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Mali: France Winning Battles, Losing The War?

HASSAN MASIKY
01/23/13

Washington / Morocco News  Board--French intervention in Mali without a political solution to the Touareg question will feed terrorism in the Sahel and the Sahara. It seems that the French have not learned from the Americans’ mistakes in Iraq: You do not start a military intervention in a foreign country without an adequate plan for the “post-invasion”. 
The French campaign in Mali seems to lack a map for a final political solution to the roots of the Malian conflict namely the Touareg demands for self-rule. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) absence from the political and military scene in Mali is a bad omen for France’s latest adventure in Africa.
As expected, French firepower has overwhelmed Islamist groups in Northern Mali where armed militants decided to withdraw rather than die inanely fighting a one sided confrontation. Are Ansar Dine, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) losing the war? France is winning battles but not necessary the war.
 
Human Rights Watch reports of “serious abuses, including killings, being committed by Malian security forces against civilians around the central town of Niono” will complicate French efforts in Mali and boost the standing of Islamists. News that Malian troops from the South are targeting Tuareg and Arabs will drive moderate rebels to join AQIM groups.
 
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, during an interview with France 24 News, that the end goal of France's military action in Mali was to retake control of the whole country from Islamist militants who have seized the north.
 
Mr. Le Drian did not mention how France is planning to secure these territories on the long run. Just as it happened in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, militants and terrorists disappear by blending with the local population during major military operations to reappear once the big guns go back home.
 
Unless French forces decide to stay in Mali for years to come, Paris and its weaker African allies will eventually lose their territorial gains once France leaves, except if indigenous Touareg Tribes are armed and fully supported by the Malian army while the MNLA demands for more local autonomy are met and implemented with supervision form the African Union.
 
MNLA is key to the success of the French mission in Mali and yet the Touareg demands, that are at the root of the Malian crisis, are deliberately absent from the political and military discourse. The MNLA is the Tuareg separatist group that originally seized and eventually lost northern Mali.
 
France rushed troops to Bamako fearing a total collapse of the local Government. It is evident that the Malian armed forces are weak and unable to secure their vast territories. Regional powers, including Algeria, have little appetite for a long-term commitment to securing Mali. Thus, MNLA fighters will be critical to France efforts to stabilize the AZAWAD country once the fighting subsidizes. Only a political settlement to the Touareg rebellions, guaranteed by the regional forces of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), can end the conflict.
 

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Comments (2)  

 
Isam
0 #1 RE: Mali: France Winning Battles, Losing The War? — Isam 2013-01-23 17:25
It's funny that at the end of your piece you said "end the conflict". Just like France have not learned from the US in Afghanistan, you have not learned that when fighting terrorists, conflicts never end.
Terrorists don't sit around a table and try to negotiate and see what can be done to solve the problem. Their terrorize, kill, kidnap, bombard, and suicide. When they start negotiating that will be their end.

Algeria for instance started to negotiate with Ansar eddine, a big mistake, and to show that they are are tough on terror, they went in to refinery and killed everyone including 40 more than 40 innocent foreigners. Basically sending mixed messages.

You can't flip flop with terror, is Algeria with Ansar eddine or against it?

As for France, France is not like the US, they went in to Mali, killed as many terrorist as they can and they will leave, they will not embark on nation building, France does not do that, they kill, they destroy and they leave, you can ask the Algerians and they'll tell you, even though I am surprised that Algeria is now working with France, when the latter killed millions of innocent Algerians.
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Gad
0 #2 RE: Mali: France Winning Battles, Losing The War? — Gad 2013-03-08 19:45
Most of thees groups of terrorists created by the Algerian secret service during early 1990's.
That what Algeria don't want to help france or the neighboring countries to get involved cause 1/2 of the terrorists are a Polisario front fighters plus Algerian salafis movement that operates in the desert the same peoples that helped Qaddafi regime killing his own peoples libya gosh no one like the Algerian regime all over North Africa.
Can you believe that Algerian Government ordered civilian aircrafts to take criminals to Sudan to attack Egyptian fans during a soccer game what a shame.
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