Posted on 11/12/2006 7:30:36 AM PST by Valin
DAKAR, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Tuareg rebels in Mali's northern desert vowed on Thursday to chase an al Qaeda-linked militant group off their territory and said they were seeking support from neighbouring Algeria to help do so. The Algerian militant movement, Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, is believed to be recruiting members around West Africa and training them in mobile camps in the Sahara. As it spread its operations from Algeria into northern Mali, the GSPC -- listed by Washington as a terrorist organisation -- has come into contact with Tuareg nomads who have controlled the Sahara's ancient trading routes for generations.
The turban-clad Tuareg, who themselves fought insurgencies against black African-dominated governments in Mali and Niger, rely heavily on smuggling and banditry for their survival and fear the GSPC will bring them unwanted state attention. "We are obliged to attack them," said Eglasse Ag Idar, a spokesman for Tuareg rebel group Democratic Alliance for Change, which staged a revolt in the Malian town of Kidal in May. "We can't put things off any longer. We can't negotiate with them any more on their presence in our zone. All that is over. ... We are at war," he told Reuters by satellite phone.
Tuareg fighters clashed with the GSPC near the Algerian border in September killing a senior commander close to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, their leader in the southern Sahara who is viewed by U.S. military experts as a serious regional security threat. The militant group responded with a revenge attack last week, ambushing Tuareg rebels near the village of Arouan, some 150 km (95 miles) from Kidal, and killing nine of them. "Neither side is just going to fold up and walk away. The Tuaregs have the advantage of home turf ... but the GSPC has a long history of black market activity, running guns, they're not exactly a pushover," said a senior U.S. military official.
APPEAL TO ALGERIA
The Tuareg rebel group's war footing against the GSPC gives them a rare common cause both with the Malian government and with Washington, which has been training armies around West Africa to combat such militant organisations. But they remain outlaws, ruling out a military alliance with the Malian army let alone with the U.S. Special Forces which have been carrying out training in the country. "It is very tricky because they are a non-state actor ... it puts the Malian government between a rock and a hard place," said the official from U.S. European Command (EUCOM), the headquarters for U.S. operations in most of sub-Saharan Africa. "But we are encouraged by the fact that the Tuaregs are taking steps to address the GSPC problem in their own backyard ... there is an alignment of common interest here."
Algeria has in the past rallied behind the Tuareg cause, helping to broker peace deals with the Malian government, and Ag Idar said the Tuaregs would meet with Algerian military and political officials in the coming days to ask for support. "Our alliance has to have partners ... we need Algerian help, Algerian support," he said.
Algeria had an important motive in helping the Tuaregs, the U.S. official said, because the GSPC were using their Malian network to smuggle arms and supplies towards Algiers, where near-simultaneous truck bomb attacks on two police stations killed three people on Monday. "If you can cut off that flow and make northern Mali an inhospitable place then you've also helped shut off the capabilities of the remaining GSPC up in northern Algeria," the U.S. official said. "For that, I'm sure, the Algerian government would be quite grateful."
What is it about that pompous title "Group for Preaching and Combat" that makes me think of a little kid thumping his chest and playing tarzan.
I swear I can't think that phrase without giggling.
From what little I know of them, the Tuareg are always ready to do business. For a modest amount of guns and money I'm sure we could get them to do what they've been doing even more efficiently. Kill buku terrorists!
If we take nothing else away from this article, it's that the world is a lot more complicated than we want too think it is.
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