Vol 53 No 15 | MALI The jihadists take over 19th July 2012 The MNLA has lost out to AQIM and its allies in the north and may now offer its forces to fight them In a desperate bid to hold itself together, a much weakened Mouvement national pour la libération de l’Azawad has abandoned its ambition of an independent Azawad state. The...
Vol 53 No 15 | MALI Bamako drift 19th July 2012 Mali’s transitional Prime Minister, Cheick Modibo Diarra, is now echoing the talk in the corridors of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) of creating an enlarged...
Vol 53 No 13 | MALI Tuareg splits widen 22nd June 2012 A complex interplay of tribal, kinship, ideological and nationalist allegiances lies just beneath the surface of the Tuareg revolt When day dawns in northern Mali, another faction emerges. Sharp divisions have opened within the Mouvement national pour la libération de l’Azawad over how best to confront the...
Vol 53 No 12 | MALI Sanogo ponders compromise 8th June 2012 There are signs the coup leader, if not his radical civilian supporters, may be moving to restore constitutional rule Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo has begun to distance himself from his hardline radical supporters and could well be on the road back to accepting constitutional rule. Sources in...
Vol 53 No 12 | MALI Pushing the putsch 8th June 2012 Captain Amadou Sanogo’s military followers duly saluted his 20 May deal to back Dioncounda Traoré as interim President, but his radical civilian allies were determined to press...
Vol 53 No 12 | MALI Islamic state 8th June 2012 After weeks of wrangling, Tuareg nationalists and their jihadist allies reached a shaky agreement to share power in northern Mali and formally declared the Islamic Republic of Azawad...
Vol 53 No 11 | MALI Tuaregs talk government 25th May 2012 The MNLA and the jihadists try to form a government for ‘Azawad’ While demonstrators stormed the presidential palace in Bamako and assaulted interim President Dioncounda Traoré, the leaders of the Tuareg revolt were hammering out a provisional government for what...
Vol 53 No 10 | MALI No go Sanogo 11th May 2012 The Islamist burning of the shrine of Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar in the ancient city of Timbuktu last week has compounded the national trauma of March’s military coup...
Vol 53 No 8 | MALI The north and south of it 13th April 2012 Tensions in Bamako ease as Sanogo withdraws but increase in the north as the rebels fall out After regional leaders called his bluff with financial sanctions and threats of military action, putsch leader Captain Amadou Sanogo beat as dignified a retreat from power as he...
Vol 53 No 8 | MALI Rebel against rebel – against the rest 13th April 2012 Tuareg separatists of the Mouvement national de la libération de l’Azawad are in a bitter struggle with a jihadist faction – Iyad ag Ghali and his Ansar Eddine...