushed in international and regional bodies, and in the Sahel, more or less convincing Mauritania but having much less success in Mali. But other media sources have credited the kidnapping to Ansar Eddine. Other, more recent reports, finger AQIM: indeed, Le Point quotes the son of an imam in Gao as saying that AQIM leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar arrived in Gao recently, meeting with religious clerics. The report cites a Malian security source as saying that after his meeting with religious leaders Belmokhtar then visited the Algerian consulate. El Watan refers to AQIM as the kidnappers in its report.

The Algerians will probably not seek to negotiate the release of the men from Gao, especially if MUJWA or AQIM is regarded as being responsible for the kidnapping [It is unclear how long the Algerians have operated their consulate at Gao and it may have operated as an intelligence collection activity, at least in part, regarded terrorist, smuggling or other criminal activity (in other words, some of the seven men may have worked under some kind of cover; or they might not have, though it is interesting that the Algerians would leave at a minimum seven people in Gao after the fall of Kidal when other foreigners there were making preparations to be gone and cutting back numbers; another El Khabar report says that the families of Algerian diplomatic staff were evacuated from Mali, mentioning those of the men in Gao as well).] The Algerians are being tested, and likely see things this way. Ouyahia’s comments suggest a hardening posture; in other circumstances such things might come from Foreign Minister Murad Medelci, or from Abdelkader Messahel who usually coordinates Sahel affairs for the president. That Ouyahia, who is identified closely with the military-security establishment (an “eradicator”) and who was an Africa hand during his previous carrier in the Foreign Ministry (when he served abroad in West Africa and as the head of the Africa Directorate, as Undersecretary for African and Arab and Africa Affairs and as Ambassador to Bamako in the early 1990s, leading negotiations in 1992 which involved Ag Ghali but not many of who became the senior MNLA men) signals a significant shift in posture from Algeria’s more passive attitude toward Mali in recent years, scattered reports about cooperation of one or another kind aside.

El Khabar’s report has transport aircraft the 3rd, 4th and 6th military regions being placed on high alert and mobilised for possible action in northern Mali, and President Bouteflika calling together Algeria’s service chiefs and DRS leadership for a meeting to coordinate the use of Algeria’s special operations forces in activities meant to free the Algerian hostages. Some reports have 3,000 elite troops in the south, together with these transport aircraft and drones (probably something like the Fadjer 10), in addition to probably many more elite gendarmerie and army units. These forces probably draw from the paracommando regiments (12th and 18th, potentially from the other three paratroop regiments ) and GIS forces (which is a DRS rapid response unit). Images that have accompanied some articles show men from the  “Various lines of communication” have been opened between Algeria’s military-intelligence services and the MNLA, including tribal sources and others. It says MNLA cooperation has been arranged through a Mauritanian intermediary, and that various proposals from the MNLA leadership have been brought to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. El Khabar writes that the MNLA’s Bilal Ag Cherif (whom it previously interviewed near the beginning of the rebellion, and who has used fawningly friendly language toward Algerian audiences) initiated the effort to cooperate with the Algerians on tracking the kidnappers.

El Watan’s report is filed from Acherbrache, northern Mali. It quotes an MNLA military commander as saying that the group is in “direct contact” with Algeria and that its “top priority” was finding and freeing the hostages unharmed. The article reports on various rumours about the release of the hostages and about them being taken into the desert in a convoy of 4X4s and so on; nothing is confirmed. It reports that in Gao “no one knows who is who”, that the difference between Ayad Ag Ghali’s Ansar Eddine men and AQIM is unclear to sources and residents. It reports that trust between Ag Ghali’s men and the MNLA cadres “seems broken” by recent events. The report shows the MNLA continues to present itself as a secular nationalist force and that it hopes outsiders will see it as a counter force to AQIM and thus offer it military support, which it would then probably also use to consolidate any gains it might make.

It appears the Algerians will attempt to free their hostages using their special operations forces and MNLA elements. The Mauritanians had been reported to have provided the MNLA with weapons early in the conflict on the condition that they would fight AQIM. They did not do this and AQIM and the other armed Islamist factions appear to have seized momentum from the MNLA, despite the MNLA’s numerical superiority, especially in the last week, especially in Timbuktu and Gao. The political situation now provides the MNLA with a greater incentive to make good on these claims, though nothing is certain. The MNLA has been hesitant to move against Ansar Eddine since it began to become clear that the group had strong divergent objectives, even in areas where strong tensions supposedly exists between their forces and Ansar Eddine like in Timbuktu, because of Ag Ghali’s tribal and political weight. At the end of the day Ansar Eddine, which has probably at most around 300 men, manipulated the MNLA leadership cadre into believing the two groups had a common cause in independence and seized the benefits of the rebellion swiftly and cunningly during the push south. Ansar Eddine has, it seems, gotten together with AQIM to cement its position. The MNLA has probably not moved on AQIM while talking about its differences and hostility to the group because it was seeking external support and/or tolerance and found it was not forthcoming. And in both cases, especially during the move south, the MNLA could not afford to provoke a second (Ansar Eddine) or third enemy (AQIM and/or MUJWA) in addition to the Malian military, given its sources and depth of resources.

Algeria has been reluctant to become more directly involved in the affairs of neighbouring countries for fear of expanding and deepening existing problems, provoking unrest on the Algerian side of the southern border (where Algeria’s Tuaregs live), and because they viewed Ahamdou Toumani Toure and the Malian security establishment as unreliable and complicit with AQIM — it saw Mali as the “weak link” and preferred to cooperate with Mauritania or even Niger. It was a big step for the Algerians to send advisors and beginning joint patrols with the Malians, Mauritanians and Nigeriens at the end of 2011.  At the same time, the Algerians have strenuously opposed outside (western) intervention in the region, seeing it as their “back yard” and have sought to portray themselves as the regional leader in counter terrorism, a view which outsider actors have come to sympathise with. (This report from February discusses some of this, although it is imperfect and some points are worth arguing about at an other time.) The advisors it did send to Mali in December 2011 were withdrawn at the beginning of the Tuareg revolt (despite MNLA accounts that they were left behind to reinforce Malian forces). Given Algeria’s past unwillingness to become engaged directly in conflicts in northern Mali and its tendency to let the “shadow” of its military power draw other actors to it for consultations and in pursuit of support, this could be a build up designed to pressure the kidnappers or the MNLA into getting the diplomats back to Algeria.

Meanwhile ECOWAS has warned it “shall take all necessary measures, including the use of force, to ensure the territorial integrity of the country”. This seems to point toward some form of military intervention coming from the south as well.

Mauritania has deployed forces to its eastern border with Mali in response to the crisis there. It reportedly provided weapons to the MNLA immediately before the rebellion, having been promised these would be used against AQIM, and lagged behind other regional states in rejecting the MNLA’s unilateral declaration of independence. It’s air force bombed a suspected MNLA convoy as rebel forces were moving south; one of its key assets in Timbuktu was kidnapped by AQIM in retaliation. Mauritania, which houses thousands of refugees from Mali in addition to several thousand recent returnees from Libya, is under stress: bad weather, hunger, political discontent and multiple other associated factors have led to massive protests in recent months. The country will supposedly have parliamentary elections (which were moved up from their original date last autumn do to poor organisation). President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz,who came to power in a 2008 coup has taken a hardline on AQIM, but it increasingly unpopular. A new law recently put military finance administration under civilian control (the military has historically managed its own affairs), causing consternation and even anger among officers and stress will continue to build if the army is provoked into heavier engagement in Mali or if similar internal problems continue to brew and the forces are brought into the conflict some other way. Mauritania, though has been very aggressive when presented with opportunities to confront AQIM, especially in the Timbuktu region.

More General Thoughts RE: Mali, AQIM, armed groups, etc.

Events in Mali are developing rapidly; for the moment, readers may refer to this blogger’s Twitter feed and those of others better informed (for example: Martin Vogl, Martin Plaut,Peter Dorrie, Hannah Armstrong, Tommy Miles, and Andrew Lebovich, and the articles here). Media reports have AQIM and MUJWA operating together with Ansar Eddine in Gao and Timbuktu; reports are mixed and the situation continues to be fluid. The MNLA appears to have been sidelined in some areas by Ansar Eddine, which is reported to have a heavy presence with members of AQIM in Timbuktu, and in others to be operating in proximity to MUJWA and/or Ansar Eddine. At present it is clear there are at least partial divisions in that Ansar Eddine may seek to expand beyond the Azawad, while the MNLA is more likely to attempt to hold territory in the north toward its goal of establishing a state there. Ansar Eddine (and the other Islamist/Salafi groups), though, look ready to try and extend their reach further south. In such a case they may find themselves at an even greater cross purposes than they did early on. The MNLA, highly media conscious, may attempt some kind of manoeuvre  to take some of the initiative from the Ansar Eddine and other armed factions. Ansar Eddine appears much stronger than previous reports suggested, and it may have come to an agreement or understanding with AQIM or MUJWA as a result of a common worldview or revenge politics directed toward the MNLA or a need to find ins at the local level in Timbuktu, for example. But there in particular if reports about AQIM having established itself there with the rebels moves beyond the group’s usually more low key and more pragmatic style; a prominent role there exposes it to targeting by the Mauritanian air force or others. This is especially true if reports about AQIM leadership figures showing up in Timbuktu or returning to Mali from neighbouring countries are true (including Yahya Abu al-Hammam and Belmokhtar; they are reported to have taken control of some military bases/installations in the area). The heavy hand in Timbuktu or Gao could also instigate pressure from ethnic militias in the area and with tribes. At the same time such figures may also help Ansar Eddine, whose leader Ag Ghali draws much of his support from Kidal, cement control in the area. From the distance and without more reliable reporting and definitive accounts from locals questions remain numerous and assumptions and contingencies must be reconsidered and interrogated vigorously.

Guest Post: Byrne in Tunisia

The pictures and text below are contributed by Eileen Byrne, a Tunis-based journalist whose writing has appeared in the Sunday Times, the Guardian, Financial Times, and the Economist – placed here with permission. They were first published on the Tunisian news website Kapitalis. Readers will recall that last year she contributed to this blog a video on Tunisia and a guest post on a short trip across the border into Libya. In February she traveled to rural western Tunisia, which has had a hard time since last year’s revolution economically and socially, with unemployment and poverty (not to mention some terrible weather). In the town of Kasserine she found wide-scale corruption around a government jobs scheme, which she wrote about the Guardian in February. All pictures copyright Eileen Byrne.  ebyrne202@yahoo.com

There is a lot of good news that comes out of Tunisia and into English; the country has done much better than some of the other “Arab Spring” countries that are now engaged in muddled transitions and the leftover rivalries and troubles that come out of armed conflict. But there is still a lot of suffering in Tunisia, a lot of hunger, a lot of people that need somebody to pay attention to them.

Western Tunisia: At the Grassroots 

Zelin on Maaroufi

The Salafi and Salafi-jihadi trends in Tunisia will be of increasing interest, especially as en-Nahdhah moderates its positions in hopes of governing together with secular and left-wing parties. The party’s moves to the center open space for more conservative and more “radical” elements to rally supporters in the name of a more pure Islamist cause. As was seen after the incidents at Bir Ben Khalifa and Sfax (and in Jendouba) earlier this year where Salafis clashed with local authorities and some were arrested suggest Tunisia’s Salafi trend, more or less peaceful if pushy, does still contain important confrontational and violent elements. Groups like Ansar al-Shari’ah in Tunisia (AST) have been covered well by Aaron Zelin on his blog and recently on Tunisia Live. AST is active on jihadist forums and identifies itself with jihadist causes explicitly on Facebook and elsewhere, and its leadership includes experienced jihadists who fought in Afghanistan and are well connected with militant networks in North Africa and Europe. His latest profile is of Tarek Maaroufi who recently returned to Tunisia from Belgium, after spending time in prison there for his role in the Brussels Cell. Maaroufi was involved in the Tunisian Combatant Group (TCG) and spent time in Afghanistan. Zelin writes:

The main modus operandi of Maaroufi’s “Brussels cell” was facilitating document forgery and recruiting individuals to fight abroad. As such, based on Maaroufi’s background, one could surmise that he may be attempting to tap into the swell of Tunisian Salafi youth that are outraged by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s slaughter of their Sunni brethren. Such speculation could be bolstered by Abu Ayyad’s remark in an interview with As-Sabah last week that “we have a large group of young people who want to go out to jihad in Syria.” Based on past relations between Abu Ayyad and Maaroufi, and the fact that Abu Ayyad leads AST, it is possible that Maaroufi may be recruiting individuals to go fight in Syria—or that he may end up doing so if he remains in Tunisia. During the height of the Iraq war, Tunisia was a key staging area where fighters from Europe and North Africans West of Libya would go prior to making their trip to Syria and then later into Iraq. These networks may be re-established for the jihad in Syria, and Maaroufi could ultimately play a role in their regeneration.

The flow of fighters into Syria could be a future issue for Tunisia. Unlike many other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Tunisia was unaffected by major violence following the Soviet jihad of the 1980s following the return of foreign fighters. One of the main reasons for this was a lack of promotion on the part of the former Tunisian regime to send unwanted individuals abroad. Though the current government is not promoting jihad abroad, the access to information through the internet has changed the game. There are already reports of Lebanese, Palestinians, Libyans, Yemenis, and Europeans joining the Syrian jihad. The last thing Tunisia needs though is a group of hardened fighters returning in a few years while the country is still transitioning to a better future leading to potential instability, especially if the economy continues to sputter. This is why although Maaroufi may only be in Tunisia for ten days, more should be paying attention, or at least determining his true intentions.

Zelin mentions Libyans showing up in Syria; these reports have been somewhat murky but there is no secret about militia leaders in Libya encouraging men to head to Syria or arms from Libya reaching the Syrian rebel fighters. And there appears to be official tolerance for whatever flow of men and guns may be moving to Syria from Libya (as well as overt support for the Syrian National Council from Tripoli, diplomatically, financially and in humanitarian terms). Imam Shaykh ‘Aymad Drissi was reported to have confirmed that fighters from Benghazi had gone to fight the As’ad regime in Syria, while saying jihad in Syria was incumbent on all Muslims and calling on Libyans to support the fight in Syria financially, morally or through pray and praised Libyans electing to take up arms there. At present these are relatively minor variables, but nonetheless worth watching as things change in the region, and outside actors (in the Gulf especially, but elsewhere too) push for the continued militarisation of the Syrian crisis. It is of course also important to be wary of exaggerated and false claims by the Syrian regime and its supporters about hordes of Libyan and Jordanian Salafites massing at the country’s borders, poised to wage an epic jihad against the Damascus government, designed or deceive internal and external opinion of Syria’s rebels — and there are no shortage of such reports in Arabic coming out in the last few months.

General Thoughts on the Tuareg rebellion and AQIM

This post continues some of the questions raised in the post immediately preceding it, with respect to AQIM, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), the Tuareg rebellion in Mali (and the subsequent coup) and other similar problems. The proliferation of arms and  armed groups in northern Mali since the fall of the Qadhafi regime in Libya has created opportunities and probably the necessity for AQIM to move men and activity into southern Libya, and potentially Nigeria. The Mali safe haven, for the time being, looks less hospitable to the group and conditions there mean that AQIM will likely seek out space and links in Libya to compensate for short-term losses in northern Mali and may evolve its leadership to seek a more deliberate and longer lasting presence in Libya, which is likely to become a priority for AQIM in the future. This post explores this possibility in context of recent evens in the region as it relates to armed groups in northern Mali and instability in southern Libya. It does not claim to provide any answers or satisfy all readers but mainly to explore possibilities emerging in a fluid environment. 

Back from a minor hiatus

Your blogger has been absent from this space for some time. This is unintentional; other projects have taken up much time. This post tries to touch on something the things this blogger has been considering in the interval since the last regular post went up — on Algeria, Mauritania and MUJWA in very general terms. It is incomplete, more posts will continue on a more or less regular basis from now on.

Since the last post, which drew many comments because it was incomplete and was written more or less on a time crunch. The comments left by readers are worth reviewing as they clear up confusion on some important points on what were then recent events in Mauritania. That post was trying to get at something that still stands: Mauritania is facing many structural political problems at several levels and these almost certainly take first place when compared to issues like the terrorism file (which is important on its own and in its own way and more so when added on to these other troubles). The last two months saw impressive and in some cases unprecedented manifestations of popular protest; this week Nouakchott saw what was perhaps the largest single demonstration in its history, numbering, depending on what source one looks at, 40,000 people (and possibly more) a number which speaks for itself in a country of roughly 4m people, close to a quarter of whom live in or near the capital city. The discontent mentioned in the last post and several others before has grown over the last several months, owing to  the standard inequalities and injustices suffered by Mauritanians and others in north-west Africa, not to mention the relatively dire food security situation, the upsetting of grazing patterns in the eastern part of the country brought on by the conflict in Mali, the not so special style of corruption preferred by the current president and leadership which is more narrow that in the past and less satisfying to key parts of the tribal and business and social fabric. This blogger has more thoughts on the last part of this and has written about it before (and will put more on the blog soon); in the meantime there are multiple fine resources for some of the recent events in the way of protests. The youth movement, which looked as if it were going to petter out a few months ago has increased its online presence and has put up much in the way of images and videos on Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the social media board. The trouble likely to come from the election fiasco will be a key flash point soon enough (probably more so than in Algeria, for some comparison). It used to be said that nothing ever happened in Mauritania (aside from coups), that it was a “quiet” country. This idea is less and less appealing. Great coverage of recent events, including Nasser Weddady’s recent posts here, here and especially here where he has posted the opposition coalition’s 43 page manifesto demanding a national unity government (in Arabic), on the grounds that the government has been essentially extra-constitutional since the government pushed back last year’s elections (this situation sort typifies the kinds of challenges facing Mauritania this blogger has tried to emphasise in the last several months) and Lissa Hunt’s recent tweets and posts. Right now is a critical time for Mauritania.

Your blogger no longer agrees with himself in whole when it comes to the Algerian elections. He wrote a piece for Fair Observer at the end of December (which was published at the beginning of January) regarding the prospects for Islamist parties in the May elections there. The view was the elections do not particularly matter; at that point it was difficult to say what “might” happen other than that one can say it is likely few Algerians will vote with relative confidence. It is now clear the consensus in the regime is that some iteration of Islamists, be it the MSP-led coalition of Islamist parties taking seats from parts of the FLN and RND or some of the small secular parties or the several recently formed Islamist parties getting seats on their own and thus making up a divided but more numerous stake out for the religious trend generally. Whatever the case the lower house less important than much foreign press coverage and commentary has made it out to be — do not forget the upper house, the Majlis al-Ummah, a third of which is appointed by the president and which has veto power over the lower house. What will come out of the constitutional reforms that are being ginned up for this year may change this, though it is doubtful. And if “Islamists” perform in line with the trend seen elsewhere in the Maghreb the outcome will probably look more like Morocco, with palace Islamists (the MSP, which as this blog and many, many Algerians have noted, has been in government for close to a decade and its members still serve in the cabinet in important and lucrative posts such as public works; meaning there are probably thick files on them held by the security services which may help regulate them if they attempt to get out of line as has happened in the past), than Egypt or some such. There are plenty of other trends more interesting than the elections to watch in Algeria and to take as indicators of the mood in the country; some of these overlap with the elections (or will do so) and some of them stand on their own. The succession issue at the top of the regime and in the deep state probably matter more than how the lower house get rearranged. There was the notable resignation of Sa’id Sa’di from his post as the chief of the Rally for Culture and Democracy which has earned a bum rap from many for various reasons — its more or less supporting for the military, its aggressive secularism, its ideological direction, whatever one wants. This blogger wrote about its (ex-)leader’s links with the head of the security services last spring and its participation in the February protests. That well known relationship is yet another dingy point on Sa’di’s reputation with many Algerians who pay attention to him. Rumours after his resignation, though, suggest he probably suffered some pressure from the regime as a result of his activities and rhetoric in 2011; realignments and subtle shifts look likely for small factions and cosmetic elements supportive of or tolerated by the regime.

The Movement for Unity and Jihad (MUJWA) has been described in various ways: a “splinter” from AQIM, a reorganisation of the group’s southern front, a victory for Algerian or some other intelligence service in infiltrating and splitting up AQIM, and other things. There is not enough information available on the group or its membership to assess the validity of such claims. One has to start up with certain assumptions in order for most of these theories to work out. Some of these have more support based on what is known of MUJWA’s leaders and recent AQIM activities – or rumours and reports of AQIM’s activities – other have less support. As yet not many of them are particularly convincing based on the available information about the group.

The narrative in the group’s initial (and thus far only) propaganda video does not jive easily with the theory that the group is a “reorganisation” of AQIM’s operational structure and that the group is not really a splinter faction — it announces a break with AQIM, and essentially rephrases and reframes AQIM’s narrative against western powers and jihad for its own purposes. The group’s first operation, the kidnapping of European aid workers in October 2011, and its first announcement in December suggest it may have formed in the early autumn or that the group’s members went rogue from AQIM after the October operation. Relatively little is known about the key individuals associated with the organisation: Virtually all of them, from the group’s reputed leader, Hamada Ould Mohamed Khayrou to Sultan Ould Badi appear to be Arab Mauritanians or Malians from the Azawad (from north of Gao especially). And their attacks thus far, the October 2011 kidnapping of European aid workers and the recent suicide bombing at Tamanrasset, suggest a north-ward orientation, not surprisingly done in a fashion similar to AQIM itself. At present the group’s objectives and trajectory appear contradictory and even confusing. This blogger is not prepared to make conclusions as his friend Andrew Lebovich has in terms of the group’s true motives or nature based on such little information at this stage, though his analysis has important points, for example on possible coordination/communication between MUJWA and AQIM make some sense and are compelling. His point on both groups demanding the release of Major Abderrahmane Ould Meidou is also worth considering; and as he reocognises in the update to his original post on the issue, social and personal relations between the group are somewhat inevitable given MUJWA’s genealogy. This is one of the more important elements — Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou (also Khayrou/Khayri/Kheiry) is an individual whose background and relations with AQIM’s leadership is worth considering and comparing with other Mauritanian leaders of late such as Khaled Chinguitti, who was promoted at some point in 2011 and had taken on important operational leadership roles and was reportedly killed some months ago fighting with MNLA men in Mali, though his death was reported by only one source (ANI; though readers may be aware of other reports that do not rely on the ANI account, if they exist). As more information stacks up a more or less clear picture may materialise. Or it may not. At this point this blogger does not agree or disagree with any particular analysis of the matter per se.

The group presents interesting questions: What tensions exist in the relationships within and between AQIM’s southern katibat and suryiat in terms of their ethno-national composition? Much attention goes to supposed tensions between two of AQIM’s southern commanders, Belmokhtar and Abu Zeid; what about tensions at lower echelons? What personal factors would contribute to driving a group of Mauritanian and Azawadi Malians out of AQIM into a new group oriented southward (at least in its rhetoric)? (This could speak to their area of operation and potentially their relationships with other groups operating in the area.) What kind of longevity will this group have in a competitive environment where it must compete with groups such as the MNLA and Ansar ed-Din in addition to AQIM? What will AQIM’s ultimate response to MUJWA be? At present there are more questions than answers.