LONDON - Slow-moving international efforts to confront an Islamist takeover of northern Mali, described at the United Nations this week as “one of the potentially most explosive corners of the world,†just got more complicated.
Early on Tuesday, a grim-faced Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared on Mali's state television to announce what appeared to be his forced resignation as prime minister of the African desert state.
A former NASA scientist, Mr. Diarra had been arrested by soldiers as he was about to take a flight to France. They were from the same military group who staged a coup in Bamako, the capital, in March before handing power back to civilians the following month.
The early assessment of the prime minister's departure was th at he had upset the military by trying to establish his own political base ahead of future elections.
The March coup created a vacuum in the country that allowed a power grab in the north by separatist Tuareg tribesmen.
But these were soon pushed aside by radical Islamists, some linked to Al Qaeda, who have since imposed a brutal fundamentalist regime on a fiefdom the size of Texas.
It is funded with the proceeds of drug, cigarette and people smuggling. One of the key players in the north, a one-eyed jihadist named Mokhtar Bel Mokhtar El-Aouar, is also known as “Mister Malboro.â€
Spain's El PaÃs reported this month that northern Mali had become a magnet for thousands of young Islamists from around the world, who wer e flocking to the region in pursuit of jihad and a secure income.
The newspaper quoted military experts as saying it would require six months to train a 3,000-strong intervention army at a cost of "70 million to oust the Islamists.
European and African governments, and the United States, are all too aware of the threat of an African “Afghanistan†emerging south of the Mediterranean. The challenge is what to do about it.
Differences among Africans, Europeans, the United States and the U.N., have so far stymied the formulation of a united and coherent policy.
The last time Rendezvous reported on the Mali crisis, in October, European Union states had just announced their readiness to send military trainers to Mali to prepare African troops for a planned intervention.
Since then, Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. Secretary-General, has re commended that the Security Council approve the deployment of an African peace enforcement mission. But he did not offer that the U.N. would pay for it.
He also warned that military intervention could “risk ruining any chance of a negotiated political solution to the crisis, which remains the best hope of ensuring long-term stability in Mali.â€
The West Africa regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, has agreed to commit 3,300 troops for an international force.
However, the ECOWAS plan has been described as confused and incomplete by U.N. and European critics.
Mr. Diarra's ousting is a potential blow to a policy, espoused by the United States, to put political reform and early elections at the forefront of a strategy to combat th e extremists.
That has put Washington at odds with France, the former colonial power in Mali, which wants the United Nations to move quickly to back a military intervention by troops from neighboring African states.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council on Monday that it must be careful to address the crisis in Mali without destabilizing the entire Sahara region.
Johnnie Carson, the State Department's Africa spokesman, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee last week that what Mali needed more than ever was a strong democratic government “to restore its democratic tradition and provide the strong leadership necessary to negotiate a political agreement with northern rebels.â€
He said such a government would reform the security sector, “and lead a military intervention in the north to restore and maintain Mali's territorial integrity.â€
The vario us Islamist groups who hold sway in the north should not expect an offensive anytime soon.
Hervé Ladsous, the U.N.'s peacekeeping chief, said last week that, although international military intervention to oust the militants was almost inevitable, nothing would happen before next September.
