The Mali Conflict and France's Military Operation
After the Mali situation became aggravated, quite a number of researchers focused on the conflict's geopolitical and ethnic aspects, whereas the military side was largely neglected. However, the French operation ...
... Tuareg, Moors and Arabs, the
white men of the desert
, so that in the long run the conflict also carries racial connotations. These people largely belong to traditional moderate Sunni Islam, rejecting a Sharia state, and represent
85-90 percent of Malians
. They seem to accept the French intervention because it has prevented the bloodshed that would have happened had the Tuareg and Islamists advanced further into the south-west. The French can also expect support from certain Tuareg tribes, the Islamic Movement of Azawad that has split ...
... intervention in Mali. How is this crisis linked to what is happening in Mali, if there is a link at all?
It is difficult to be definitive, at the moment, not least because the Algerian raid seems to have been planned two months ago, thus before the Mali intervention. What I think we can say, though, is that there is quite plausibly a linkage between Mali and the Algerian attacks on the one hand, and the French and British intervention in Libya on the other. The intervention in Libya had unintended consequences....