May the odds be ever in their favor: Mali’s Beleaguered Presidential Candidates

By Allyson Clancy

The West African country Mali may find hope at last in moving forward from its most recent conflict. Early last year an ethnic-based group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) rebelled against the government and joined with various Islamist groups to create a separate state for the Tuareg people in the north Mali region. By March 2012 factions of the military, dissatisfied with the government’s response to the rebellion, ousted President Amadou Toumani Touré in a coup d’état.  Shortly thereafter, the MNLA claimed the conquered territories of North Mali as an independent state, while the Islamist groups began to travel southward, hoping to establish shari’a law throughout the country. Even though the international community pledged to respond in October 2012, it wasn’t until France decided to lead the intervention in January 2013 that the country began to recover lost ground. Now, 18 months since the last president was overthrown, the country is able to improve its conditions with new leadership to guide development and recovery.

Counterinsurgency: The Tactic for North Africa?

Over the past year or so, Northern Africa has continued to experience an influx of violent and radical Islamists hell bent on disrupting everyday life, despite the French troops and African Union personnel on the ground trying to put down the insurgency. Overall, it has been a trying few years for Northern Africa - self-immolations in Tunisia were the catalyst in 2010 for what would come to be known as the "Arab Spring"; Libya endured an incredibly violent and exhaustive civil war ending with the death of Muammar Gaddafi (and the nation is still trying to put itself back together); and just about a year ago, Ansar Dine, a radical Islam group with ties to al Qaeda, stormed through Mali, destroying centuries-old religious tombs in Timbuktu and putting much of the country on lockdown. Through all of this, the United States watched leerily from afar, contributing financially and logistically in Libya but otherwise keeping a safe distance between itself and the perpetually plagued continent. Even now, as France continues to push insurgents back in Mali with not-quite-significant help from other African states, the U.S. is leery about the situation and likely will not be contributing much at all. However, the region is in total disarray and should be considered of extreme strategic importance, not just to the U.S. but to the Western world in general. France has already seen this, and other countries should see it too.

Marines on a counterinsurgency mission in Afghanistan