January 16, 2013

French troops fighting alongside Malian troops are engaged in their first ground battle with rebel forces in Mali. According to British sources in Mali, French troops are fighting the Islamist rebels in street battles in the town of Diabaly, which the rebels seized on January 14. Diabaly is 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the capital, Bamako, and the French and Malian forces are attempting to halt the insurgents’ advance on the capital. The rebels gained control of much of the north in 2012 after a military coup in Bamako created a power vacuum. Mali was once a French colony.

Islamist rebels who control the northern half of Mali are advancing south on the capital, Bamako. (World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc)

The government of French President François Hollande announced on January 12 that it was sending troops into Mali to help wrest the nation back from Islamic jihadist expansion. Mali’s neighbors, including Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria, have also agreed to send soldiers into Mali, and the United Kingdom is supplying planes to transport them.

Despite massive aerial bombardment by French air force jets, the insurgents have continued to advance south. French military officers acknowledge that the rebels are better armed than expected, with AK-47′s, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine guns mounted on vehicles. American intelligence agents have traced at least some of their ammunition to Iran.

A number of historic structures, similar to the pyramid-shaped Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu, Mali, have been damaged or destroyed by Malian rebels, who claim the structures are idolatrous. ((c) Aldona Sabalis, Photo Researchers)

At the core of the Islamist insurgency are the remnants of a now-defunct Algerian rebel group that was largely driven out of Algeria and into the unpoliced desert land in northern Mali sometime after the Algerian civil war was settled in 1999. A loose alliance of Algerian and Mauritanian fighters, they are believed to be connected to an al-Qa’ida offshoot known as “al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb” (Aqim). Aqim aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state under Shar’iah law. The group operates in Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, and other ungoverned areas of the Sahel region. The insurgents are known for their extreme cruelty and barbarity. Since seizing the northern half of Mali, they have destroyed a number of historic and religious landmarks in Timbuktu, claiming the landmarks are idolatrous. Any behavior deemed an affront to their interpretation of Islam has been zealously punished. They also actively recruit children for armed conflict.

Additional World Book articles:

• Algeria 1991 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1992 (a Back in Time article)
• Algeria 1999 (a Back in Time article)