After Mali Comes Niger

This report on Niger makes no mention of a potential U.S. drone base in Niger, except in a negative context at the end, but also favors increased support to an admittedly corrupt government:

Last month, the French army's rapid advance into northern Mali and the timely deployment of troops from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) seemed to result in a swift victory over Islamist and Tuareg militants there. Equally important, however, was the Islamist and Tuareg militants' hasty withdrawal into northeastern Mali. With France planning to pull its troops out of the country as soon as March, Mali will almost certainly be turned into an ECOWAS trusteeship. The most likely upshot is not a neat end to the conflict but, rather, a migration of the problem into neighboring Niger.

Parts of the Tuareg leadership, which signed a power-sharing agreement in March 2012 with three jihadist militias -- al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine, and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa -- have already fled across the unguarded Nigerien border, where they will try to regroup. Given Niger's weak government structures, they also pose a serious security threat to the country as a whole.

Niger presents an appealingly easy target. For one, despite several attempts at reform by President Mahamadou Issoufou, who was elected in April 2011, Niger's secular political elite lacks legitimacy in the eyes of its largely illiterate, rural, and deeply religious population. Numerous failed attempts at democratization and rampant corruption by previous governments have plagued the country for over two decades. Among the population, this troubled legacy has fostered a general sense of alienation from the capital.

Large parts of the Nigerien army, meanwhile, are opposed to the notion of civilian rule. Ever since it was pushed out of power in 1991, the army leadership has cultivated a deep mistrust of the civilian elite among all military ranks. Consumed with hatred for the Tuareg following two major military campaigns against them (1990-1995 and 2007-2009, respectively), the Nigerien army has overthrown three civilian governments since 1993. Although recent coup attempts in 2011 and 2012 proved amateurish and lacked sufficient support among both the armed forces and the population, they indicate long-standing tensions between parts of the military and the civilian elites.

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Al-Qaeda Rises, Falls According To U.S. Politics

Last Sunday, The Washington Post published a not-so-fascinating map of al-Qaeda's diversification and decentralization from its previous headquarters in Pakistan and Afghanistan (although Osama bin Laden began jihad in response to U.S. troops on Saudi territory and Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands). The simplistic map is mis-weighted by an inaccurate assessment of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), whose prospects in Yemen remain on an upward "trend" despite losing territory. The insurgency is, at the least, treading sideways rather than permanently falling, and swapping AQAP would give three "green arrows" to al-Qaeda's core.

In any event, measuring the protracted nature of insurgency and terrorism in dualistic terms of "up" and "down" is the realm of mainstream media.

The Washington Post offers few pieces of information that would catch the attention of international observers, but one startling figure is the high estimate of al-Qaeda in Iraq: 2,500. The largest operational count on the map (if roughly accurate) not only occurs within a country that al-Qaeda entered after American soldiers - al-Qaeda has maintained a presence in a war that was supposed to be over. Today the network allegedly struck again when a suicide bomber infiltrated the Sahwa - "Sons of Iraq" - headquarters in Taji, presumably as retaliation for the so-called Sunni Awakening. An estimated 340 civilians were killed and many hundreds wounded in January alone and, with Baghdad paralyzed by a power struggle between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Sunni opposition, Iraq's violence stands to persist and possibly intensify.

While al-Qaeda's ideology may be on set on a long-term "path to defeat," as the Obama administration and U.S. mainstream media continue to assert, an entire war has been declared over when it is far from it. This broken "promise" became the third leg of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, illustrating how al-Qaeda's estimated strength varies in relation to the administration's political needs at a given time. Taking Syria into account adds a new dimension to this dilemma. Now the same war that is supposedly "over" is fueling a new war across the border and new fears in Washington, where concerns of al-Noura's influence have overshadowed other aspects of Syria's revolution.

The administration clearly wants these situations to cut both ways - Syria is new news, Iraq is old news. Highlighting accomplishments and concealing failures is standard practice.

Add al-Qaeda's operations Iraq and Syria to AQAP and, to a lesser extent AQIM's activities in North Africa, and al-Qaeda's momentum doesn't feel as weak as the Obama administration claims. This isn't to lobby in favor of escalation, but to advise against an endless campaign of militarizing Muslim states and the undermining of their peoples. In order to truly counter al-Qaeda's ideology over the long-term, U.S. foreign policy must invest in the political energy needed to compliment military operations and establish genuine relations with local populations.

Such a multidimensional policy remains sorely missing in Yemen, Iraq, Mali and Pakistan.

U.S. Drone Base Headed For North Africa

After months of speculation that concrete plans would begin to take shape, the theoretical is finally nearing reality in an undecided North African location.

For more than a decade U.S. military and intelligence officials have laid the groundwork of a "light" but vast network across the Sahel region, chasing al-Qaeda affiliates that have spun off their own franchises. In order to counter impressions of colonialism, utilize local forces and intelligence, and keep large numbers of U.S. troops off the continent, this process hinges on bi-lateral and multi-lateral relations with cooperative African states. Included are a series of joint forward operating bases constructed through the Sahel, and training programs between national and U.S. forces.

The same program that failed amid Mali's coup and left Washington to patch together a emergency response, as reported by The New York Times earlier this month: "American spy planes and surveillance drones have tried to make sense of the mess, but American officials and their allies are still scrambling even to get a detailed picture of who they are up against."

The next logical step of a bigger presence in North Africa is drone bases in friendly (and needy) countries, and that is where the Obama administration and its partners are headed. Neighboring Niger has been designated as the leading candidate - few African leaders have urged a quicker NATO intervention than President Mahamadou Issoufou - followed by Burkina Faso. The latter currently serves as the base for clandestine PC-12 surveillance aircraft.

The military necessities of a drone base or, more likely, a series of bases around Mali is clear enough. American military commanders and intelligence analysts have good reason to complain about “sorely lacking" information in northern Mali, a territory roughly the size of France and many times more extreme. This environment has already created hurdles for logistics and overflights, and plays into the hands of militants in control of mountainous desert until international air-power scales up (at which point guerrillas lose their advantage).

The task will increase in difficulty when Ansar Dine, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Movement for Oneness and Jihad in North Africa (MUJAO) fall back to their mountain bases along the Algerian border.

America is the only state capable of delivering the level of surveillance required to effectively coordinate African ground forces with Western air power; eliminate U.S. support and NATO's mission in Mali will collapse. However U.S. officials won't be as candid about the litany of questions and concerns that drones entail. Suffice to say, drone bases function as instruments of control and are never built without strings attached. This manipulation goes both ways too, especially when an unpopular government makes use of U.S. support to buttress its international standing (Yemen and Ethiopia being primary examples). Some observers suspect that Issoufou is operating along these lines.

Mali's conflict has now afforded the perfect opportunity to begin building the first of several "lily pads" in the desert, a plan that is designed to synchronize with greater numbers of U.S. Special Forces and intelligence operatives. U.S. officials say that the drones will fly unarmed over Mali, but Mali is bigger than Mali to both the international community and al-Qaeda's ideology. Each side is thinking in decades, not months or years, and U.S. drones will eventually be armed. Consider the force brought to bear in Yemen, a smaller and more accessible country that houses a similar number of al-Qaeda militants.

Everything is a matter of time in North Africa. A NATO intervention in Libya that, according to the opinion of U.S. intelligence, overwhelmed U.S. military planners in Mali is now being trailed by a spine of bases into the Sahara. Within the alleged chaos lies a chain reaction so precise and efficient that it belies the region's unpredictability.

Hostages Become Easy Prey In Mali's Intervention

Tuesday's raid on an Algerian oil facility highlights the simplistic chaos of unconventional warfare. Known by many names - terrorism, guerrilla warfare, insurgency, rebellion, revolution - unconventional warfare encompasses all terms on the asymmetric side of warcraft, and has bedeviled countless sources of authority throughout human civilization. Even the predictable cannot be fully predicted and the unexpected happens enough to become expected.

Beyond the numerous strategic implications of the attack on Tigantourine, the raid is remarkable for two factors: the straightforward nature of the attack and its location. Despite the high alert of those European and African capitals contributing to Mali's intervention, none could anticipate where the Islamists eventually struck or how quickly they reacted to France's overflights through Algeria. Their "surprise" attack was also delivered exactly as promised. In early December Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former commander of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), announced the creation of his El Moulethemine katibat ("Brigade of the Veiled Ones"), a unit dedicated to kidnapping foreigners in the Sahel region. Afterward followed an introductory video for the "Signers in Blood," a purported suicide squad.

The Algerian government, international media, and Belmokhtar's own men have attributed the attack to his second creation rather than the first, but both are loosely aligned with AQIM's strategic view. While Belmokhtar has splintered away from the core to be his own boss, he is particularly eager to assist his former deputy in Mali and has been regularly spotted in Gao since the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) encamped in July 2012. Oumar Hamaha, a local Tuareg, doubles as a spokesman for Ansar Dine and a senior military official in MUJAO, and he would confirm Belmokhtar's cooperation with the two groups.

Accordingly, Hamaha was selected to inform The Associated Press of Belmokhtar's actions and the motivation behind them, namely Algeria's overflights and France's killing of Muslims. 

"We have a struck a blow to the heart (of the international community),"he declared ominously. "It's the United Nations that gave the green light to this intervention and all Western countries are now going to pay a price. We are now globalizing our conflict."

What is startling is the depth of Belmokhtar's raid, allegedly conducted by 20 men in three "heavily-armed" vehicles deep inside Algerian territory - a distance that exceeds the space between Mali's capital and the Islamists' northern bases. One immediately wonders how they traveled so far in open terrain, over multiple days, without being discovered by any government. It's certainly possible that the attackers traveled discreetly and acquired their vehicles near the strike point, or entered directly from Libya, but their range is equally impressive.

Hundreds of Algerians were initially taken hostage before being released or escaping. At least 41 people (including Americans, French, British, Irish, Norwegian and Japanese) are believed to have been captured, several more killed, and recent accounts of AQIM's kidnappers have described how quickly and quietly the Islamists move their bargaining chips. They will likely be taken into the cave network constructed along the southeast end of the Algerian-Malian border, where underground bases have been built dozens of miles apart. If the attackers can escape into Libyan territory, that is. 

Algerian forces have approached the complex where the hostages are being held (Westerns are reportedly being held in a separate wing) and reportedly fired shots in the area. Reached by telephone, one of the assailants was quoted as saying, "We will kill all the hostages if the Algerian army try to storm the area."

Even if the Algerian military cuts off their exits, NATO as a whole must factor the risk-reward of a major hostage situation into its plans as French troops mobilize for battle in Diablay, taken by the Islamists shortly after the French began landing en masse. They may need a week or two just to carefully dislodge the Islamists occupying the town - which, contrary to French claims of an offensive on the capital, appears to represent no more than a diversion tactic. Paris has repeatedly measured its ground campaign in weeks rather than months, but unless Special Forces and intelligence agencies can recover the new hostages, they will apply an immediate source of friction against NATO's campaign and further extend Mali's long war.

Another raid in Somalia recently failed to go as planned.

As for strategic planning in the international front, the pressing question is whether Algeria responds militarily on Mali's northern border or continues to take a passive-aggressive role in the conflict. Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila told the official news agency APS, "The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate," suggesting that Belmokhtar has crossed a line that cannot be forgiven. The need for Algerian forces appeared inevitable from the start of Mali's insurgency, given that a hardened force must smash into the Islamists' mountain fortress and from multiple directions. Except Algeria's intelligence is also suspected of collaborating with elements of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in order to enhance the government's regional influence, whether that means interfering with Tuareg separatists or securing Western favors without strings.

A vocal Algiers backed Ansar Dine's superficial dialogue with international mediators over the last five months, now termed a "miscalculation" but a suspicious one at that.

For its part the Algerian government hasn't looked forward to any uncontrollable disturbance, either from France and NATO or the Islamists and Tuaregs. Algiers prefers manageable instability and seeks to avoid entanglement on Mali's ground. Abdallah Baali, the country's ambassador to Washington, warned NATO less than two months ago, "You cannot really fight a conventional war there. Your enemy will vanish in the desert before your eyes."

Obviously Algeria would not fight conventionally inside or outside its territory; assault helicopters and Special Forces would coordinate with local intelligence to beat the Islamists at their own games - mobility and disguise. However the 1,000 mile Algerian-Malian border gives perspective to the enormity of the task at hand inside Mali, and the introduction of Algeria's hegemonic agenda creates yet another dimension to a rapidly evolving conflict.

Estimating Force Levels In Mali's Asymmetric War

The Trench has called attention to the reality that French officials have dramatically oversold the threat in Mali by claiming that its capital, Bamako, would have fallen by now without Paris's direct intervention. This observation isn't made in resistance to a well-planned and executed counterinsurgency, but to the raise awareness of a potential destabilizing factor in a mission with little margin for error.

As reported on Monday, the notion of an Islamist tsunami sweeping through the south and into the capital is militarily infeasible. Even gung-ho jihadists with minimal strategic skills would recognize the impossibility of Paris's narrative. Thousands of guerrillas would be needed to secure population centers on the way to the capital, located some 450 miles from their northern bases, and still possess enough forces to assert their authority in Bamako. A defensive force must also guard their northern and rear fronts, along with the cities under their control, further depleting the manpower available in the south. The best-case scenario of a fully-resource offensive would leave the Islamists with sporadic control inside and outside of the capital, and maintaining this authority on a permanent basis would require substantial reinforcements and supply lines.

The Islamists would be idiotic to believe they could take Bamako as easily as Paris predicted, and the French would be equally foolish to believe so. More likely, Paris has exaggerated the threat in order to justify a larger ground operation than any NATO member publicly announced in the run-up to Mali's intervention.

Based on Western estimates, the reported flow of jihadist recruits, the ability to conduct multiple operations in separate areas and the reserved tasked to defensive works, the Islamists' ranks appear to possess between 1,500 and 2,000 trained guerrillas. Washington, for its part, estimates a force of 800-1,200. Some African capitals have posited higher figures, but these are likely attributed to the hyperbole of their own frantic (albeit legitimate) calls for Western assistance. Reuters notes that independent estimates "on their numbers and their origin vary wildly."

"The numbers I have heard range from 100s to 1,000s, so it is clear that no one has much of a clue," a senior Western security official told Reuters.

A disturbing statement in itself, extreme estimates of 4,000-5,000 would still push the Islamists to their breaking point in the event that they storm Bamako. While measuring insurgent forces is never simple or completely accurate, one must obtain a reasonable estimate to predict their objectives. Interestingly, France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius believes that "the presence of French troops on the ground in Mali, an Islamic country, would not galvanize Al Qaeda recruitment in the region."

The latest reports have France pouring in 2,500 troops to secure the border until an equivalent number of forces arrive from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Nearly 800 French troops have already landed in Mali to repel the militants' immediate counterattack and prep the ground for ECOWAS's campaign in the north. They expect to greet their African comrades in the next two weeks, the current breakdown being as follows: 144 troops from Guinea, 300 from Benin, 500 from Burkina Faso, 500 each from Niger, Senegal and Togo, 900 from mission leader Nigeria, and an unspecified number from Chad.

Supporting these forces is a robust logistics and intelligence network of American, British, French, German and Canadian personnel. Paris has also inquired into the availability of the Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), whose reach in the Eastern Hemisphere continues to grow with every Western initiative (Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Egypt).

This joint force, if left intact, is capable of retaking northern Mali's population belt and inflicting heavy losses on the Islamists. The overriding question, from a strategic and tactical level, is what ECOWAS can do after the Islamists go underground to emerge at a later time - or when they resist beyond foreign expectations. Clearing is always easier than holding and building, and uncertainty will immediately set in if NATO pulls back early into ECOWAS's campaign. As Al Jazeera notes, the incoming African task-force will undergo further combat training with French and other NATO personnel before launching a sustained offensive. The result: a holding pattern between the north-south divide near Konna until ECOWAS can head north. This period will be dominated by NATO air strikes and ground raids on the Islamists leadership.

What French forces plan to do after ECOWAS crosses north remains unstated, but they will likely participate in both offensive and defensive operations with African units. On Tuesday U.S. General Carter Ham, the head of AMISOM, told The Wall Street Journal that the French campaign "may prove to be decisive," but added that aerial operations will be necessary until then. His "sense" tells him that "the French are committed and understand this will not be a short-term campaign." On the other hand, Paris has committed a large measure of force with the apparent hope that it can quickly smash the Islamists and leave ECOWAS to mop up.

"France is today in the vanguard, but within a week African forces will start to deploy on the ground," Prime Ministr Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Tuesday, telling reporters that "French forces won't have to bear the. Burden of fighting in Mali for very long."

No, just part of the burden for an undetermined length of time.

French, NATO Oscillations Intensyfing In Mali

Tough talking and bombing aside, Paris's response in central and northern Mali has assumed a dangerously comical quality.

Over the weekend French officials repeatedly boasted that they had stopped the Islamists' advance southward at Konna and inflicted heavy casualties, along with substantial material losses, at their northern bases near Gao. Not long afterward, they also admitted that the militants' antiaircraft capabilities had "surprised" the war cabinet of President François Hollande, and the town of Diablay has now been seized after a "surprise" raid on its Malian garrison. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian admitted (with obligatory embellishment) that the well-armed militants, "took Diabaly after fierce fighting and resistance from the Malian army, that couldn't hold them back."

The Associated Press was able to reach a local commander at nearby Niono before Diabaly fell. Once contacted after the battle, the AP reported that he sounded "almost desperate" in comparison to his previous confidence: "We feel truly threatened."

War is inherently complex, unpredictable and rapid; capabilities and intentions are often misestimated due to the fact that every side is trying to mask them. However French officials are publicly expressing the swings of a disturbing pattern. The beginning of NATO's long intervention in Mali has already launched as an emergency deployment rather than a coordinated assault with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and an elected Malian government, which remains stricken by the effects of March 2012's coup. Two wide-ranging objectives - defense of the south and intervention in the north - have been floated by Paris, a divergence noted by many regional observers.

Marina Ottaway, of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, warns, "The shortcoming of the French approach is that it's not clear what the next step is. They're just going in and stopping the advance of the rebel groups."

This assessment isn't entirely accurate since the bulk of French ground forces only need to remain operational until ECOWAS's task-force arrives (between 1-2 months) to secure Mali's middle region and push northward. The root problem is the insufficient size of ECOWAS's planned force, as 3,200 ground troops will need continual U.S. and French air support to cover Mali's northern territory - roughly the size of France. NATO's special forces will be needed to enable offensive and defensive operations, and are likely to increase their numbers unless other African states phase in reinforcements after the initial waves.

The fight will eventually be taken north by ECOWAS ground forces, and outside forces Mauritania and Algeria may decide to act from the west and north. NATO and the EU may be left off the official record as the U.S., U.K. France, Canada and other states respond with bilateral action. What remains unclear are NATO's force ratio and how long its contributors believe they have to stay in Mali, especially when they don't plan on informing the public for the time being.

“There has been no request, no discussion (within NATO) on the situation in Mali, the alliance as such is not involved in this crisis,” spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told reporters.

All available information suggests that NATO's muscle and expertise will be needed in greater quantities, and for a longer period of time, than its members are willing to publicly concede. The Islamist umbrella of Ansar Dine, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQIM) and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) suffers from military and non-military weaknesses that can be exploited, but the groups are also well-funded by drug and kidnapping profits. On Saturday the Prime Ministers of Algeria, Libya and Tunisia pledged to begin sharing intelligence and jointly patrolling their borders in response to the networks being established by al-Qaeda's loose fronts; Tunisia’s President Moncef Marzouki described his country as "a corridor for Libyan weapons."

Trained with dependable arms by veteran jihadists looking for the next Afghanistan, these forces cannot be caught totally off guard because they expected a NATO invasion since taking control of northern Mali. Their response is likely to be twofold. On one hand, hard fighting will be delivered in the form of mountain warfare along the Algerian border. Here AQIM has recreated a Tora Tora scenario around Kidal, in the Adrar des Ifoghas, by drilling into the rocky desert and constructing bases inside. Whether saved for first or last, this mission alone requires extensive aerial bombardment and ground combat.

Conversely, these bases have likely been built in order to be abandoned in time. While Ansar Dine's spokesman, Oumar Ould Hamaha, has taunted the French by egging them to "attack on the ground if they are men," the Islamists would be foolish to "welcome them with open arms." Such a plan is presumably intended for jihadist consumption, as it goes against the grain of unconventional warfare. They have already begun to disperse, vacating MUJAO's base in Douentza before French planes struck and moving west on Diablay to draw attention away from Mopti's central position. Frontal maneuvers on French troops should be an infrequent development. Although the Islamists are eager to fight undisciplined Malian troops and can score quick propaganda victories with French casualties, they will likely drag the fight on as long as possible to disrupt NATO's operation schedule and raise the cost of intervention.

And as J. Peter Pham notes, "by planting their flag there, it's now become the latest place to go if you want to fight a Western army."

All of these factors add up to a longer and more intense intervention than France is currently telling its public, yet Paris is equally guilty of exaggerating the Islamists' advance. Following the events in Diablay, Le Drian speculated that if Paris hadn't intervened five days ago to stop the Islamists at Konna, "Bamako would be today in the hands of the terrorists." Unless the Islamists' ranks have been vastly underestimated by the thousands, the situation described by French defense officials isn't militarily feasible or strategically probable. Diabaly is a modest town of 36,000, and assaulting the city makes sense from a guerrilla's standpoint - they will attack wherever NATO isn't, then move to where NATO moves from. This pattern necessitates the force saturation that NATO is wary of committing.

Diabaly is located on the road to Bamako, as French officials remind us, and all possibilities must be considered in war. However several major cities stand in the way of the capital, some 300 miles south, and the Islamists need to garrison each population center in order for their offensive to be more than an exercise. That leaves few guerrillas - troops that usually wage urban warfare on the defensive - to storm a capital of 1.5 million. They could hold no territory along the way and still lack the necessary forces to assert control in Bamako, as the demand for weapons will be exceeded and supply lines will be severed deeper inside the south. Either option also reduces the men assigned to defend the north, which remains their prize due to the territory's inaccessibility.

Nothing adds up on this side of Mali's equation except for France and NATO's desire to justify all of their decisions and actions, whether sound or not.

"Our assessment was that they (the rebels) were actually able to take Bamako," Gerard Araud, French ambassador to the United Nations, said on Monday. "So we decided that what was at stake was the existence of the state of Mali, and beyond Mali was the stability of all west Africa.nWe had no other choice to launch this military intervention."

The main dilemma in Mali was never if, but how.

France's Rapid Burst Jumpstarts Mali's Long War

[Note: The current situation in Mali continues to accelerate within the fog of war:  "Hundreds of French troops drive back Mali rebels."]

Clearly deeming the situation as immanently unacceptable, the start of what should be a long foreign intervention has finally commenced in Mali's central river delta. Responding to estimates of 500-900 Islamic gunmen and their convoys, French military assistance has reportedly driven Ansar Dine and its allied muscle out of Konna for the time being. The bones of this information were jointly confirmed by Malian officials and French President Francois Hollande, who issued a national address on Friday to announce that France's operations will "last as long as necessary."

"French armed forces supported Malian units this afternoon to fight against terrorist elements," Hollande said from Paris.

The muscles and flesh of this information, though, remain obscured by the fog of war and must be pieced together as best as possible. Accepted as true is the presence of French military forces on Malian soil; Col. Abdrahmane Baby, an operations adviser for the foreign affairs ministry, confirmed that French forces had arrived in the country. Who landed, where they arrived, how long they plan to stay and what they specifically intend to do is left unanswered. It's possible that French forces had already arrived in the country on standby, and one must assume that standard soldiers were not called upon for the task at hand. France's Army Special Forces Brigade (known by the French acronym BFST), which experienced combat in Afghanistan, is the most likely unit to land first.

Beyond providing air combat controllers to multiply Mali's existing forces, the BFST would fulfill the initial training and scouting duties until NATO's first official batch of trainers arrives.

Also obscured is the status of Konna and how Malian forces dislodged the Islamist umbrella that moved on the city days earlier. French air-strikes were reportedly used to roll back militants and establish momentum for Malian forces, but no further information was provided to explain the actions of French soldiers. Paraphrasing the other officials willing to go on record, Lieutenant Colonel Diaran Kone simply told Reuters, "The Malian army has retaken Konna with the help of our military partners. We are there now."

For his part, Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Boumana denied that the group vacated Konna and its surrounding area. He claimed that “some planes came and bombed some civilians,” along with a mosque - overt propaganda to discredit the French. He would state matter-of-factly, "That’s France, and that’s the West. We are not surprised.”

The developing counteroffensive to Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's (AQIM) activities in central Mali holds the potential to accelerate a foreign intervention, or else spin it out of control at its launch. Delayed by all sorts of obstacles - U.S. laws barring direct support to Mali's coup-stricken government, the vast terrain of northern Mali and expected forecasts of its rainy seasons - the international blocs planned to unroll an intervention over the next eight months. Now the first NATO member is sliding down Mali's slope and threatening to pull other members in, even though Mali's government and military remains inoperable at the national level.

Washington and France had previously demanded that Mali hold elections, scheduled for April, before an intervention could begin.

Hollande also seems to be overselling the urgent threat of Mali's Islamists in order to justify a preemptive strike. Arguing that the "very existence of the Malian state" is at stake, France's president repeats his emphasis by adding the Islamists "are seeking to deal a fatal blow to the very existence of Mali." In reality the Islamist alliance has already dealt a fatal blow to Mali's sovereignty by sheering off half of the state, and the cost of re-securing the north outweighs the ease that it will lost. However The Trench believes that the Islamists are unlikely to pursue a genuine offensive into the south, so the threat of losing Konna and nearby Mopti is defensive-oriented. Capturing these areas and the air-base at Sevare would hinder an intervention into the north, and thus hinder its reunification with the south.

A full-blown march on the capital, Bamako, has no basis in reality.

Problematically in the near-term, the Islamists don't need to hold Konna at the moment and can leave the town alone while they target other areas in the Inner Niger. Once they withstand the initial air-strikes, they will likely take greater pains to disperse their forces in civilian areas. France will then be forced to add more troops, or else receive assistance from other NATO or AU forces (presumably the U.S. and U.K.), in order to provide defensive support and pursue several networks of militants; over-relying on air support is liable to backfire. Meanwhile Catherine Ashton, the European Union's (EU) foreign policy chief, has called for "accelerated international engagement" and said the bloc would speed up the deployment of 200 trainers, but organizing this process requires more time than coordinating offensive actions.

Furthermore, the Islamist coalition is likely to enjoy its own boost from France's involvement, and should receive an influx of recruits in the coming weeks. That pressure would add to the lobbying for more troops, but risks their deployment without a  defined time limit or the resources necessary to compete their mission. The air-strikes that will be used to supplement an initial force carry the potential of civilian casualties, and U.S. drones are likely to make an eventual switch from surveillance to targeted strikes. Mali's war will subsequently expand into a front along the boundary between north and south, and then degenerate into a multi-year conflict inside the north.

Ultimately, more rush will add to the international community's friction and could work in the Islamists' favor. Counterbalancing this force is vital to their success in central and northern Mali.

Islamist Alliance Fortifying Mali's Natural Defenses

Fresh alarms have sounded inside and outside Mali as the Islamist militias currently ruling the northern territory continue to advance south. Their latest move on Konna follows a general culmination of activities into the Inner Niger Delta, the natural barrier between Mali's southern and northern regions, and positions them on both sides of the river. As has been the case with most urban takeovers in Mali's fledgling conflict, each side has disseminated opposing narratives to maintain the upper hand in a fast-paced information war.

"We have chased the army out of the city of Konna, which we have occupied since 11 a.m.," declared Sanda Abou Mohamed, a spokesman for the Ansar Dine militant group, speaking by telephone from Timbuktu.

Several Mali spokesmen have refused to comment on Konna's status. Other officials denied losing control of the town, which sits at the edge of government-controlled territory along the Islamists' front-lines. A third account from Malian soldiers suggests that they staged a tactical retreat with minimal losses, and they probably won't return until Mali's army and foreign allies launch an organized offensive into the Timbuktu region.

"We have deployed technical means and reinforcements to secure the front,"one military official told Reuters by telephone, asking not to be named. "We think (the Islamists) want to attack Sevare.”

Fears of a southerly invasion have injected renewed urgency into African leadership and the international apparatus that is attempting to reach a consensus of action: the African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), United Nations (UN) and NATO. Responding to Tuesday's statements by Benin President and AU chairman Thomas Yayi Boni, who told reporters that "NATO should play a part and the African force would lead the way as was done by NATO in Afghanistan," an anonymous NATO official struck the idea down in public even though an intervention is likely to follow Boni's description.

Given that all involved African capitals expect some level of NATO assistance - from training and logistics to intelligence and air-power - this denial is explicitly false: “There has been no request or discussion on a possible role for NATO in Mali. NATO is not involved in this crisis but the situation in northern Mali is of course of grave concern to us all."

Nevertheless, NATO's total involvement is unlikely to accelerate until the UN approves the permanent guidelines of Resolutions 2071 and 2085, drafted in October and December to advance the international community's overall response to northern Mali. French support troops were allegedly scheduled to deploy in late January and may land shortly, but Paris and Washington are equally leery of diving in head first. The UN is currently in the process of holding a closed-doors meeting in response to the Islamists' ongoing movements and their impact on regional mediation. New efforts have been delayed to January 21st in order to give the Tuareg-Islamist faction, Ansar Dine, more time to comply with international demands. 

Until then, the UN can merely repeat its futile request.

“We ask the Malian rebel groups to abide by Security Council resolutions 2071 and 2085 calling for them to cut off all ties with terrorist organizations,” Martin Nesirky said from UN headquarters in New York. "We urge adherence to the cessation of hostilities declared on 4 December 2012 in Ouagadougou and continue to call on the parties to engage in dialogue to address the situation."

The possibility of a southerly offensive towards Bamako, located 430 miles southwest of Konna, cannot be ruled out entirely; anticipating and planning for the worst scenarios is central to warfare and political science. In the event that the Islamists do push southward, NATO and the AU must be prepared to rapidly deploy a small number of solders as a front and last line of defense. These troops should assist in defending high-level human and structural targets, coordinating logistics, establishing communications, scouting and targeted raids. At the same time, Mali's own forces and civilian population must be tasked to the actual combat of Islamist militants in their local areas. 

Direct foreign intervention is more necessary in the north than south, where the population should be and must be capable of mounting a formidable counterinsurgency.

These factors being duly considered, the Islamists appear to be working towards the alternative objective of reinforcing their perimeter. Rather than an organizing a sincere campaign into Mali's south, which would overtax their resources and commit a potentially fatal blunder, Ansar Dine and its allies are engaged in the strategic defense of their northern territory. Using the muscle imported by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its regional offshoot, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), Ansar Dine has gradually surrounded the Inner Niger for months in preparation for an international assault. Konna and the local center, Mopti, fit into a larger campaign to secure the entire delta, and thus obstruct the initial advance of Malian and foreign military units.

This plan includes the capture or destruction of Mopti's nearby airport at Sevare.

Having used the cover of dialogue with Ansar Dine to expand their area of operations, AQIM and MUJAO have also set about fortifying Mali's surrounding defenses. To the delta's north lies a desert of greater size than southern Afghanistan or Yemen, which doubles as the established territory between AQIM's network in Mauritania and Algeria. No surprise advance will occur through this terrain. Meanwhile, to the east, several groups operating under the command of AQIM and Ansar Dine have been tasked to fortify the mountains surrounding the Kidal region. These forces expect an Algerian assault at some point during an intervention, although Algiers has strongly backed negotiations with Ansar Dine, and evicting them from the Adrar des Ifoghas will be a challenge in itself.

Viewed as intentional strategic depth, the ongoing assault on Mopti's surrounding areas represents the creation of a buffer zone around northern Mali's population belt. The Islamists expect to be hit hard by foreign armor and air power, and thus expect to lose control of its front lines in the aftermath of "shock and awe" tactics. This inevitability forces them to push out as far as possible, in order to facilitate an organized withdrawal into the north and engage its opponent from multiple directions. Using a combination of ambushes, organized resistance and retreat, the Islamists will occupy a more solid position than if they were to let Malian and foreign forces smash into them at Timbuktu.

Mali's conflict must somehow reach a political agreement with the Tuaregs and other ethnic groups in order to create permanent stability, but the region won't see the light of resolution before a military confrontation.

[Note: This analysis was completed on Thursday night. Updates on France's emerging military involvement will be posted shortly.]

Mali's Islamists Toying With International Negotiators

A rapid turnaround in northern Mali has fully illuminated the multidimensional nature of netwar.

Last Thursday the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution outlining a dual-track approach of political negotiations and military engagement against dissenting Islamic militants. As if coordinated before the UNSC's unanimous vote - itself the process of intense calculation between NATO, the African Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) - Timbuktu's local Islamist outfit struck back immediately on Friday by announcing a pact with Mali's rival Tuareg movement. Under their public terms, Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) pledged to "coordinate their positions and actions in the context of seeking a peaceful and durable solution with the transitional authorities in Mali, with the guarantees of the relevant parties."

Their joint-statement claimed that mutual security would be established "through the deployment of security forces comprising members of both their groups."

These statements belie northern Mali's ground conditions, which indicate that no sustainable agreement can be forged between the two groups. They have already fallen out after leeching each other's abilities to rout Mali's army; once a days-long pact was broken in late May (or possibly never signed to begin with), Ansar Dine and its Islamist allies proceeded to kick the MNLA out of its Gao headquarters. The strategically-located city now hosts the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), an offshoot of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and is unlikely to be shared with the MNLA. The only tangible progress from months of negotiations between Ansar Dine and the MNLA, organized by neighboring Burkina Faso and Algeria, is the Islamists' military advance on MNLA positions.

Ansar Dine recently assisted in MUJAO's capture of westerly Léré after its leader delivered an ultimatum to the MNLA, essentially threatening to join or die. The MNLA rejected Iyad Ag Ghaly's message and "expressed their determination to fight against all terrorists."

Muddy as these negotiating waters are, Mali's fourth-generation reality emits a polarized clarity and reveals an ingenious plot at work. The possibility of Ansar Dine establishing sincere relations with the MNLA cannot be discarded entirely, on account of Ag Ghaly's history with Tuareg militias, but the odds hover near zero. In addition to a cutthroat ultimatum, Ansar Dine just spun off Mali's own version of Ansar al-Sharia with formal approval from the group's leadership. AQIM has supposedly tasked this new group to improve relations with its Libyan counterpart, a loose network of jihadist groups blamed for the assault on Benghazi's consulate, and potentially construct a training base in eastern Libya.

The group is reportedly overseen by Oumar Ould Hamaha, a senior military official connecting Ansar Dine and MUJAO. Hamaha, a local Tuareg from the Timbuktu area, also doubles as a confidante of AQIM personality Moktar Belmoktar, who announced the formation of his own El Moulethemine katibat ("Brigade of the Veiled Ones") in early December.

Ansar Dine and its allies' vision of peace is total control over northern Mali. Instead of negotiating an agreeable outcome with the international community or MNLA, the group is stalling to attract more human resources from West Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Now Ansar Dine is taking shelter beneath the MNLA, a group that the international community cannot avoid negotiating with, in an attempt to stave off a foreign intervention entirely. This wise maneuver is reminiscent of the guerrilla hiding within an urban population, hugging civilians in order to deter aerial bombardment.

Following the UNSC's vote, an adviser of Mali's interim president said that his government is ready to "wage war against the terrorists and continue to negotiate with our brothers who are ready for dialogue."

Problematically, Malians are expecting military action but lack faith in their government and military, directing a trickle-up effect towards the UNSC. Furthermore, non-state actors move with exceptional quickness in relation to cumbersome international blocs. As a result of Mali's internal crisis, which legally bars the U.S. from direct aid, and the international community's hesitant response to the situation as a whole, both sets of actors have given the distinct impression that they seek to avoid fighting under the present conditions. The UNSC has painted itself into a corner by emphasizing dialogue over military action, and the Islamists are "cooperating" by giving what is being requested. Ansar Dine, AQIM and MUJAO all realize the advantage of this wariness to enter an uncertain terrain the size of Iraq, with less than ideal resources, for an unspecified length of time.

The end product: Ansar Dine is positioning itself as a necessary component of Mali's political solution and an outright international front of AQIM.

"We denounce this decision," Mohamed Ag Akharib, a representative of Ansar Dine, told reporters between meetings in Algiers. "We have always denounced the (planned) military intervention and we have said that it is not the solution. We are very optimistic and we ask Algeria and the international community to join us in searching for a peaceful solution to the Mali crisis."

Algiers' Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) is suspected of manipulating both sides of the Sahel - coordinating with AQIM and other non-state actors in opposition to the Tuaregs, and using AQIM to establish favorable military and intelligence relations with Western capitals. The government's massive influence in the region is unlikely to prove a source of lasting stability in northern Mali, although Islamists and the Obama administration are both looking its way for assistance. To its credit Algiers is legitimately cautious of spillover into its territory and understands the opponent better than most. Military and intelligence analysts have reached a consensus that the proposed force - 3,000 ECOWAS soldiers, an equal number of Malians and NATO trainers to guide them - falls disturbingly short of northern Mali's taxing demands.

"You cannot really fight a conventional war there," warns Abdallah Baali, Algeria's ambassador to Washington. "Your enemy will vanish in the desert before your eyes."

Of the other scenarios in play, Ansar Dine could be gunning for absolute control of Mali's Tuareg movement with the intention of evicting AQIM, MUJAO and the MNLA in turn. Thus of all the conceivable scenarios, workable peace between Ansar Dine and the MNLA appears furthest removed from reality.

Mali News Travels Slow To Western Media

Nearly six days ago The Trench recorded the formation of a new Islamic militant group that had branched out from Mali's local tree, Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith). Christening themselves as the fourth Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) in the MENA (after Yemen, Tunisia and Libya), this group has allegedly recruited Barabiche tribesmen from Timbuktu's surrounding area and placed them under the authority of several Ansar Dine officials: Omar Ould Hamaha and Sanad Ould Bouamama.

In every manifestation Ansar al-Sharia operates either as a loose front for al-Qaeda's general ideology or a masking agent for the group itself, as in Yemen's case. However Mali's new group has reportedly received specific directions from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). On top of decentralizing the group's network and tapping into local human resources, Ansar al-Sharia has been tasked to build a logistics highway between eastern Libya and northern Mali - and, if AFRICOM is to be believed, establish a base in east Libya to strike the West.

"In return, AQIM is offering to provide Libyan Islamist groups with training and finance," The Telegraph reported earlier this month.

Somewhat oddly, this news created no initial splash in the U.S. media and is just now reaching American ears in the form of an ABC News report. New information is only presented in small portions, namely a welcoming statement from one of Ansar Dine's senior leaders. Although potential disinformation, no mention of the connection between Ansar al-Sharia and Libyan militants is made. Instead, speculation of the offshoot's cause revolves around Ansar Dine's leadership and the absorption of fighters from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).

In the latter case, ABC News claims that MUJAO has been losing fighters to Ansar Dine and Ansar al-Sharia due to their local reputations, which carry more weight inside and outside Mali.

Unnamed "analysts" attribute this trend to Ansar Dine's legitimacy at the negotiating table, but local credibility and momentum is the likeliest culprit of any established pattern. The network of AQIM, MUJAO and Ansar Dine acts as a jihadist funneling system, drawing fighters from across the MENA and shaking them down into appropriate roles. Both Ansar Dine and MUJAO fighters have joined Ansar al-Sharia because the group is allegedly involved in expanding eastward, where MUJAO hopes to go. MUJAO's military planner, Omar Hamaha, also doubles as an Ansar Dine official, reinforcing the connection between all three groups.

While decentralization can instigate personal feuds within a network of militant groups, Mali is big enough to necessitate a portfolio of groups tasked with specialized agendas. The inflation of open territory and density of local actors are determining factors in slicing up northern Mali's pie.

Coincidently, ABC News's reporting is equally sluggish as the international community's response to northern Mali's conflict. Today, almost a year after the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine began to overrun Mali's military, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution authorizing a two-track intervention in Mali. Except negotiations with Ansar Dine amount to a stalling tactic for AQIM and MUJAO, meaning that an ECOWAS force of 3,300 won't land in Mali until the second half of next year at the earliest. The Trench has frequently reported on the obstacles facing an international coalition, starting with Mali's fractured government and ending with the virtual certainty of guerrilla warfare.

"It is likely that [the MNLA and MUJWA] will avoid direct confrontation, in which case [the intervention force] would have no chance," a senior French officer told the AFP after the UNSC's vote. "If the force sent to deal with them is credible, [the MNLA and MUJWA] will certainly leave the towns and head for their sanctuaries in the mountain ranges close to the Algerian border... and that will become a different ball game to dislodge them."

One "former intelligence chief" states the problem in even blunter terms: "It's not 3,000 men that are needed, it's 100 times as many, and for a long time. We are far from what's required. Take Afghanistan as a reference and you'll understand."

This estimate, while excessively high, still offers a more realistic assessment than the international community (UN, NATO, AU, ECOWAS) has tabled. Roughly speaking, a minimum of 30,000 troops and 3-5 years (plus Western logistics) appear to be needed to control northern Mali's population belt and wage asymmetric warfare against the Islamists. Give Ansar Dine and its allies another 10 months and they will embed themselves that much deeper in northern Mali's terrain.

The international community is trapped between the dilemma of an immediate but reckless campaign, and waiting for Mali's government to put itself back together first.

AFRICOM's Coverage of AQIM Mixes Fact, Fiction

Last week The Trench reported on the political and military movements of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and present commander of El Moulethemine katibat ("Brigade of the Veiled Ones"). A significant portion of this information was retrieved from Magharebia, a Pentagon-run site dedicated to covering events in North Africa, and independent information confirms the overall agenda of Belmokhtar. Now Magharebia has reported on a video statement from Belmokhtar announcing the "Signers in Blood," a suicide squad presumably designed to greet an international military coalition in northern Mali.

However the headlines of "breaking away from AQIM" appear to deliberately mislead an overview of the situation.

That Belmokhar has experienced a heavy share of confrontation with AQIM chief Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud (Abdelmalek Droukdel) is well-documented. Various explanations of AQIM's internal strife have been advanced over recent years: divisions between Algerian and Mauritanian leadership, personal rivalries, and the distribution of Western ransoms and drug profits. Leadership schisms are a natural product of regionally-networked militant groups, as the need to decentralize across borders and cultures often erodes a firm hierarchy. Those groups that enjoy permanence at the top usually function as symbols of national power: the Taliban's Mullah Omar or Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah.

At the same time, a foreign intervention of northern Mali stands a good chance of closing the Islamists' ranks, at least until the momentum swings against them and the alliance is forced to scatter across northern Mali.

Belmokhtar's recent announcements illustrate the dilemma facing Western and African capitals. While "One Eye" cannot be expected to obey every command of AQIM, he has pledged to abide by the decisions made collectively by AQIM, the local Ansar Dine outfit and the regionally-minded Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). His group will allegedly specialize in kidnapping Westerns and extorting ransoms to fund the Islamic alliance, thereby dividing their labors. Belmokhtar has relocated his base to Gao, where MUJAO has established its headquarters and oversees the Islamists' campaign in northern Mali.

Reinforcing the line of communication between groups is MUJAO's military planner and Bekmokhtar's deputy, local Tuareg Omar Ould Hamaha.

Abdalahi Ould Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Chouhoud, gives a more comprehensive explanation for AQIM's proliferating offshoots: "As the organization has grown and incorporated fighters of different origins, conflicts of interests have become increasingly frequent.” This process carries its advantages and disadvantages. Given an increase in funds and territory, turf battles become inevitable in the war for jihadist hearts and minds. Purely commercial elements flock to West Africa's flow of cash and cocaine, undermining the Islamists' overall message and corrupting personalities from the lowest to highest ranks.

Militant groups must also network and decentralize to some degree in order to survive the short-term precision and long-term pressure of joint-government operations. In AQIM's particular case, the group is undergoing rapid expansion after northern Mali opened a huge amount of territory and influence to its sub-commanders. This fragmentation allowed AQIM personalities to establish their own local units under the mothership's flag, pursue their own interests and quickly seize all available power in the region. Accordingly, a group of Barabiche tribesmen from Timbuktu have formed a "new"  faction at the urging of AQIM's leadership, with the intention of developing relations with Libya's self-styled Ansar al-Sharia. 

The fourth manifestation flying the "Partisans of Islamic Law" banner (after Tunisia, Libya and Yemen), Ansar al-Sharia will now operate out of Gao as they attempt to build a logistics network through neighboring Niger. Their alleged objective: establish a base in eastern Libya to facilitate attacks on Western and African targets in response to Mali's planned intervention.

"Their aim is to establish a foothold in Libya from which to launch attacks against Western targets, as well as gaining access to the large stockpiles of weapons – including Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles – that were looted by Libyan rebels during the fall of Colonel Moamer Kadhafi's regime at the end of last year," The Telegraph reported on December 4th. "In return, AQIM is offering to provide Libyan Islamist groups with training and finance."

As Mauritania's al-Akhbar notes, Gao's branch of Ansar al-Sharia raises the number of Islamic militant groups in Mali to five: AQIM, MUJAO, Ansar Dine, Belmokhtar's "Masked Brigade" and Ansar al-Sharia. Pentagon intelligence and independent reporting has also collaborated the presence of Nigeria's Boko Harem in Gao. All of these groups operate as loose fronts for "the Base", waving the flag to attract recruits and acting semi or totally independent. The efficiency and inefficiency of this cooperation generates the double-edged sword of netwar.

So long as AQIM, Ansar Dine and MUJAO collectively wield influence in northern Mali, its splinter factions shouldn't cause an excessive amount of friction between the alliance. Scattering will become its own strategy if they are initially overrun, and division won't pose a fatal problem if Mali's internal woes and regional deficiencies in governance are left unresolved.

Confusion Muddying International Action In Mali

For several months The Trench has documented the widening organizational schism between northern Mali's Islamist network and international blocs, a gap that the latter hasn't been able to shrink since the north's initial takeover.

While Islamist militants lack key advantages in guerrilla warfare, namely popular support amongst local Tuaregs and other ethnicities, their networking has built a formidable unit capable of generating long-term instability in the Sahara. The three-headed hydra of al-Qaeda In Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and Ansar Dine fit together neatly so long as their agendas maintain unity. AQIM and MUJAO's banners have given the alliance immediate cache within the global jihadist network, turning Mali into the new hotspot for West African and the Middle Eastern recruits. They also bring heavy arms, technical expertise and the financial resources secured from kidnapping and cocaine trafficking, an industry linked to corrupt governments along the African coast.

Meanwhile Ansar Dine counts enough Tuaregs in its ranks to usurp the opposing National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and provide its regional counterparts with local guidance.

Together the three groups are entrenching themselves in an environment favorable to guerrilla warfare, an area dubbed “the largest territory controlled by Islamic extremists in the world" by U.S. Senator Christopher A. Coons, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee. Mali's northern desert, though generally unfavorable to guerrillas, is rendered more useful by its sheer size and the means necessary to secure it: a large air force, saturated ground patrols, barrier walls and a strong central government. Mali's desert is further broken up by mountains that AQIM has already embedded itself within. Most distressing of all, the militants could disperse after the initial skirmishes and wage a grinding war against an underresourced opponent.

"You cannot really fight a conventional war there," says Abdallah Baali, Algeria's ambassador to Washington. "Your enemy will vanish in the desert before your eyes."

The international community, on the other hand, is more disorganized than they give the appearance of. Many pieces are technically coming into place within a French-led UN mandate, including 3,000 troops from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), but uncertainty has overwhelmed their planning. At face value, 3,000 troops won't be enough to clear the north of an estimated 1,500 militants, and then hold the territory until Mali's government can reestablish authority. The capital may need several years to sort itself out and regroup militarily, a time-line that exceeds current UN expectations. Both Western and African capitals realize that a sizable air operation is necessary to compliment ECOWAS's ground force, a demand that they tacitly accept but have yet to approve of.

Neither side seems clear on the details of Western air support, and heavyweight Algeria remains unconvinced of an intervention's prospects.

Additionally, the U.S. response is being obstructed by international protocol and U.S. law, which prevents direct military assistance to Mali until a democratic government can be restored. Western powers hope that Mali’s army can match an international force in troops and take the lead in the field, necessitating an enormous training program and all of the infrastructure that goes with it. Problematically, the Pentagon must funnel equipment and financial aid through West African nations and the European Union. At this rate, the most they can hope for from Mali's army is local assistance - not a force capable of assuming the lead in combat operations.

“That’s a pretty significant impediment, and we’ve got to figure our way through that,” Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of AFRICOM, said Monday during a lecture at George Washington University.

Militants encounter no such impediments, only checkpoints to the outside world.

As a result, widely varying dates have been thrown into the international media by African leaders, Western diplomats and international representatives. Some reports place the start of an intervention in late January; in Paris to strategize with Francois Hollande, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara told Europe 1 on Wednesday, "we hope to organize this intervention in the first quarter." Generally speaking, African and Western governments desire the quickest response possible to a major international crisis, but lack the resources to immediately respond and have thus cornered themselves in the near term. Some AU leaders, such as Niger's Mahamadou Issoufou, also want the UN-ECOWAS process accelerated faster than others, piling friction onto anxious but hesitant Western capitals.

Even Ham, one of the region's most gungho actors, just admitted that an intervention today (meaning the next three months) "would be unsuccessful." For good reason, Herve Ladsous of the UN Peacekeeping force told a Wednesday press conference, "Nothing could be done before September, October" of 2013.

Unless these reports form a disinformation campaign against the Islamists - and this doesn't appear to be the case - President Idriss Déby of Chad sums up the international situation most accurately: "There is total confusion."

Belmokhtar Splinters From AQIM, Eyes Sahara

One of the latest development's in the fast-paced Sahel holds the potential to alter both sides of Mali's crisis.

Several days ago Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former commander for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), emerged to warn the international community of "the impossibility of controlling the limits and results of a war in the region." His statements were clipped from a recent interview in Gao, where the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) now commands its operations in northern Mali, and dovetail with AQIM and Ansar Dine's overarching narrative in the country (to be addressed in a future post). Essentially, the Islamic alliance that swept across northern Mali is feigning ignorance by entertaining the possibility of a negotiated settlement, and thus positioning itself as the defender rather than the aggressor. They know that an Islamic state leaves no room for compromise with Western capitals and their African allies, and they're playing with house money in Mali.

“We will help and support them - be it at war or during times of peace," Belmokhtar concluded.

Of course the veteran jihadist, a former leader in AQIM, has his own causes to support. Dubbed "Al-A'war" ("the one-eyed") and "the Uncatchable," Belmokhtar is obviously angling himself back into the picture by offering his "unconditional" help - surely with strings attached. He was reported dead during the fog of Gao's battle between MUJAO, Ansar Dine and the oppositional National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), only to emerge in another dispute with AQIM's leadership. After allegedly refusing to step down as commander of the offshoot Al-Mulathameen ("Masked Men Brigade"), Belmokhtar is now pledging to "respect any decision" made by MUJAO, Ansar Dine and the local Tuareg tribes they hope to woo in Mali. He said that his group, “will reveal more details and show his group’s clear position on the war and the methods that they will adopt to repel aggression.”

To this end, Belmokhtar's deputy has confirmed the regional agenda of his network.

“It’s true,” Oumar Ould Hamaha told reporters from northern Mali. “It’s so that we can better operate in the field that we have left this group which is tied to the ‘Maghreb’ appellation. We want to enlarge our zone of operation throughout the entire Sahara, going from Niger through to Chad and Burkina Faso.”

Hamaha is the ideal mediator between AQIM and northern Mali's environment. A native of the Timbuktu region, Hamaha has been involved with Belmokhtar since AQIM's formation in the early 2000s, and now serves as a spokesman for Ansar Dine and MUJAO. He claims that Belmokhtar and himself have technically left AQIM while remaining under the group's regional strategy. Their semi-independence mimics the activity of other AQIM offshoots, such as Mohammed Ghadir's ("Abdelhamid Abou Zeid") Tareq ibn Ziyad batallion, and further diversifies a nebulous collection of militant groups assembling in and around Mali. MUJAO has purportedly split from AQIM for the same reason offered by Hamaha: more independence in expanding regional operations. 

Many groups are mobilizing under AQIM's loose control, using the umbrella's affiliation to boost their own profile as they pursue various objectives across West Africa. How these splinters cooperate in Mali will determine the effectiveness of their political cohesion and military defense against an international task force.

AQIM, MUJAO Localize In Mali With Tuareg Brigade

Magharebia, a surprisingly reliable news site given its AFRICOM sponsorship, has reported the next phase in al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's (AQIM) politico-military strategy in northern Mali.

Building on its recent promotion of a Mauritanian commander, a move attributed to AQIM's diversification from Algerian leadership, the group has now announced the creation of a 6th "Tuareg Brigade" in Mali's Kidal region. Dubbed the "Youssef ben Tachfine," AQIM is employing al-Qaeda's standard operating procedure by intertwining itself with local militant networks, a key component of its force multiplication. El Kairouani Abu Abdelhamid al-Kidali, "a local Touareg" active with Ansar Dine, has been tasked to oversee his units' fortifications along Mali's mountainous border with Algeria. These cavernous bases serve negligible strategic interests for international powers except when occupied by militants, and the international coalition will be forced to entertain mountain warfare in order to clear the whole territory.

al-Kidali's area of operation extends from Mali's northeastern border to the towns of Kidal and Augelhok, both seized by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) before Ansar Dine took over.

This move also represents the latest sign that Ansar Dine is not negotiating with Mali's neighbors or the MNLA, but attempting to stall the foreign coalition assembling itself for an intervention. The two groups possess incompatible political and religious agendas; just as the international community opposes secession from southern Mali, Ansar Dine and the MNLA view northern Mali's prize as indivisible. Maghrebia has separately reported that Ansar al-Din leader Iyad Ag Ghaly, a former MNLA member, sent an envoy on November 24th to the MNLA camp in Lere.

"Ansar al-Din invites all MNLA fighters to lay down their arms and join its ranks; otherwise they will be fought and the group will establish its control all over Azawad," the emissary supposedly announced.

These words, whether truly spoken or not, align with the ground's reality and explain the recent events around Lere. Ghaly's message was predictably rejected and the MNLA appears to have shredded any remaining fibers connected to Ansar Dine. How each group now sits with the other, in the same room as international mediators, is uncertain. Realistically they have nothing to discuss - battlefield negotiations have yet to give way to table negotiations. According to MNLA activist al-Hasan Ag Mohamed el-Khair, "the MNLA has categorically rejected Iyad Ag Ghaly's request and considers it to be an express alliance with the terrorist groups that fight against the movement."

"Ansar al-Din's position in support of the terrorist groups became very clear when we managed to defeat MUJAO last week," said the MNLA's Attay Ag Mohamed in an attempt to spin the group's own defeat. "They now want to support these groups so as to exact revenge for their fallen victims. This position completely contradicts what the group said earlier this month about putting an end to ties with the terrorists."

Accepting the fact that they won't siphon too many MNLA loyalists to their Islamic vision, Ansar Dine deployed reinforcements to assist the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa's (MUJAO) capture of Lere. The town was captured later that night, and now a Tuareg-styled brigade has been announced to compensate for the MNLA's response. International blocs are trying their best to show unity and organization in Mali, but the Islamist alliance is outdoing them in both regards. The three-headed hydra of Ansar Dine, AQIM and MUJAO serves all of their necessary functions: Ansar Dine contributes at the local level, MUJAO is recruiting from West Africa and AQIM is bringing in jihadists from outside the continent. Whether these forces can unite, rather than clash as Somalia's al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda have, will determine a significant factor in Mali's conflict.

At this point, though, the Islamists don't have nearly as much to complain about as their anxious foreign opponents.