Mischief In Mali -- Weekly Standard
A model African country confronts subversion—with U.S. help.
Mali Defense Forces (MDF) backed by attack helicopters made a successful counterthrust against a column of Tuareg rebels assisted, according to Mali military sources, by jihadist fighters over several days in the middle of February, routing them from the approaches of Tessalit, a village in the far north of this embattled West African country that is key to America’s strategy for keeping jihadist forces out of black Africa.
The U.S. strategy calls for the drawing of a line in the sand across the Sahel, the region on the southern edge of the Sahara. Mali, vast as California and Texas combined, is critical because Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other bands of violent Salafists have found a circumstantial ally in the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA), which is bent on carving out a nation for the Tuareg, a Berber people native to this region. The proposed new nation would cover much of Mali’s Saharan north.
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My Comment: This conflict is now expanding to involve it's neighbors.