Hunger, dwindling resources and a determination to sow chaosacross Mali were driving forces behind the sudden insurgent push south thattriggered an ongoing French-led military response, experts say. The triad ofAl-Qaeda-linked Islamist groups who have controlled Mali's vast desert northsince April know their few thousand fighters and pick-up trucks areinsufficient to control the sprawling country or its capital Bamako.
But a growing desperation and shrinking reserves forced theIslamists to advance deeper into the government-controlled south, said anexpert on Mali who, like many people discussing security in West Africa, askedfor anonymity. "The bearded men are not administrators. There is nothingmore left in the north, no more flocks of cattle, not enough cereal. Theransoms from hostages held by them are not coming through," he said."It's the logic of the predators of the desert: they hope to steal cattle,Toyotas, pillage towns, banks and even gold at the central bank if they are notstopped before Bamako."
The crisis began when the Tuaregs, a Berber people who havelived a nomadic lifestyle in the region for 2,000 years, launched a rebellion ayear ago and humiliated the Malian army, triggering a military coup in Bamako.In the ensuing political vacuum, the central government lost control of thenorth to the insurgents, and the Tuaregs were instrumental in helping groupssuch as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) seize control of huge swathes ofterritory. But the Tuaregs' alliance of convenience with the Islamists quicklydisintegrated. AQIM and other Islamists began to run territories under theircontrol like a particularly brutal medieval emirate and imposed sharia law.
Mali's northern and southern neighbours Algeria and BurkinaFaso have led efforts to try to launch peace talks between rival Tuareg groupsto get them to cut all ties with radical Islamists such as AQIM. An expert saidAlgiers had now realised its folly in believing that it had the Ansar Dine(Defenders of the Faith) movement, led by a former Tuareg rebel, under control.
Ansar Dine had explained its shock January 10 seizure of thecentral town of Konna, which sparked French military intervention, after monthsof status quo on the frontline as a move to pre-empt the deployment of anoffensive led by Paris.
