Mali coup leaders and ECOWAS 'reach deal'

They'd better hope they don't have oil.

Oil is a curse.

the north of the country is home to some of the largest gold and uranium mines in northern Africa, and French business and military have extensive "interests" in maintaining a firm grip on them.

Nuclear power is very a big deal for France, and their companies and military have big business tied up in the uranium mines in Mali & Niger (not big benefit for any of the people living there, of course, but who cares about them anyway?); they've been pressuring ECOWAS and the coup plotters since it began to make nice and smash the Toureg to "stabilize" the situation and keep the money flowing north.

That so-called al-Qai'dah connection the media is focusing on is actually sort of legit; Iyad al-Ghali, the commander of the Ansar al-Din forces, has been a prominent figure in the Toureg resistance movements for at least 20 years, he split from the nationalist movements and formed his own party after securing a line of support from the formerly Algerian-based "al-Qai'dah in the Islamic Magreb" that has fanned out across North & West Africa in the last few years, part of which has come in the form of some big guns (and lots of them) taken out of Libya during the great NATO liberation invasion that has worked out so bloody well for everybody.

The nationalist rebels got a share of the money and guns in exchange for letting the beards operate in their territory, though I suspect they're regretting that right about now. A trio of AQIM's top commanders, Abu Zaid, Mukhtar b'al-Mukhtar and Yahya Abu Al-Hammam, are presently in Timbuktu coordinating with al-Ghali to set up their new base of operations. The nationalist forces are setting up in primarily in Gao and both parties are digging in for a longer fight, which is probably coming fairly soon now that what's left of the Mali military backing the coup is reconciling with Western business and the other ruling elites in the area.

It's almost entirely the Tuaregs, and they aren't particular conservative when it comes to religion, and for the most part see the Saudi brand of conservative Islam as backward.

It was used extensively by conservatives over the Ivory Coast.

Islamists impose sharia in Mali’s Timbuktu

"He had the meeting to make his message to the people known, that sharia law is now going to be applied," said the Mayor of Timbuktu Ousmane Halle, who was reached by telephone. "When there is a strongman in front of you, you listen to him. You can’t react," he said, when asked what the reaction was of the imams of a historic town known for its religious pluralism and its moderate interpretation of Islam.

"Things are going to heat up here. Our women are not going to wear the veil just like that," said the mayor.

Kader Kalil, the director of a communal radio station who was asked to cover the meeting and who later interviewed the Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghali, confirmed that sharia had been imposed.

He said in addition to the wearing of the veil, thieves will be punished by having their hands cut off and adulterers will be stoned to death.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/53856741-68/mali-timbuktu-rebels-coup.html.csp

since AQIM controls more territory and it's strategically advantageous for them in their quest for independence.

And its the BBC using "Islamist"....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17635437

Hence the neccessity for us to act nuts too. We say we are not really nuts, but we have to act nuts because our enemies are so crazy. Like that is going to protect us if we act nuts, somehow it will balance out. But what history shows in these situations is that everybody loses, and the more aggressive you get, the more you try to grab, the more you lose in the end.

That's direct from my sister who works in Mali.

France and ECOWAS have been discussing a multi-nation invasion force to bolster the Bamako regime's army, which in itself was already unable to keep the territory. The trouble for the potential invasion is threefold:--the army available to ECOWAS for such an expedition exists mostly just on really optimistic paper; the ECOWAS ruling elites are as suspicious of each other as they are of any rebel force; any invasion by French forces would provoke strong resistance across the whole Sahel region.
Most likely, however, the leadership of the nationalist forces will reach some kind of settlement with the ruling elites to cut a better deal for themselves, with foreign "aid" and intervention possibly under an alternating guise of "fighting terrorism" and "protecting civilians".