THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: With the world’s attention elsewhere, Islamists and al-Qaeda have seized a vast area of northern Mali. David Blair reports.
A few days after desert gunmen swept out of the Sahara and captured Timbuktu, the city’s conquerors broadcast a message over its radio station.
“We are going to welcome some foreigners,” the inhabitants of this ancient trading centre in northern Mali were told. “Do not be afraid when you see them: we must all welcome them.”
A convoy of Land Cruisers duly arrived, laden with bearded fighters clad in sand-coloured turbans and robes. These were not rebels from the local Tuareg tribe, who had claimed credit for the fall of Timbuktu, but international jihadists from across the Muslim world including Algerians, Nigerians, Somalis and Pakistanis. This multinational parade drove home a harsh message: a new state had been born under the effective rule of al-Qaeda. Bewildered townspeople, who had only seen Tuareg insurgents up to that point, realised its true significance.
“We first saw the foreigners when they were in our city,” said Mousa Maigar, who witnessed the arrival of the column. “How they entered our country, we don’t know.”
Almost unnoticed by the outside world, a branch of al-Qaeda has seized a swathe of Africa covering more than 300,000 square miles. “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” (AQIM) and its allies have taken over an area of the Sahara more than three times the size of Britain, complete with airports, military bases, arms dumps and training camps.
Ever since the September 11 attacks, Western counter-terrorism policy has been designed to prevent al-Qaeda from controlling territory. Yet that is exactly what AQIM has now achieved. » | David Blair, Segou, Mali | Tuesday, July 10, 2012
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