Another clash with global consequences looms, apart from the
awful conflagration in war-ravaged Syria. On Oct. 12,
following weeks of French pressure, the U.N. Security Council
set a 45-day deadline for intervention into Mali, the
northwest African nation that has seen roughly half of its
territory overrun by rebels and militias with links to al-
Qaeda’s North African wing (AQIM). France’s Defence
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian insisted Tuesday it was a
“matter of weeks, not months” before decisive action would
be taken to reclaim a vast stretch of desert and semiarid
scrubland that has become a “terrorist sanctuary.” The
instability of the past half-year in Mali has sparked fears
on both sides of the Mediterranean of a broader regional
crisis. Six French nationals are currently being held hostage
in the Sahel. Only “the integrity of Mali,” said Le Drian,
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Metaphors of doom now swirl in what was once one of Africa’s
democratic success stories. Some say that Mali is the next
Somalia, where a patchwork of warlords and insurgents ranges
itself against a dysfunctional, crisis-hit state. Others say
it is the next Afghanistan, where extremist militias, some
with jihadist connections, make hay in a security vacuum,
arming and funding themselves through illicit drug smuggling
networks. (Islamist groups in control of historic Saharan
entrepots such as the cities of Timbuktu and Gao have
instituted Shari’a law and, like the Afghan Taliban a decade
ago, destroyed ancient tombs and relics considered idolatrous
within their own puritanical creed.) And now it may be the
next Libya—where only foreign military intervention, framed
as humanitarian action, can stabilize a steadily
deteriorating state of affairs.
(MORE: Why Islamists are wrecking Timbuktu.)
