TerrorismAlgeria agreed to join military campaign to oust Mali Islamic militants

The days of northern Mali as an independent state called Azawad are numbered, as the pace of planning for a military campaign to oust the Islamic militants, who took over the break-away region in late April, is accelerating.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday met with Algeria’s president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, seeking Algeria’s support for an emerging international effort to evict Islamic militants out of northern Mali.

Northern Mali, now calling itself Azawad, has broken away from Mali in late March. The initial impetus was to create an independent state for the Tuareg ethnic group, but within weeks the vast territory became a sanctuary for Islamic terrorists, including militants from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The Islamists have imposed a strict Sharia law, causing about 400,000 of the area’s 1.6 million inhabitants to flee to Mali and other neighboring states.

The meetings between U.S. and Algerian officials have led to what American officials described as a “convergence” of the approaches of the two countries to the issue of Azawad.

“We have agreed to continue with in-depth expert discussions,” Clinton said, “to determine the most effective approaches that we should be taking.”

The New York Times reports that the Islamist takeover of northern Mali is a growing worry for the United States and for France, the former colonial power. It is also of deep concern for Azawad’s neighbors – Niger, Mauritania, Burkina-Faso, and Mali itself. These neighbors not only have to deal with waves of refugees fleeing the harsh Islamic rule in the break-away region, but they are concerned about the encouragement Islamic militants in their own countries would derive from an al Qaeda-inspired state on their door step.

In early October, in response to a request from a Mali government, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution declaring its “readiness” to send an international force to evict the militants. The details of the military are now being worked out. Reports say the plan calls for forces from Nigeria and other African countries to help Mali’s military launch a campaign against the militants. France, the United States, and other countries would help with training, intelligence, and logistics.

A group of military planners from several countries is already working in a military base in north Niger.

Diplomats emphasize that the support of Algeria, the region’s strongest military power and country sharing a long border with Mali, would be important for the success of the military campaign. Algeria fought its own bloody war against Islamic militants from 1992 to 1998. To fight that war and win, Algeria not only developed considerable counter-terrorism military capabilities, but has also established what experts regard as one of the best intelligence services when it comes to tracking Islamic networks.

The Times notes that Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania have set up an intelligence center in the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset to coordinate efforts against al Qaeda and other regional threats.

“There is a strong recognition that Algeria has to be a central part of the solution,” an American official said.

Algeria is anxious about the growing presence of al Qaeda in Azawad, but it wants to make sure than any campaign to oust the militants will not result in two negative developments for Algeria itself: Algeria does not want a campaign against the militants in northern Mali to push these militants into southern Algeria. The second worry is that this campaign alienate and radicalize the Tuaregs not only in Mali, but in Algeria as well.

American officials say, though, that the continuing deterioration of the security situation in Mali, and the militants’ tightening grip over Azawad, have made Algeria more willing to join the effort against them.

“There is a Malian institutional crisis,” the Algerian foreign minister, Mourad Medelci, said on 19 October in an interview during an international meeting in Bamako, the capital of Mali. “The Algerians are ready to help,” he said.

Clinton’s Monday visit to Algeria followed a series of high-level meetings in Washington last week between American and Algerian officials.

American officials said that in his meeting with Clinton, President Bouteflika stressed the importance of political side of the problem, and noted the work Algeria had done to facilitate a dialogue between moderate Tuaregs and the Malian authorities. American officials acknowledged the value of reaching out to moderate Tuaregs, but insisted that the United States has no intention of deferring the planning for a military campaign while those political talks are going on..

“It’s very clear that a political process and our counterterrorism efforts in Mali need to work in parallel and be mutually reinforcing,” a senior State Department official told the Times.