Mali: Europe Agrees To Stay And Fight

[Valin]

Strategy Page:

January 19, 2017:

 

The EU is taking the lead in trying to bring peace and good government to Mali. Peace means more foreign investment and greater economic growth. Good government means reducing the crippling corruption and improving the quality of government services. The most difficult aspect of that is trying to professionalize the Mali military. The EU has maintained a force of over 500 trainers since 2015 in a continuing effort to improve the skills of the troops. At this point about half the 18,000 Mali military personnel have had some of this training and the assessment of the trainers is that it will take at least ten years of effort to professionalize the military. It takes so long because you have to train and monitor officers and NCOs as they serve for years and advance in rank and experience. It’s the officers who can quickly destroy a well trained and equipped military and it takes a long time to show officers how to avoid the temptation to allow corruption to keep the military weak and unreliable. Corruption in general is the root cause of most economic and political problems in Africa (and worldwide).

 

The Islamic terrorists remain in Mali and the region but are not strong enough to again take control of any part of Mali. Despite that the Islamic terrorists continue to be disruptive. There were about 200 Islamic terrorist related acts of violence in Mali during 2016, 80 percent of them in the north. The main source of this violence is AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) which was formed in 2007 from several of the 1990s era Algerian groups. AQIM now operates throughout northern and west-central Africa.

 

Because AQIM leadership still contains a lot of Algerians the Algerian government has been helpful to African nations where AQIM is operating. AQIM now spends most of its time smuggling drugs, people and whatever else pays (like kidnapping Westerners). AQIM carries out or sponsors (with money, weapons and advice) smaller groups to carry out attacks and share the credit. AQIM likes to stay in the headlines. Veteran AQIM leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar is another Algerian who has survived and went on to found and lead AQIM affiliate al Mourabitoun. Belmokhtar has been responsible for many high-profile attacks in Libya, Algeria, Niger and Mali since 2011. He was believed to have been killed in a late November 2016 by a French airstrike in Libya but there has still not been any confirmation and the most recent AQIM attack in Mali mentioned Belmokhtar as one of those responsible. The U.S. has long offered a $5 million reward for information that would lead to the death or capture of Belmokhtar.

 

 

(Snip)

 

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