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July 10th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
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.
Its new domain covers the regions of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal in northern Mali.
This area is already serving as a base for training and recruitment. But
AQIM’s new domain also lies across a trans-Saharan smuggling route employed
to run cocaine to Europe. The movement will have every opportunity to profit
from drug trafficking.
Already, equipment that was supplied to combat al-Qaeda has fallen into the
hands of its fighters. Before the capture of northern Mali by Islamists in
April, America had given military vehicles and satellite communications
technology to the country’s army. In particular, the US supplied six
counter-terrorism units with 87 Land Cruisers, along with satellite phones
and navigation aids. AQIM fighters are now using these American donations,
according to a serving soldier in the Malian army with decades of experience
in the north.
Five of the six specialist military units abandoned their equipment and fled
when AQIM and its allies advanced, he said. “The Islamists are the masters
today,” he added. “They have all the equipment that we left in the field.”
In addition to these assets, AQIM has also inherited the stores abandoned by
Mali’s army, including artillery, rocket launchers and large reserves of
small arms and ammunition. AQIM controls the civilian airports of Timbuktu,
Gao and Kidal, along with one of the region’s biggest military airbases at
Tessalit, near the northern border with Algeria.
“It pains my heart that I have relatives in the north who are suffering day by
day and it is not in my military capacity to help them,” said the soldier.
“I am helpless.”
Mali’s army had little chance of preventing the loss of two thirds of the
country. After Col Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall last year, Libya’s military
stockpiles were thrown open to all-comers, turning the country into the
world’s biggest source of illegal weapons.
Both AQIM and the Tuareg rebels from northern Mali seized their chance: they
soon outgunned the national army.
Gaddafi had also recruited thousands of soldiers from Mali;
one brigade of the old Libyan army consisted almost entirely of Tuaregs.
These battle-hardened troops returned to their homeland after he was
overthrown, taking their weapons with them. They duly became the backbone of
AQIM and the Tuareg rebellion.
When Britain and France went to war to topple Gaddafi, they were inadvertently
clearing the way for al-Qaeda to take control of a swathe of the Sahara. At
first, AQIM allowed Tuareg rebels to take the lead, helping them to capture
Mali’s three northern regions in April. Since then, AQIM has thrust the
insurgents aside and become the dominant force in the area, acting through
an offshoot known as “Ansar Dine”, or “defenders of faith”.
They have no viable opponents: Mali’s official government has simply
collapsed. A military coup toppled President Amadou Toumani Touré in March.
An interim leader, appointed to supervise new elections, was then left for
dead by a mob that raided his office. He now lies in a hospital bed in
France, leaving no one in charge in the capital, Bamako.
Even if Mali had a functioning government, the army lacks the military
capability to retake the north. So far, AQIM’s leaders can take comfort from
the fact that no outside force threatens their control. “If you have a vast
unpoliced, ungoverned area, you can do what you like in it,” said a Western
diplomat in Bamako. “The fact is that two thirds of the territory of a
sovereign country is not under the control of the government.”
The original inhabitants of AQIM’s new domain have been trickling away. More
than 181,000 people have entered refugee camps in neighbouring countries,
with another 160,000 fleeing to southern Mali.
Mr Maigar fled Timbuktu last Thursday after Ansar Dine razed eight of the
city’s 16 mausoleums and broke down the entrance to the Sidi Yahya mosque
dating from 1400. “When they destroyed the mausoleums, that affected me
personally. We cannot live with the terrorists in the city,” he said.
Al-Qaeda’s allies have imposed the rigours of Sharia, banning alcohol and
music, blocking the local television signal and preventing radio stations
from broadcasting anything but official announcements and Koranic verse.
Earlier, Mr Maigar witnessed the flogging of a man and a woman in Sankore
Square in Timbuktu, allegedly for having sexual intercourse outside
marriage.
Djenebou Traoré, 48, left the city in May after two men came to her door and
demanded to know whether any of the women inside were unmarried. They would
be handed to the new overlords for compulsory “marriage”.
AQIM’s priority appears to be consolidating its control, rather than striking
targets beyond the country’s borders. Officials warn this could change.
“This could ultimately be the base to attack Europe,” said the diplomat.
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