Deep inside caves, in remote desert bases, in the escarpments and
cliff faces of northern Mali, Islamic extremist fighters have been
burrowing into the earth, erecting a formidable set of defenses to
protect what has essentially become Al Qaeda's new country.
They have used the bulldozers, earth movers and Caterpillar machines
left behind by fleeing construction crews to dig what residents and
local officials describe as an elaborate network of tunnels, trenches,
shafts and ramparts. In just one case, inside a cave large enough to
drive trucks into, they have stored up to 100 drums of gasoline,
guaranteeing their fuel supply in the face of a foreign intervention,
according to experts.
Now that intervention is here. On Friday, France deployed 550 troops
and launched air strikes against the Islamists in northern Mali,
starting battle in what is currently the biggest territory in the world
held by Al Qaeda and its allies. But the fighting has been harder than
expected, and the extremists boast it will be worse than the decade-old
struggle in Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda never owned Afghanistan," said former United Nations
diplomat Robert Fowler, a Canadian kidnapped and held for 130 days by Al
Qaeda's local chapter, whose fighters now control the main cities in
the north. "They do own northern Mali."
Al Qaeda's affiliate in Africa — Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or
AQIM — has been a shadowy presence for years in the forests and deserts
of Mali, a country hobbled by poverty and a relentless cycle of hunger.
Last year the terror syndicate and its allies took advantage of
political instability in Mali to push out of their hiding place and into
the towns, taking over an enormous territory larger than France or
Texas — and almost exactly the size of Afghanistan.
The catalyst for the Islamic fighters was a military coup nine months
ago by disgruntled soldiers, which transformed Mali from a once-stable
nation to the failed state it is today. The fall of the nation's
democratically elected government at the hands of junior officers
destroyed the military's command-and-control structure, creating the
vacuum which allowed a mix of rebel groups to move in.
After the international community debated for months over what to do,
the United Nations Security Council called for a military intervention
on condition that an exhaustive list of pre-emptive measures be taken,
starting with training the Malian military. All that changed in a matter
of hours last week, when French intelligence services spotted two rebel
convoys heading south toward the towns of Segou and Mopti. Had either
town fallen, many feared the Islamists would advance toward the capital,
Bamako.
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