Vol 53 No 18 | MALI Sidelining Blaise 7th September 2012 President Dioncounda Traoré has now officially requested military help from the Economic Community of West African States to help quell the revolt in the north. Sensitive to the...
Vol 53 No 17 | MALI Intervention plan revealed 24th August 2012 The UN and Ecowas are thinking about a military operation in the north: the question is how, rather than whether Mali’s regional neighbours are planning a three-phase military intervention, according to a document from the Economic Community of West African States which Africa Confidential has exclusively obtained. The ‘Strategic Concept’ report...
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...