INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 754
B.RAMAN
Since April last, a new brand of jihadists called Ansar
Dine (Defenders of Faith) has been spreading jihadist mayhem in northern Mali, reminding one of the
brutalities and vandalism perpetrated by the Taliban under Mulla Mohammad Omar from
1994 and before it was overthrown by the US in October 2001 after the 9/11
terrorist strikes by Al Qaeda in the US. Mali, a land-locked country in Western Africa,
borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte
d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on
the west
2. The Taliban, which carried out indescribable
cruelties in the name of Islam against fellow-Muslims---particularly the Hazara
Shias---- and destroyed the historical Buddhist shrine of Bamiyan, initially consisted of Pashtun tribals
radicalised, trained and armed by the intelligence agencies of the US, Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan for use against the Soviet troops and pro-Soviet Afghan
security forces in Afghanistan.
3.After the post-1988 withdrawal of the Soviet
troops, these anti-communist jihadists
turned into anti-West, anti-Israel and anti-democracy radicals and spread
mayhem in the name of Al Qaeda in the Af-Pak region, Yemen, Saudi Arabia,
Somalia, Tunisia, Algeria and Indonesia.
4.Even before their activities could be brought
under control by the international community, a new brand of jihadists---- more
radical, more brutal and more vandalists than even Al Qaeda and the Taliban of
anti-Soviet vintage-- has made its appearance in northern Mali and joined hands with the remnants
of Al Qaeda in Algeria and Mauritania in the name of Al Qaeda of Islamic
Maghreb.
5.They have been carrying out acts of brutality and
vandalism against fellow-Muslims and the
widely-practised Sufism in Northern Mali. The Ansar Dine has been destroying the Islamic heritage sites in Timbuktu,
including the burial sites of many Sufi saints in the name of establishing a
pure Islamic state. Their attack on Sufism and their destruction of Sufi sites
indicate a strong Wahabi influence on them
6.The brutalisation of Islam in the name of Sharia,
which first made its appearance in the Af-Pak region after the withdrawal of
the Soviet troops, is now threatening to infect Northern Mali after the overthrow and elimination of Qaddafi
and his Army in Libya by a Western trained and armed army of mercenaries, many
of them Wahabi jihadists of Af-Pak vintage .
7.Just as many of the weapons so generously given by the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the Afghan Mujahideen ultimately fell into the
hands of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and were used by them to spread death and
destruction in the civilised world, the weapons from Libya---some accumulated
by Qaddafi’s Army and others given to his opponents by the intelligence
agencies of the US and other NATO countries--- are now finding their way into
the hands of the new post-Libya crop of jihadists in Northern Mali, Niger,
Algeria and Mauritania.
8. The West under the leadership of the US meddled
in Afghanistan in the 1980s in the name of containing communism and preventing
its spread in the Islamic world. The result: over two decades of international
jihadi terrorism from which the world has not yet fully recovered despite
successes in eliminating Osama bin Laden and other important leaders of Al
Qaeda. The Afghan and Pakistani Talibans, and the plethora of jihadi
organisations of Pakistan, with the Lashkar-e-Toiba in the forefront, are yet
to be brought under control due to the complicity of the Pakistani State with
them.
9.Now, new waves of anger, radicalisation and chaos
caused by the Western meddling in Iraq, Libya and Syria in the name of
promoting democracy are not only threatening to give a new lease of life to the
remnants of Al Qaeda of the Afghan vintage, but are also creating a new crop of
jihadists determined to keep the blood flowing in the name of Islam till an
Islamic Caliphate ruled according to the Sharia comes into being in Northern and
Western Africa.
10.The brutal elimination by the US-led forces with
the complicity of Iran of Saddam Hussein, who strongly countered the activities
of Al Qaeda, facilitated the ingress of Al Qaeda into Iraq, where it has been
spreading death and destruction. Similarly, the equally brutal elimination of
Qaddafi, who strongly countered Al Qaeda in North Africa and the Saharan region,
has led to the rise of Neo Al Qaeda in Northern Mali.
11.The process of destabilisation in Northern Mali
has got aggravated following the May 26 decision of the National Movement for
the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an organisation of secular Tuareg tribes, to merge with the Ansar Dine and declare the formation of a separate state in
northern Mali to be called the Islamic Republic of Azawad.
12. After the signing of
the accord on May 26, "Colonel" Bouna Ag Attayoub, an MNLA commander
in Timbuktu, told the BBC that "the Islamic Republic of Azawad is now an
independent sovereign state." The Ansar Dine did not in the past support
the creation of an independent State in Northern Mali, which is the goal of the
MNLA. It wanted to establish an Islamic State in the whole of Mali. Now, to
strengthen its position, it seems to have tactically decided to support the
MNLA’s demand for the secession of Northern Mali. It remains to be seen how far
the hitherto secular MNLA and the increasingly Wahabi Ansar Dine will remain
united.
13. Both the organisations draw their followers
from the Tuaregs, who are a nomadic tribe found in the Sahara Desert,in Niger,
Mali, Algeria and Libya. The Qaddafi regime allegedly supported for many years
the secular elements in the tribe and armed them to counter the pro-Al Qaeda
elements in the tribe. His regime supported a movement for an independent Tuareg State consisting of the
Tuareg-inhabited areas of Niger and Northern Mali. His overthrow and brutal
murder by the pro-Western armed mercenaries have weakened the secular elements
in the tribe and strengthened the hands of the Wahabi elements.
14.Many Tuaregs, who were fighting in Libya either
with Qaddafi’s Army or with the anti-Qaddafi mercenary forces trained and armed
by the Western intelligence agencies,
returned to Mali in March with the weapons acquired by them in Libya. Since
then, Mali, which had a tradition of democratic rule, has been going through
increasing instability following a short-lived military coup in March, which
overthrew the elected government of President Amadou Toumani Touré .A month
later, Dioncounda Traoré, 70, the leader of the country’s National Assembly,
was sworn in as interim President. He has not been able to impose his authority
15. In a statement
disseminated from Mauritania on July 7, Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
warned against anyone in Mali collaborating with a foreign military force that
might intervene in north Mali. Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a leader of AQIM, warned
that no one should be tempted to “profit from the situation” in north
Mali “by collaborating with the foreign forces who are eyeing the region.”
16.The previous day, another jihadist group calling
itself the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), threatened
countries who joined a military
intervention force.(11-7-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China
Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )
