The video is a peculiar affair: a portly figure, heavily bearded, inspects his Islamist fighters in the northern Malian desert. Taken at the beginning of the year and posted on YouTube, much of the 12 or so minutes is taken up with prayer, interspersed with shots of fighters attacking the small garrison at Aguelhok and shots of dead soldiers.
The man pictured is Iyad Ag Ghaly – nicknamed "the strategist" – the Tuareg Islamist leader of Ansar Dine, the "defenders of the faith". It is this man's actions in the coming weeks that might determine whether there is a foreign-led intervention in Mali against him and his allies – al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and Mujao (the Movement for Openness and Jihad in West Africa).
Earlier this year it was the alliance of these three groups – Ansar Dine, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and Mujao – that captured large parts of Mali's north, including the cities of Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao. Since then, they have imposed an unpopular and extreme interpretation of sharia law that has seen stonings, amputations and the destruction of shrines. » | Peter Beaumont | Saturday, October 27, 2012
