The first major fallout from the NATO-backed Libya revolution outside of the Libyan borders seems to be in northern Mali, where the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA) is scoring major victories against the Malian military.
The Tuareg tribes in the area have rebelled many times, but have usually been crushed by the more heavily armed military. With many Tuareg mercenaries back from Libya and bringing their heavy weaponry with them, the fights are a different story now.
The rebels are equipped “just like Libya’s army,” noted one defense ministry official, saying that four-wheelers with mounted machine guns and anti-tank missiles are pouring into the rebels’ arsenal.
The NMLA hopes to achieve secession in the far north of Mali, and the sudden influx of modern weapons could well make them more than the rag-tag Mali military, conscripts armed with aging Soviet weaponry, is able to handle.
Kadhafi had a stabilizing effect on the greater Sahara. But now thanks to Nato foresight the whole region from Mauritanien to Sudan is a very dangerous place, flooded with weapons and gangs.
My brother, do you see any usefulness of the AU? In fact, The African Union is a white elephant; IT IS USELESS
>>"Tuareg mercenaries back from Libya"
Would you call the Kurds in Turkey mercenaries?
The Tuareg's traditional territory, before the Europeans drew their Colonial lines all over the map of Africa, stretches across Mali, Niger, Algeria and Libya. There are more than 100,000 Libyan Tuareg who were targeted by NATO's "rebels" out of racism and because they were loyalists.
The Tuareg who fought (fight) in Libya did not (do not) do so for gold. They fought to support an man and a government that had supported them in the past and for their tribe.
The Empire used and uses that "mercenary" BS as propaganda for it's agenda.
What's yours?
Strange. Mali doesn't have a common border with Libya, so how did these weapons get from Libya to Mali? Is there a disruption in the space-time continuum out there?
World Jamahiriya Now!