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.

Information Vortex Trailing French Actions In Mali

The acceleration of NATO intervention in Mali has left observers in a thick mass of war fog. Much like the water or air column that follows a body in motion, a wave of information has formed behind NATO's military activities as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) readies an emergency task-force. This wave is crushing everything outside its direct path, as is typical in warfare, and obscuring the ground situation in north-central Mali.

Further analysis will be posted as the information cycle allows.

For now a basic sketch of NATO's unfolding offensive must suffice, beginning in central Mali and expanding outward. At least 550 French air and ground troops have reportedly deployed inside the country as air strikes continue for the third day. A significant portion of these troops landed at the airport in Sevare, the predicted target of Islamist militants that had recently staged attacks on the nearby towns of Konna and Mopti. Malian forces regained Konna with the help of French Mirage and Rafale jets, working in conjunction with assault helicopters, but they would have needed French air-combat controllers in the ground. The war-zone around Sevare was quickly ringed by checkpoints and French ground forces have been deployed from Sevare's airport to Konna and Mopti.

Western sources are already "reporting" the unconfirmed death of Ansar Dine commander Iyad Ag Ghaly, a veteran Tuareg jihadist, but his loss is unlikely to imperil the group.

Using the Inner Niger as NATO and ECOWAS's forward operating position into northern Mali, French warplanes and helicopters have launched an air campaign to shock the Islamists across their territory. Mirages reportedly destroyed a government base that had been taken over in Lere, located on the delta's west side, while a series of strikes targeted bases in Timbuktu and Gao. The latter now serves as the headquarters of the Movement For Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). Air strikes are set to increase in the immediate future before tapering down in reaction to the Islamists' movements.

"Hundreds" of French troops have also been deployed to Bamako to "assess the capital," secure diplomatic personnel and aide French nationals.

Given the fast-moving uncertainty, these factors are worth monitoring in the run-up to Africa's next asymmetric land war. 

Shifting Objectives

One set of determining factors is the multiple objectives offered by French officials as they attempt to convince their own voters of Mali's just cause. On Saturday President François Hollande announced that current operations in Mali are "limited to preparing for the deployment of an African intervention force." The Defense Ministry subsequently declared that Paris's goal "is to lead a relentless struggle against terrorist groups," including the prevention of "any new offensive of these groups to the south of Mali." These objectives ultimately intercept: France must provide the force to block the militants' offensive actions and defend the border between north and south until African reinforcements arrive. 2,000 of the planned 3,200 ECOWAS troops are expected to land by Monday - 500 each from Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal - and NATO air operations will continue throughout their deployment.

How these strikes are interpreted by the local population - as the Islamists full responsibility or hostility towards the south and international community - has been decided for the immediate future. Residents have reportedly welcomed French flags in the sky and expect African ground forces to follow, sentiments that must be nurtured in order for NATO and ECOWAS's mission to succeed. NATO is currently operating without the support of a legitimate government or military.

A U.S. official also confirmed that Washington will deploy drones for surveillance purposes (easily armed at a moment's notice), and Britain has dispatched two C17 aircrafts to transport allied troops. Both powers prefer that France "take the lead" in what could be a long, messy war in Mali.

Underestimating Guerrillas' Capabilities

The joint NATO-ECOWAS force is rightfully viewed as vastly superior to the Islamist umbrella currently entrenching itself in northern Mali. However Western and African capitals should be wary of falling into a quintessential guerrilla trap: underestimating the opponent. Many negative things have been said of the Islamists' relative strength, how they only defeated a rag-tag Malian army, and how professionally trained armies will overpower them. This pattern represents the nature of insurgency; asymmetric forces are inherently weaker than conventional forces, and usually stronger in comparison to weak governments. Some insurgencies, such as Hezbollah and the Taliban, are more disciplined than others, which must evolve their capabilities or risk elimination from the actions of stronger governments.

A weaker insurgency is known to become stronger through the only school of war that is often available: direct combat. This phenomena was noted in U.S. observations of Iraq's insurgency and appears to be occurring in Mali.

After a great deal of talk concerning their weakness, French officials are either flattering Mali's militants or genuinely surprised by their abilities - which would be an inexcusable error and ominous sign of future events. How the Islamists fight NATO and ECOWAS soldiers on land remains to be seen, but the militants are putting their air defense weapons to immediate use. Western intelligence suspects that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) smuggled out a cache of Libya's surface-to-air missiles, potential fear-mongering that doubles as a real possibility. Heavy machine guns have also been mounted onto the Islamists' pickups.

"What has struck us markedly is how modern their equipment is and their ability to use it," said one of Hollande's aide, but another French official said that Paris expects a short campaign before ECOWAS takes over.

This reaction may come true - or suggests that NATO still has much to learn about the Islamists' overall forces and the non-military environment in Mali. Three different networks, operating with semi-independent agendas, have spent the last six months recruiting across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia in preparation for NATO's intervention.

Overselling Guerrillas' Capabilities

Taken together with this potential underestimate, politically overestimating the situation in Mali could generate more unexpected consequences in a country divided by its own government. French officials speak as though the capital was facing imminent danger, an assessment that The Trench disagrees with considering that thousands of well-trained militants would be needed to effectively sweep across the south. Building on Hollande's mixture of humanitarian and nationalist rhetoric, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius boasted that, "The Islamist offensive has been stopped. Blocking the terrorists... we've done it." 

The Islamists had launched an offensive into the central delta but no one knows how far - they could stopped at Mopti. Yet French intelligence services claim they "detected preparations for what they described as a 'major offensive' organized and coordinated by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb."

Jean-Yves Le Drian, France's Defense Minister, unequivocally announced on Sunday, “There was a spectacular acceleration of these [jihadi] groups since Thursday. If no one intervened, Bamako would have fallen two or three days later. France is at war against terrorism.”

Instability and other uncertainties normally accompany the hype of war against terrorism.

Political Resolution Is Mali's Only Exit

Lastly, the concrete deployment of NATO forces will push a negotiated settlement even further away from reality. African capitals have invested months into pulling Ansar Dine away from AQIM and MUJAO, hoping at the least to sow division between networks. Now this possibility goes from implausible to impossible. Accordingly, NATO and ECOWAS must commit an even greater amount of time and energy to organizing a political-economic resolution with the north's diverse ethnic groups.

None of these challenges begin to address the present lack of government in Bamako.

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.]

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.

Negotiating Mashup In Northern Mali

Seven months ago the rebel group Ansar Dine, an Islamist-Tuareg outfit, rode its way across northern Mali with the assistance of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

As the initial dust settled, observers began to credit part of the MNLA's military advances to Ansar Dine and the groups' ability to impose order/recruit. The two groups appeared to co-exist out of self-interest rather than mutual interests, telegraphing Ansar Dine's future mobilization and its division with the MNLA. Neither could find a compromise between their ultimate goal of a Taureg state or an Islamic state. After announcing a temporary pact in late May, Ansar Dine's partnership with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) and Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) evicted the MNLA from its Gao headquarters in July.

Mimicking the shifting sands of north Africa's dunes, northern Mali's politico-military equation has since swung back in the direction of MNLA-Ansar Dine negotiations. On Friday Burkina Faso's President, Blaise Compaore, welcomed a joint-delegation sent by the two groups.

"All the international instruments have been put in place (to deal with this crisis)," Tieman Coulibaly, Mali's Minister of Foreign Affairs, told reporters earlier this month. "And we are now weighing the options - either negotiations or military intervention in order to liberate northern Mali."

Entering into negotiations with the MNLA has been easy enough for African and Western capitals. Displaced by another Tuareg group and its foreign allies, the MNLA has little to lose by cutting a deal with the international community, which was never prepared to accept an independent Azawad. The group has yet to reverse its push for autonomy, but in most other ways is prepared to assist Mali's government in the overthrow of AQIM and MUJAO. This strategy is designed to recoup lost territory and sidestep any military operation conducted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Fresh information suggest that the MNLA suffered another defeat on Friday night after trying to retake Gao.

The plan to lure Ansar Dine away from AQIM and MUJAO began as early as June, and is proceeding as one would expect of such negotiations. Throughout this period Ansar Dine and its allies have solidified their military positions and carried out strict Islamic punishments, suggesting that Ansar Dine is only toying with foreign mediators. The group has also made contact with Algerian diplomats, whose government seeks to avoid a large-scale intervention that would effect its borders. Thus Ansar Dine's actions could intend to delay a foreign intervention rather than cooperate with foreign powers.

For now spokesman Mohammad Ag Aharib claims that Ansar Dine is prepared to "get rid of terrorism, drug trafficking and foreign groups," telling the AFP that "we don’t agree with taking hostages and drug trafficking." These operations are believed to provide the bulk of AQIM and MUJAO's financing. Problematically, Ag Aharib rejects the possibility of renouncing Shariah law, saying "we insist that it be applied where we live." Ansar Dine's terms indicate that no compromise is available with foreign powers, and that each is feeling the other's capabilities before hostilities begin. How much control Ansar Dine can apply over northern Mali also remains uncertain. Considering its offer to expel  "foreigners," meaning AQIM and MUJAO, the group may retain possession over less ground than its initial conquest.

If the group isn't feigning interest with the international community, Ansar Dine must hope to regain any national influence lost to AQIM and MUJAO's international agendas.

The dual track of negotiations and military action accompanies most wars, conventional or unconventional. Speaking to Mali's interim President, Diocounda Traore, on Thursday, French President Francois Hollande told his counterpart (and by extension ECOWAS), "The acceleration of this dialogue must accompany the progress in African military-planning efforts." Negotiating is generally superior to fighting during counterinsurgency, as it addresses non-military sources of friction, and foreign powers seek to fight as limited of an enemy as possible. For months the U.S. and NATO allies have hesitated to commit themselves militarily in northern Mali, realizing that Mali's interim government and a full network of militant groups equates to an unreasonably dangerous mission.

However Western forces are itching for some form of military engagement against AQIM and MUJAO, ruling out a non-violent resolution. Washington in particular doesn't want to miss this opportunity to strike directly at AQIM, and NATO as a whole views Mali as a profitable training ground. U.S. and French Special Forces operated in the country prior to March's coup as part of the Sahel's overall militarization; a large part of Mali's new mission is built around a Western-African training program. The Trench also speculates that a new drone base may find a home somewhere in the Sahel, given the long-term nature of Mali's mission and AQIM's lifespan.

These designs play a motivating role in General Carter Ham's statements from Paris, which linked the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi to AQIM. The outgoing commander of AFRICOM cautioned that the attack was not necessarily "an AQIM-planned or organized or led activity," but the direction of his message is clear enough. Former CIA Director David Petraeus gave a similar account on Friday to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees (not without its own controversy). Problematically, a military victory in northern Mali simply returns North Africa's environment to a pre-coup state, rather than permanently eliminate AQIM's presence.

Left in the militants’ vacuum: loose insurgents of all types, unresolved national grievances with a weak government, and the residue of Western imperialism.

Pin The CIA Base On the Map

Yesterday The Washington Post excited or disturbed a wide population of various individuals by announcing the CIA's request for additional unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

Pentagon-approved plans are in the final stages of being submitted to the White House, where the proposal will be evaluated by counterterrorism chief John Brennan and a group of national security officials. If approved by President Barack Obama, the CIA's drone fleet is expected to rise from 35 to 45 and increase the range of its entire assassination/surveillance operations. The CIA currently supplements its forces by employing weapons systems from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). A boost in its capabilities is aimed at retaining the CIA's autonomy; the CIA relies on military pilots to operate from the U.S. and reportedly chafes at using JSOC airstrips.

This latest move that has unnerved some Pentagon departments, if their own staff is to be believed, except none of them could be as stressed as those inhabiting a drone's flight path.

The Washington Post only breaks small pieces of "new" information, and even then no aspect is surprising. Drones are scheduled to increase the ranks of all branches that fly them, especially covert divisions, and CIA officials speak as though their shipment is late. The Department of Defense naturally wants to clarify their terms, but has no overriding reason to stop a process that cannot be stopped. Brennan then acts a buffer for all parties in the White House. Most surprising would be a veto from the drone-slinging President.

What's unnerving to foreign populations are the requirements of UASs and their collateral damage. A drone's range is grimly impressive for its machinery - up go 1,000 miles - but it needs a network to support its operations. Drones fly out of multiple points in Afghanistan, having been evicted from Pakistan, while a grid of drone bases has been constructed over the Horn of Africa to target al-Qaeda and its affiliated militants. Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia and the Seychelles all host their own bases, controlled by either the CIA or JSOC, and Yemen just received its own during a popular revolution. Many of these cases illustrate the hegemonic threat that drones bring to their area of operations. In Yemen, the CIA had already began construction under Ali Abdullah Saleh's secret approval when the revolution struck, and the White House accelerated its building schedule from two years to eight months in response.

This decision was attributed to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) growth in southern and eastern Yemen, a predictable that did come true. However the corrupt Saleh himself was largely responsible for watering AQAP and his duplicitous approval of U.S. air strikes fertilized the soil. More virus than cure, U.S. policy would have gone in a vicious circle with Yemen's tribes had Saleh survived the revolution's first phase. Washington happily accepted his vice president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and turned over the base's secrecy to him - one of many reasons why Washington and Riyadh orchestrated Hadi's ascendency.

Yemenis themselves were never told anything or allowed any input, despite the fact that they suffer most when a drone misses. Even then civilian casualties are denied - forget compensation - and the mere presence unnerves adults and children alike. The entire project is thoroughly totalitarian.

As The Washington Post reports, "Any move to expand the reach of the CIA’s fleet of armed drones probably would require the agency to establish additional secret bases." This "need" entails more secret handshakes with autocratic, unrepresentative and unreliable governments. The new wave of bases will hit northern Africa hardest, possibly starting with Algeria as a launch point into Libya and Mali. Algiers runs a notoriously anti-interference policy to tamp down its cooperation with foreign powers (Washington), and may eventually consent in a similar fashion as Ethiopia's government. The two governments have already assembled a chain of bases in the Sahel and a new agreement would ensure no problems in the event that pro-democracy demonstrations flair up, as they periodically do.

Friendlier lands could be found in Nigeria, one of world's the most pro-American states, and neighboring Niger. Mauritania or even Mali itself could play host to a base as part of NATO and ECOWAS's intervention, which includes a robust training mission and the need for Western support bases.

The populations of these nations will be lucky to receive an advanced warning of their new guests.

ECOWAS, NATO Inching Closer To Northern Mali

After months of navigating the world's international blocs, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) recently approved the submission of a politco-military proposal for northern Mali within 45 days. Whether NATO, the African Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) can launch their intervention before April 2013's election remains uncertain; multiple delays have obstructed an effective response to Mali's coup and burgeoning asymmetric war. Both Western and African powers talk tougher than they seem prepared to act - not that caution or multilateralism is unwise - and initial estimates of 3,000 troops underestimate the task at hand. Mali's interim government has even sent mixed signals about the presence of any foreign troops.

Five days from now, representatives from the UN, ECOWAS, AU, EU and other "neighboring countries" (presumably Algeria and Mauritania) are scheduled to debate a hard mission plan in Mali's capital.

The Islamic network that swept over northern Mali earlier this year takes these threats completely seriously, for an intervention is certain to arrive at some point in the future. Having pledged to defeat any intruder and entrenched themselves within the population, militant spokesmen also promise to send their forces into Mali's south. Nor did they waste any time responding to Friday's at the UNSC and French President Francois Hollande in particular.

"If he continues to throw oil on the fire, we will send him the pictures of dead French hostages in the coming days," Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for MUJAO, told Reuters on Saturday. "He will not be able to count the bodies of French expatriates across West Africa and elsewhere."

However observers and locals alike have trouble determining who exactly is controlling northern Mali. Two theories may help explain the general situation between Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a hydra-like network of African, Arab and Asian militants. Each supposedly has their own agenda. Ansar Dine is commanded by Iyad Ag Ghaly, a Tuareg who fought in earlier rebellions but has broken off under the banner of strict Sharia law. His forces, along with MUJAO, would expel the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) from northern Mali's urban areas after the Tuaregs' own campaign. Ag Ghaly now allies himself with AQIM, whose Arab fighters are periodically reported by locals in northern Mali's towns.

MUJAO, on the other hand, is suspected of growing out of AQIM. Looking to expand beyond the Maghreb and into lucrative West Africa, the group touts itself as pan-African and allegedly recruits from local sources. Northern Mali's vast deserts and mountain ranges provide an ideal base to increase the size and training of a guerrilla force.

A second theory places AQIM as the head of these two other groups, rather than as a partner. By absorbing Mali into their area of operations, the group could now control an enormous amount of territory to train in and plot from. What difference this makes on the ground is unclear though; they could experience a leadership dispute similar to al-Shabaab nationalists and al-Qaeda's branch in Somalia. Or they could fight more effectively as a diversified network. With AQIM's random bankroll, MUJAO's regional following and Ansar Dine's local intelligence, the three groups make for a deadly combination on paper. Defeating them on the battlefield won't dismantle all three groups or stop their activities. Thus local resistance, cooperation with the MNLA, political sensitivity and organization within Mali's government form the keys of victory. Resolution 2012 conditions a military response on progress in these areas, but they are no more stable than northern Mali.

Detailed analysis of NATO and ECOWAS's plans will be posted shortly.

Implications of Mali's Brutal Massacre

The chain reaction within a chain reaction began innocently at a bridge before descending into lawlessness. En route to a religious conference in Mali's capital of Bamako, a bus of Mauritanian preachers stopped at a military checkpoint on the night of September 8th. Mali soldiers would search the bus after becoming suspicious of a young bearded man, only to find common items in place of weapons and extremist paraphernalia. The soldiers then packed the men into a truck and took them to their camp in Diabaly, sprayed the vehicle with bullets, buried the bodies and launched a search for witnesses.

An investigative account of Mali's religious killings is as horrific as one can reasonably expect, if the imagination is forced to recreate the visceral experience of escaping a death camp for five days - only to be caught and detained again. That is the story of Mohamed, the lone surviver of Diabaly's cold-blooded massacre. Collapsing behind his friends' lifeless bodies and scaling a wall bought him five days of misery in the wild, and a weeks-long detention just ended after the Mauritanian government pressured for his release. A large section of the Associated Press's report is based on his testimony, underscoring how easily Diabaly's events could have disappeared into the night.

Mohamed's account, when pieced with information from other witnesses and government officials, reveals a common fear emanating from the capital. Already mired in the remnants of a coup and unable to organize a counterattack against non-state actors in the north, Mali's army is suffering from a lack of disciple, morale and civilian oversight. The accused soldiers themselves are suspected of acting under their own volition, however the government bears responsibility for several key errors that affect Mali's overall situation. In attempting to explain the soldiers' actions, a memo was leaked to provide evidence that they had been ordered to monitor visiting members of the Dawa Tablighi sect and "limit their entry into the country."

This appeal to discrimination will die a swift death with northern Muslims, gift-wrap propaganda for a network of Islamic militias and reinforce the mistrust of Mali's southern population all at once.

Rather than cooperate with the army, local police and gendarmes live in fear of doing their job and appear to receive limited support from the capital. Two gendarmes radioed in the situation to their superior and were ordered to send a policeman to follow the military convoy on his scooter. The massacre was committed as they argued their case in the commander's office, leading the senior gendarmerie commander to remark that soldiers regularly act without the consent of their superiors. All government witnesses in question spoke anonymously "out of fear for their safety."

This fear is justified by the Malian government's disregard for accountability and transparency; several civilian witnesses were lucky to escape the military's harassment. Still refusing to take full responsibility, the government has tried its best to bury as much of the story as possible. Its initial response denied that the preachers were peaceful and linked them to Islamic extremists. After Mauritania's outrage forced Bamako to recant, blame was laid onto a "lone soldier" to cover up a camp's worth of abuses. Even now the government continues to excuse its soldiers' behavior in public and manipulate the night of September 8th. Colonel Idrissa Traore, director of the military's public relations, admitted that the soldiers violated "command structure" before repeating the link between Dawa and Ansar Dine chief Iyad al Ghani.

He claims that the military held Mohamed for a week due to his "bad psychological state," a narrative that Mohamed rejects.

This general disarray partly explains the urgent concern of Western and African powers as they draft contingencies to retake Mali's northern territory. While the government has been tentatively assigned a military role in conjunction the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), foreign governments reluctantly accept the fact that Mali is incapable of fighting for and, more importantly, governing the north. The government's civilian and military command structure is too disrupted to pursue a successful counterinsurgency over a periodic years. These conditions (plus U.S. and European political factors) indicate that any type of foreign intervention is months away from deploying into a complex asymmetric environment.

Information Warfare Rules the World

Information warfare rests for no day, but some days appear to bring an extraordinary pace of intelligence and propaganda. Sunday is one of them. Across the so-called "arc of instability” that Washington and al-Qaeda are competing to infiltrate, the two forces and their allies are engaged in open conflict outside the strict military sphere. All of these development will receive wider strategic analysis in the near future:

Haqqanis Vow Retaliation For "Terrorist" Label

Amid the heated battle over the Haqqani's "terrorist" designation, a move that also advances the threat of designating Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism, an urgent fragment of information has emerged in the fog of war. Citing a "senior member" of the group, the Associated Press reports that Sirajuddin Haqqani "wants to carry out 80 to 100 attacks on US forces in Afghanistan and 20 attacks on other Nato members." His motivation is attributed to Washington's political assault, not his younger brother's recent death-by-drone, but the Haqqanis' display of strength would presumably react to both factors.

The anonymous commander was also keen to emphasize the Taliban's consistent narrative that both groups are one and the same, fighting under the same banner in their own territory. Using their channels and the international media to carry messages to their solders, Sirajuddin has symbolically asked for permission to act from Mullah Omar in order to reinforce the Taliban's unity - a simple but effective tactic to counter Washington's actions. As part of the Haqqanis' media offensive, another "senior commander" told Reuters that the Obama administration has secretly contacted the group in conjunction with Mullah Omar's shura. He too declared the Afghan Taliban to be one network and rejected the possibility of the Haqqanis' exclusion.

”(US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham) Clinton should have the courage to tell the Americans about their contacts and even talks with us,” he said.

Perhaps the Obama administration intends to leverage its terrorist designation into a bargaining chip with the Haqqanis, but the odds of political resolution by 2015 remain stagnant.

Yemen, U.S. Scrub Civilian Casualties With AQAP

Last Sunday a U.S. drone strike in Raada, Yemen allegedly killed five militants traveling by vehicle. Soon afterward, local sources revealed that the barrage of Hellfire missiles had actually killed 14 civilians, including three women and three children. U.S. officials were predictably mum as they scrambled behind the scenes to collaborate their story with the Yemeni government, which often passes on the blame of civilian casualties.

"This was one of the very few times when our target was completely missed," a senior Yemeni Defense official admitted to CNN. "It was a mistake, but we hope it will not hurt our anti-terror efforts in the region."

Despite U.S. claims that drones create less tribal blowback than expected, local leaders and their supporters demanded a government explanation within 48 hours. Both governments have since justified the strike on the presence of local AQAP member Abdelrauf al-Dahab, who escaped the attack unharmed. al-Dahab, the brother of the man who led Raada's brief takeover in February, makes for a logical target in the war against AQAP, but the consequences are unacceptable from a counterinsurgency standpoint. That Tareq al-Dahab was legitimately eliminated by Yemen's tribal mechanisms contrasts vividly with errant U.S. missiles. The vast majority of Yemenis aren't opposed to the destruction of AQAP, so much as the unaccountable nature of U.S. counterterrorism and Washington's intrusive hegemony within the national government.

And they don't want "a new fleet of drones" flying over their country.

Suspicious Circumstances Surround Mali Executions

Already caught in a political struggle between itself, ECOWAS and the UNSC, the Mali government continues to damage a potential operation into the Islamic-held north before it begins. One of two events occurred Saturday night in the village of Diabaly. According to a Mali security official, 16 members of the Dawa sect refused to stop at a checkpoint and "after warning shots were fired were treated as enemies." The dead counted eight Malians and eight Mauritanians. Conversely, a local Mali police official and a relative of the victims speak of a horrific alternative: the group of men, including 12 Mauritanians, were "moderate" Islamists. Mohamed Bashir claims that two cousins died by execution "after soldiers arrested the preachers and then led into the darkness away from the village in the shooting."

A statement from Mauritania’s state media now confirms, ‘‘Mauritanian officials are in touch with Malian authorities in order to get more information on the circumstances of this affair and also to repatriate the bodies of the Mauritanians who were killed.’’

Recognizing the danger of a cover-up, the Mali government is gradually rolling back its story while refusing to acknowledge the execution. A statement has announced its "deep regret" and pledged an immediate investigation, "the results of which will be communicated to the public and the international community.’’ This swift reaction is admirable in a vacuum, but even northern Malians with no sympathy for the Islamist takeover may be affected by Diabaly. The three-headed network of Ansar Dine, the Movement of Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and AQIM will certainly milk the execution to the last propaganda drop.

‘‘We do not recognize these words of condolences issued by Mali which has killed these innocent people,’’ said Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for Ansar Dine. ‘‘These preachers have nothing to do with jihad. They are moderate people, who were constantly preaching to us, to tell us to be more moderate in our actions. And if the Malian government has killed them in this barbaric fashion, we will seek revenge.’’

These types of visceral events magnify conflict lines and are capable of producing disproportionate effects in asymmetric warfare.

Northern Mali Awash In Questions

Unpredictability has reached a tangible level of predictability in northern Mali. Following weeks of tense negotiations between the Taureg-dominated National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine, an Islamic group with self-pronounced ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), another AQIM affiliate has staged a hostile takeover of the MNLA's position in Gao. A spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), AQIM's formal offshoot, told Al Jazeera that the group killed several dozen MNLA members, captured more than 40 prisoners and seized a group of tanks over the past week. 

"Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and all the mujahidin are with us here in Gao, including Ansar al Din and all the al-Qaeda emirs," Abu Al Waleed al Sahraoui triumphantly announced on Thursday. "The entire city is happy and celebrating now that we have gotten rid of the MNLA." 

Although the MNLA has refuted key elements of al Sahraoui's version of the battle, its members paint a picture with rough similarities to his account. They claim that two of AQIM's lieutenants, Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Hamid Abou Zeid, arrived in Gao to personally direct an offensive against the MNLA. Neither side disputes the fact that MUJAO attacked both the MNLA's headquarters in Gao's governors' building and the house of its secretary-general, Bilal Ag Acherif. Belmoktar, the commander of an AQIM "battalion" in Algeria, has since been reported killed in action by Algerian state media (Ennahar TV), while an MNLA official said that Ag Acherid was "accidentally shot" by friendly fire. He currently rests in a hospital bed in Ouagadougou, the capital of neighboring Burkina Faso. 

Belmokhtar's ultimate fate remains unknown. 

As for Gao itself, another MNLA source said that a military convoy had been dispatched from Kidal to regain total control of the town. Yet the MNLA is also minimizing its losses by exploiting Mali's information vacuum, just as MUJAO has exaggerated its victory and local support. Colonel Asaleth Ag Khabi, the MNLA's deputy chief of staff and commander of military operations in Gao, told the Associated Press, "I cannot confirm that the HQ of the NMLA, which is located inside the governor's building in Gao, has been taken by the Islamists from MUJAO.” 

"But in any case this headquarters is just a political office, not a military building." 

Despite Gao's confusion, the status between the MNLA and Ansar Dine is clearing with each passing battle. Both groups have validated the expectations of many analysts; incompatible with each other's ideology and political objectives, the competing insurgencies attempted to join forces due to their overlapping interests. However the MNLA seeks an own autonomous state based on ethnic factors, along with a system of governance that includes the moderate version of Sharia followed by most Tauregs. Ansar Dine and MUJAO are pursuing a strict Islamic state that would host international jihadists. While the groups might have joined forces against an imminent intervention, the MNLA is now actively collaborating with foreign powers in order to negate Ansar Dine's influence. 

Beyond this relative certainty, though, lies a host of unanswered dilemmas. Ansar Dine now claims over half of a territory the size of several American states, a measurement that the MNLA rejects, but residents and journalists have persistently alerted the outside world of Ansar Dine's expanding authority. Realistically, the group only needs to control a fraction of Mali to pursue its militaristic ends. Holding Azawad in its entirety - an area that exceeds all of al-Qaeda's territory in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and Mauritania - is almost too good to be true. One can begin to understand why Islamic militants believe that their "new state" fell from the heavens. 

Equally clouded is the number of foreign fighters populating Ansar Dine and MUJAO's ranks. The latter is mostly composed of Mauritanians that publicly seek to expand AQIM across West Africa, though other sources allege that MUJAO subscribes to a leading conspiracy in the Sahel: Algerian intelligence founded or else infiltrated AQIM in order to suppress the Tuaregs, Polisario and other separatist groups in the area. Regardless, MUJAO is suspected of trafficking in fighters from Algeria and Libya, a stream that flows into Ansar Dine and AQIM's own recruitment. According local residents and an intelligence report from Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou, Pakistani gunmen are also busying themselves patrolling Timbuktu's streets and building training camps near Gao. AQIM officials have toured the process (if local journalists are to be believed). 

On the other hand, one MNLA member warned, "We are dealing with Islamists that are from Gao, that are here from a long time ago. Who were born and raised here. And this combat is not over." 

No concrete estimates are available on the MNLA, Ansar Dine or MUJAO's strength ratios. Figures on each group range between several hundred fighters to over a thousand, putting the likely total in between, but this number is rising with northern Mali's profile. Their arsenal has also been ambiguously boosted by the leftovers of Mali's fleeing army and Libya's revolution, adding to the many uncertainties that complicate the organization of an international counteroffensive. With Mali's interim government still struggling to stay afloat after March's coup, the (ECOWAS) has stepped in to apply the majority of political pressure on the MNLA. Threats of war have been issued and mobilization is inching forward. Just recently, Johnnie Carson admitted that "one has to take into account that the government in the south has no effective military now." 

The Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Africa said that Washington doesn't expect a presidential election until May 2013, a year-long delay, and cautioned, "Any effort to look at retake the north would be a significant undertaking for ECOWAS." 

Problematically, the combination of northern Mali's size and a multi-layered enemy could exhaust all but the largest force. ECOWAS must commit several battalions (possibly more) and President still expects a healthy dose of Western airpower. The Obama administration has remained unusually quiet for an event of this magnitude, but northern Mali may be an outlier in Washington's grander plan for Africa. This is territory that didn't need to be openly defended a mere four months ago. Now a great deal of resources and time - more force than the U.S. has deployed in the area - must be devoted to the Sahel's center. 

 A large-scale counterinsurgency, even when "led" by African powers, is not what U.S. policy-makers have in mind for their "light" wars. 

Given the current state of events inside and outside of Mali, urgent foreign capitals appear to have accepted the reality that a military campaign will be measured not in months but years. Many actors have appeared in the asymmetric environment and many hurdles obstruct a UN-approved mission carried about by ECOWAS and NATO powers. The sheer number of challenges could eventually yield a political resolution with the MNLA, but the odds of pacifying Tuareg grievances are low and al-Qaeda's roots still need to be dug up by force. Thus one more possibility must be considered: fomenting an internal rebellion. 

Speaking through a communique issued after Ansar Dine's execution of a local Gao official, Communications Minister Hamadoun Touré promised that the interim government "hasn't forgotten" and "will not abandon" the citizens of northern Mali. He also praised the youth's demonstrations against Islamist rule, calling them "one facet of the Malian people's resistance." 

Instead of directly confronting all parts of the insurgency's network at once, Mali's government and other powers may attempt to stage a preemptive rebellion before launching their assault. This strategy, if timed exactly, would disperse al-Qaeda's influence and produce a more effective sweep of the north. Such a possibility may have multiple angles too. According to the MNLA's Communication Minister Moussa, Ag al-Sarid, Algeria has deployed intelligence agents officers inside northern Mali to coordinate an "anti-Azawad rebellion alongside al-Qaeda operatives." If half true, operatives from Mauritania, Algeria, Niger and Western states could all find themselves tasked to the amplification of a local uprising. 

All involved actors and observers have no choice except to keep watching, trust no information absolutely and expect the unexpected.