Madness in Mali

Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire, est arrive..

Hollande greets rapturous crowds in Timbuktu, warns conflict is not over.

Military intervention not awful failure. Satan reports sub-zero temperatures in Hell. Pope renounces Catholicism, becomes abortionist. Bears cease defecating in wooded areas, petition National Park Service for proper sanitary system.

edited 2nd Feb '13 9:11:11 AM by Achaemenid

It's too early to call that yet (if I were the French commander, I'd be praying day and night to as many deities I can think of that there won't be an insurgency somewhere down the line), but it does mean that Phase III operations are over. Of course, as Tommy Franks learned, Phase IV can be a real bitch.

France kicked some ass though. what'd this take, a few weeks? not to shabby.

Where exactly did the Ansar Dine and company flee to? All I keep getting from reports is that they withdrew from major cities....

I'd assume to the minor cities.

Probably went into insurgent mode, blend in, lie low.

hate to say it but we'll probably start hearing about IE Ds and stuff soon.

At least in this case it would be a limited (if vast) supply of the necessary materials for such IE Ds....

Oh, I think it would only be a limited supply if the borders were hermetically sealed to such an extent that nothing bigger than a child's juice box could cross.

I doubt if that will happen.

Mali's got a huge chunk of desert, and probably no shortage of hills near it. Nothing like Afghanistan, I reckon, but plenty of room for militants to flee; elsewise, it's relatively easy to slip into civilian clothes and melt away into the populace.

Still, this seems like an excellent sign. It shows that, unlike in Afghanistan (for example), the Islamists in Mali have almost no support from the people.

@Joesolo: Before we pat French backs too hard, the Iraq War took less than two months as well.

edited 3rd Feb '13 3:11:03 AM by Ramidel

The question is going to be what do the Islamists do next. Do they dig in their heels and g for an insurgency? Do they melt into the populace and try to wait until the French are out and cause more trouble? (Probably not going to work so well for them, given the lack of public support.) Do they hide out in the uninhabited areas and either conduct insurgency or wait out the French there? Do they look to either get aid from other Islamists or go to join another such group?

Or do they move onto another country that may not have close ties to its former colonizers and try to set up shop there?

I don't think that last option is viable. No current African government wants to be replaced by a revolutionary group of mostly foreign Islamists. And as long as the government isn't willing to be replaced without a fight, they (the government) can contact the AU and/or UN to ask for help.

I can't imagine the Islamists amassing a sufficiently powerful army without first forging some kind of a coalition with pre-existing groups (like they did with the Tuaregs this time) to challenge the government, and any such coalition would probably be built on feet of clay. As you know, some groups have already split from Ansar Dine, and similar splits would be expected of any other hastily assembled coalition of anti-government forces in any country that these Islamists may target. So the Islamists probably aren't strong enough to be able to challenge an existing African government again, at least with sufficient force to overcome whatever response the AU/UN would muster.

I think the obvious solution is to get a political settlement with the Tuaregs: Political autonomy in exchange for hunting down the last remnants of AQIM for us.

@ Tam - When I meant the supply would be limited, I meant they wouldn't have a fertilizer factory just across the border from the conflict a la Afghanistan. I have no illusions of the ability to bring weapons into Mali that currently exist (hence the vast part of my comment), but thats not the same as it being easy to haul in enough explosives for any sort of sustained IED campaign.

The problem is that there are several governments throughout Africa that WOULD topple or be severely compromised without a fight. Just look at Guinea-Bissau, the world's most prominent example of a narcostate. If drug cartels can do it, so can terrorists, especially if they work with the cartels.

There is also the problem of certain governments fearing the UN more than the Islamists, such as Eritrea.

Then there are governments like Chad, who are willing to fight and on good terms with the UN but, like Mali, are weak. Even if the Islamists knew they couldn't hold it, they could do it just to frustrate and bleed the West and its allies as long as they could.

edited 3rd Feb '13 11:18:25 AM by FFShinra

Eritrea is a long way from Mali.

I'm worried about drug cartels, though. You (general "you") might think that Islamic hardliners wouldn't want to associate with drugs, alcohol or tobacco, but this is not the case with these particular groups. One of the leaders of the insurrection in Mali is called "Marlboro Man" because he makes so much money smuggling tobacco and drugs. If he were in charge of the country he would probably ban that stuff altogether, but until he gets there drug smuggling is just another way to make money to buy guns.

Eritrea was just an example of a regime that doesn't fit into your previous post. Zimbabwe is another. If you want one closer to home (not that I think geography really matters that much for terrorists), you can just look at the Central African Republic, or even the POLISARIO-controlled side of the Berm in Western Sahara. There are many places all throughout Africa where terrorists could cause trouble.

French authorities are saying that during the operation they've killed "hundreds" of Islamist fighters and captured "some high-ranking" ones. At the beginning of the operation the French estimated that the Islamists would be unable to rally more than about 3 000 troops, so they've killed a pretty big percentage of the maximum number they could've expected.

There's been one French casualty.

So the islamists have lost a huge proportion of their forces. France has about 4 000 troops in Mali. This is just overwhelming.

In the city of Kidal, 1 800 Chadian soldiers are keeping the peace. I think this is the first force from another Arfican country in Mali on the side of the government in Bamako, though I could be wrong.

According to this article, the "remote mountains of Mali" are "perfect for guerillas" (and that's all from the article's title.)

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been in the region since 2003, so they've had time to make it their home. The terrain is ideal for them:

Other conditions are also favourable for AQ:

It looks like we'll be dealing with al-Qaida in Mali for a while yet...

edited 5th Feb '13 6:45:20 PM by BestOf

FP: The UN, France, and AU are working out the plan for Phase 2.

Article abstract: France is deciding whether they want to declare "Mission Accomplished" and head home (not happening), leave some forces behind in blue helmets and have them form the backbone of the UN intervention in Mali, or have said forces remain behind as an independent command. Meanwhile, the UN is trying to decide whether they'll go in as a UN intervention or in a hybrid command with joint AU leadership; the AU wants to be on top, but France, the UK and US want a UN-led peacekeeping mission.

So in other words, it's at least better than politics as usual, if only because everyone involved in the planning broadly agrees on the goal, but there's still a few people whipping out their tape measures and playing "who's bigger?"

[1]

The Red Berets (elite paratrooper unit in the Malian Army), who were loyal to the deposed president, are again fighting with Putschist-allied troops. One person confirmed dead.

Here's a nice find: a neat, concise timeline of Operation Serval, starting with the prelude coup back in 2012. It appears to be updated on a regular basis.

2nd French soldier killed, a Foreign Legion sergeant during a raid in northern Mali. Let's hope there won't be many other incoming.

http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2013/02/19/un-soldat-francais-tue-au-mali_1835155_3212.html (in french)

I'm actually surprised that there ain't any more casualties. Not any major fuck ups as far as I can see. The French really did this well without your massive American armoured divisions.

Two casualties (or rather, two dead - I don't know about the number of French injured) in a conflict like this is a very good score, though I suppose it must reflect that Mali's own forces were contributing heavily on the frontline, especially as I recall seeing much higher losses inflicted on them according to some reports.

I think I'll see if Wikipedia has anything...

Seems that the MNLA and Ansar Dine are estimated to have lost a about 500 men in total - that is, soldiers killed - no figures for wounded and captured. Out of the MNLA's losses, anywhere between 5 and 123 died in clashes against Islamists.

The government has suffered smaller casualties than that - about 165 or so dead - but there's something from al Jazeera saying that they've had "1,000–1,500+ killed, captured or deserted." I wonder what they mean by that...

Out of other African countries, Togo has lost 1 soldier, Nigeria has lost 2 and Chad has lost over 25.

I do have to wonder: would "participating in coup against central government" count as "deserted?"

Of course, the US does it without their massive armored divisions.

Well, going only from what I recall of the initial reports of this conflict, it was the Kati barracks that had conducted the coup, not the military as a whole. Indeed, the army had started breaking down some days prior to said coup, because they were outgunned. So the desertions seem to be simply that.

On a more theoretical note, depends on the coup. If its led by the head of the army, everyone below can claim just following orders. If its a colonel's coup or below, then at some level I would think it is....

Those stats seem too low to me. Is that seriously all thats been lost since the coup? Its rather impressive when you consider how bad it could have been.