War in Mali and AFRICOM Plan: Target - China
Part I: The New Thirty Years War in Africa?At first glance, Mali seems an unlikely place where the NATO country, led by the socialist President Francois Hollande of the neo-colonial French government, will start what some call the new Thirty Years War on Terrorism.
Mali is a country with a population of about 12 million, is three and a half times the size of Germany, has no access to the sea, is located largely in the Sahara Desert in central West Africa, bordered by Algeria in the north, Mauritania - in the west, Senegal, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Niger - in the south. Shortly before all these US-directed attempts to destabilize the situation began, my friends spent some time in Mali. They called Mali one of the most peaceful and beautiful places on earth. Ninety percent of the country's population are Muslims of various convictions. Mali has subsistence agriculture, adult illiteracy is almost 50%. However, this country was suddenly at the center of a new global "war on terror".
On January 20, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his country’s strange determination to devote himself to combating the “threat of terrorism” in Mali and North Africa. Cameron said: "We will react for years and even decades, not months, and such a reaction is required, which ... has absolutely iron decisions ..." [1] Great Britain during its colonial heyday was never interested in Mali. Before independence in 1960, Mali was a French colony.
11 January, after more than a year of backstage pressure on neighboring Algeria with the aim of forcing him to invade neighboring Mali, Hollande, with the support of the United States, decided on direct French military intervention. His government launched a series of air strikes against insurgents in the north of Mali, against a fanatical Salafist gang of jihadist thugs calling themselves "Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM). The reason for the operational actions of the French was the military move on the part of a small group of Islamic jihadists from the Tuareg Ansar al-Din, associated with a large AQIM. January 10 Ansar ad-Din with the support of other Islamist groups attacked the southern city of Konna. This was the first time since the Tuareg uprising at the beginning of 2012, when jihadist rebels crossed the borders of the traditional territory of the Tuareg in the northern desert in the territory of the spread of Islamic law in southern Mali.
As French journalist Thierry Maysan noted, French troops were remarkably well prepared: “Transition President Dioncounda Traore declared a state of emergency and called France for help. Paris intervened for several hours to prevent the fall of the capital Bamako. The Elysee Palace was already farsighted -the 1 th Marine Regiment Parachute Regiment (“colonists”) and the 13 Parachute Dragoon Regiment, helicopters from COS (Command of Special Operations Forces), three Mirage 2000D in Mali; , two Mirage F-1, three C135, one Hercules C130 and one C160 Transall. " [2] A convenient match, of course.
By January 21, US Air Force transport planes began delivering hundreds of French elite soldiers and military equipment in Mali, ostensibly to reverse the spin-off situation of the terrorists in the south towards the capital of Mali. [3] French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters the number of troops in Mali reached 2000, adding that "around 4000 the military will be mobilized for this operation." [4]
But there are certain signs that the French intentions in Mali are very far from humanitarian objectives. In a television interview with France 5, Le Drien casually admitted: "The goal is a total conquest of Mali. We will not leave a single center of resistance." And President Francois Hollande said that French troops would remain in the region long enough "to defeat terrorism." The United States, Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, Germany and Denmark, all said they supported the French operation against Mali. [5]
Mali itself, like most of the rest of Africa, is rich in raw materials. It has large reserves of gold, uranium and more recently (although Western oil companies are trying to hide it) oil has been discovered, a lot of oil. The French chose to ignore the enormous resources of Mali, supporting subsistence agriculture in this poor country. During the rule of the ousted democratically elected president, Amadou Toumani Toure, the government first began systematic cartography of vast underground wealth. According to the previous minister of mining, Mamadou Igor Diarra, the Malian land contains copper, uranium, phosphates, bauxite, precious stones and, in particular, a large percentage of gold in addition to oil and gas. Thus, Mali is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. The country is already one of the leading gold miners immediately after South Africa and Ghana. [6] Two thirds of France’s electricity is nuclear, and new sources of uranium are essential. Currently France attracts significant imports of uranium from neighboring Niger.
Now the picture becomes a bit more complicated.
According to usually reliable sources from former US military experts who are familiar with the situation and speak on condition of anonymity, the US and NATO special forces actually trained the same “terrorist” groups, whose activities now serve to justify the neo-colonial invasion of Mali by France with US support. The main question is why Washington and Paris trained the terrorists against whom they now act to destroy them in the "war on terror"? Were they really surprised by the lack of loyalty of their students? And what is behind the French conquest of Mali supported by the American AFRICOM?
Part II: AFRICOM and Victoria's Secret
The truth about what is really happening in Mali, AFRICOM and NATO countries, in particular, in France is similar to the geopolitical "Victoria's Secret" (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorias_Secret - approx. Transl.) - what you think you see is definitely not what you get.
We have been told repeatedly in recent months that some organization that calls itself Al Qaeda, officially blamed by the US government as the culprit for the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and for making a gaping hole in the 11 Pentagon September wall, has been regrouped.
According to popular media articles and statements by various officials from NATO governments, the original Osama bin Laden group, who was hiding, as we should believe, somewhere in the Tora Bora caves in Afghanistan, seems to have applied a modern business model. Al-Qaida’s franchise in the style of something like McDonald’s terrorism from al Qaeda in Iraq to the Libyan Islamic militant group in Libya, and now al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
I even heard that al Qaeda’s new “official” franchise has just been issued by DRCCAQ or “Christian (sic!) Al Qaeda of the Democratic Republic of Congo”. [7] Such a gimmick that resembles one equally strange sect called "Jews for Jesus", created by hippies during the Vietnam War. Perhaps the architects of all these dark groups have so little imagination?
According to the official version, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM for short) is to blame for all the troubles of Mali. The mysterious AQIM itself is actually the product of several backstage work. Originally it was based across the border from Mali in Algeria and called itself the "Salafist group of warriors and preachers" (GSPC according to its French name).
In 2006, Al-Qaida’s head, in the absence of Osama bin Laden, Egyptian jihadist Ayman al-Zawahiri publicly announced Al-Qaida’s Algerian GSPC franchise. The name was changed to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and over the past two years, Algerian counter-terrorist operations have driven them across the desert across the border into northern Mali. AQIM is little more than a well-armed criminal group that gets its money from the transit of South American cocaine through Africa to Europe or from human trafficking. [8]
A year later, in 2007, the enterprising al-Zawahiri added another brick to his gangster chain when he officially announced the merger between the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and AQIM.
LIFG was formed by a Libyan jihadist named Abdelhakim Belhadj. In the 1980s, Belhadj received training at the CIA as part of the US-funded training of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, along with another CIA intern named Osama bin Laden. In essence, as journalist Pepe Escobar points out, "since then, for all practical purposes, LIFG and AQIM have been one and the same, and Belhadj has been his [Usama - pri.perev.] Emir." [9]
It became even more interesting when we discovered that the people of Belhadj, who, according to Escobar, were in the front ranks of the Berber militia from the mountains south-west of Tripoli, the so-called "Tripoli Brigade", underwent secret training for two months at US spenaz . [10]
LIFG played a key role in overthrowing Gaddafi, turning Libya today into what one observer describes as “the largest in the world weapons open-air bazaar. ” That same weapon is reportedly spreading from Benghazi to Mali and various other targeted destabilization hotspots. Including, as ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently confirmed, arms are transported by sea from Libya to Turkey, where they are transferred to foreign mercenary terrorists sent to Syria to fuel its destruction. [eleven]
So what does this unusual conglomerate, the globalized terrorist organization LIFG-GPSC-AQIM, do, what are their goals in Mali and beyond, and how does it meet the goals of AFRICOM and the French?
Part III: Mali's Curious Coup and AQIM Terror - Elegant Timing
Events in the previously peaceful Democratic Mali began to become very strange on March 22 2012, when Mali President Amadou Toumani Touré was overthrown and exiled after the military coup just one month before the planned presidential election. Toure had previously established a multi-party democratic system. According to AFRICOM representative, the coup leader, Captain Amadou Aija Sanogo, received military training in the United States, at Fort Benning, Georgia and at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. [12] Sango claimed that a military coup was necessary because the government of Tours did not make enough efforts to put down the Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali.
As Maysan points out, the military coup against the Tour in March 2012 was suspicious in all respects. An unknown group called CNRDRE (in English: the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and Restoration of the State) overthrew Toure and announced its intention to restore the law in Mali and order in the north.
"This led to a lot of confusion," - continues Meyssan, "because the putschists would not be able to explain how they would improve the situation with their actions. The overthrow of the president was even more strange, since the presidential election was to be held in five weeks and the outgoing president CNRDRE was made up of officers who were trained in the United States. They stopped the electoral process and handed over power to one of their candidates, who turned out to be Dionkund Traore's francophile. This sleight of hand was legalized by ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), whose president is none other than Alassane Ouattara, who was brought to power in Côte d'Ivoire by the French army a year earlier. " [13]
Alassane Ouattara, who received a degree in economics in the United States, is a former high-ranking IMF official who defeated a rival in presidential elections with French military aid in 2011. For his workplace, he is obliged to the French special forces. [14]
At the time of this military coup, the concern in question came from the Tuareg ethnic tribe, a secular, nomadic group of pastoralists who demanded independence from Mali at the start of the 2012 year.
The Tuareg uprising was rumored to be supplied with weapons and funded by France, which at one time repatriated Tuareg fighters who had previously participated in hostilities in Libya to split northern Mali along the border with Algeria from the rest of the country and declare it under Sharia. This lasted from January to April 2012, until exactly the moment when the warlike Tuareg nomads moved away from their nomads in the central Sahara and the borders of the Sahel - the vast desert between Libya and Algeria, Mali and Niger. This allowed the Algerian-Libyan LIFG / AQIM and their associates from the jihadist Ansar ad-Din to do the dirty work for Paris. [15]
In 2012, in their struggle for independence from Mali, the Tuareg entered into a dubious alliance with the jihadist AQIM. Both groups briefly united with Ansar ad-Din, another Islamist organization led by Iyad Ag Khali. Ansar ad-Din is believed to have connections with AQIM, which is headed by Ag Khali's cousin, Hamad Ag Hama. Ansar ad-Din wants to enforce strict Sharia law throughout Mali.
The three main groups came together briefly at a time when, after the military coup in March 2012, the country was plunged into chaos. The leader of the coup was Amadou Aya Sanogo, who received military training in the United States, at Fort Benning, Georgia and at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. In a bizarre game of events, despite assurances that the coup was caused by the inability of the civilian government to contain the uprising in the north, the Malian armed forces lost control of the regional capitals Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu within ten days after taking office. Reuters described this farcical coup as an “exciting self-shot.” [16]
The anti-constitutional coup in Mali caused serious sanctions against the central military government. The membership of Mali in the African Union has been suspended; The World Bank and the African Development Bank have stopped assistance. The United States halved the $ 140 million that they send each year to support the country, i.e. everything was done to make the chaos in Mali made it virtually impossible for the government to respond to the growing loss of territory in the north.
Part IV: The Terror Antiterror
All of the following was written off from a torn page from a textbook for the rebels of the British Brigadier General Frank E. Kitson, who conducted British operations Mau Mau in Kenya in 1950. A jihadist uprising in the north and a simultaneous military coup in the capital led to a situation in which Mali was immediately isolated and subjected to economic sanctions.
Speaking with indecent haste, the United States and France, which control ECOWAS, demanded that the leaders of the coup revive civil rule. 26 March The United States cut off all military aid to this poor country, ensuring maximum chaos while the jihadists carried out their main breakthrough to the south. Then, at the 2 April summit in Dakar, ECOWAS members closed their borders to Mali’s landlocked and imposed severe sanctions, including disabling access to a regional bank, virtually guaranteeing the possibility that Mali would soon be unable to pay for substantial supplies, including gasoline.
The very same armed forces that “train” terrorists also train “anti-terrorists”. This seems a bizarre contradiction in politics only until we grasp the essence of the American-British methods of irregular warfare, which have been actively used since the beginning of the 1950s.
Frank E. Kitson originally called this method "Low Intensity Fighting". Low-intensity warfare, as these actions are called in the book of the same name [17,] includes the use of fraud, the introduction of double agents, provocateurs, and the use of defectors in popular movements, such as the struggle of colonies for independence in the 1950's.
This method is sometimes called "Gang / Counter-Gang". Its essence is that conductors from special services or military occupying forces, whether it is the British army in Kenya or the CIA Afghanistan, de facto control the actions of both sides in an internal conflict, creating small civil wars or wars between gangs in order to disperse the real legitimate movement and create a pretext for the introduction of external military force, something that the US has now hypocritically renamed "peacekeeping operations." [18]
In its extended course on the US military stories since the intervention in Vietnam, Grant at US Air War College openly says that "low-intensity combat" is "war in other words." [19]
For the first time in more than half a century, we are beginning to recognize the bloody traces of the not very well disguised French colonization of the former French Africa, this time using the al Qaeda terror as a springboard to justify the military presence. French troops are likely to remain to help Mali in “peacekeeping operations”. The United States fully supports France as part of its AFRICOM. And al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, with its statements, makes full-scale NATO military intervention possible.
Washington claimed to have been caught off guard by a military coup. According to press reports, a confidential internal review at AFRICOM, which ended in July 2012, concluded that the coup was turning too fast for US intelligence analysts to detect any clear warning signs. “The coup in Mali has progressed very quickly and with very little warning,” said AFRICOM spokesman Colonel Tom Davis. “A spark broke out in the ranks of the junior officers, who eventually overthrew the government, and not at a higher level, where warning signs might have been more easily noticed.” [20] Very doubtful. In a confidential interview with the New York Times, one officer of the Special Operations Forces disagreed, saying: “It has been brewing for five years. Analysts were convinced of their assumptions and did not see big changes, while many weapons and more and more Islamic militants came from Libya ... "[21]
It seems more accurate that AFRICOM has fostered the crisis for five years from the start of the operation at the end of 2007. Mali for the Pentagon is nothing more than another brick in the militarization of the whole of Africa with the use of third-party forces (France) for dirty work as a conductor. The main goal is to seize such strategic resources as ore, oil, gas, uranium, gold or iron. The strategic target is China and the rapidly growing Chinese business presence in Africa over the past decades. AFRICOM's goal is to squeeze China out of Africa, or at least to root out its independent access to African resources. Economically independent China, according to the various offices of the neo-conservative think tanks of the Pentagon and Washington, can become politically independent of China. God forbid! So they believe.
Part V: The AFRICOM agenda in Mali targets China
The operation in Mali is only the tip of a huge African iceberg. AFRICOM, the US African Command, was created during the reign of President George W. Bush at the end of 2007. Its main goal is to combat the sharply growing Chinese economic and political influence in Africa. Washington sounded the alarm in October 2006, when the chairman of the PRC convened a historic Beijing summit, the Forum on Chinese-African Cooperation (FOCAC), to which about fifty African heads of state and ministers arrived in the Chinese capital. In the 2008 year, on the eve of a twelve-day trip to eight countries in Africa (the third such trip since taking office at 2003), Chairman of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao announced a three-year, three-billion-dollar program of concessional lending and increased aid to Africa. These funds were added to $ 3 billion in loans and $ 2 billion in export credits that Hu announced earlier.
Trade between China and African countries grew at an explosive pace over the next four years, while French and American influence on the "black continent" began to decline. China's trade with African countries reached $ 166 billion in 2011 year, according to Chinese statistics, while African exports to China (primarily resources for Chinese industry) have grown from $ 5,6 billion to $ 93 billion in July. In July 2012 of the Year, China offered 20 billions of dollars in loans to African countries over the next three years, doubling the amount promised in the previous three years. [22]
Making AFRICOM make money as soon as possible has become a vital geopolitical priority for Washington. AFRICOM began its work on 1 on October 2008 of the year from its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Since the Bush-Cheney administration signed a directive on the creation of AFRICOM in February 2007, this was a direct response to China’s successful African economic diplomacy.
AFRICOM defines its mission as follows: “The African Command is administratively responsible for US military support for US government policy in Africa to include military engagement with African countries 53 forces.” They allow work in close cooperation with US embassies and the Department of State throughout Africa , an unusual assumption that also includes USAID: “The American African Command provides personnel and logistical support ku funded by the State Department actions. The command staff works closely with US embassies in Africa, to coordinate training programs in order to improve the ability of African countries to provide security. " [23]
Speaking 27 in October 2008 of the year to the International Peace Operations Association in Washington, DC, General Ward Kip, the AFRICOM commander defined the mission of the command as “[implement], in collaboration with other US government agencies and international partners, sustainable security commitments through joint military programs, military sponsorships and other military operations aimed at strengthening the stability and security of the African continent to support US foreign policy. " [24]
Various sources in Washington have openly stated that AFRICOM was created to combat China’s growing presence in Africa, as well as China’s increasing success in securing long-term economic commodity agreements with African countries in exchange for Chinese aid, as well as product sharing and royalty agreements. According to informed sources, the Chinese were much more cunning. Instead of offering hard economy and economic chaos, as the West does through the IMF, China offers large loans, soft loans for the construction of roads and schools in order to create goodwill.
Dr. J. Peter Fam, a Washington insider and adviser to the Department of State and the Department of Defense, openly says that AFRICOM’s goals include the goal of “protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources that are abundant in Africa ... a task that includes ensuring the vulnerability of these natural riches and ensures that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan or Russia, will receive monopolies or concessions. "
In a speech before the US Congress in support of the creation of AFRICOM in 2007, Fam, who is closely associated with the neo-conservative think tank "Foundation for Democracy," said:
"This natural wealth makes Africa an attractive target for the attention of the People’s Republic of China, whose dynamic economy has grown by an average of 9 percent per year over the past two decades, has an almost insatiable need for oil, and also needs to use other natural resources to support growth China currently imports about 2,6 million barrels of crude oil per day, about half of its consumption; ... about a third of that imports comes from African sources ... perhaps there is no other Austral region, competing with Africa as the object of Beijing's sustained strategic interest in recent years ...
... Many analysts expect that Africa, especially the states located along the oil-rich western coastline, will increasingly become a theater of strategic rivalry between the United States and their only real almost equal competitor on the world stage — China — as both countries seek to expand your influence and access to resources. "[25]
To confront the growing Chinese influence in Africa, Washington drew economically weak and politically impasse France, promising to support the revival of its former African colonial empire in one form or another. As it becomes clear as a result of the French-American use of al-Qaida terrorists to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya and now wreak havoc in Mali, this strategy is to promote ethnic wars and religious hatred between Berbers, Arabs and other tribes and communities in North Africa. Divide and rule.
Looks like they even co-opted a former French direct management plan. In his pioneering analysis, Canadian geopolitical analyst and sociologist Mahdi Darius Nazemroyya writes: "The plan used by Washington in the fight against terrorism in the framework of the Pan Sahel initiative speaks volumes. The range or scope of activities for terrorists within Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and in accordance with the designation of Washington are very similar to the borders of the colonial territorial entity that France tried to create in Africa in the 1957 year. Paris planned to support such an African education in the Central Western Sahara as a French department (province) directly connected with France, along with coastal Algeria. " [26]
The French called it the General Organization of the Sahara Regions (Organization commune des regions sahariennes, OCRS). It was located within the internal borders of the Sahel and the Sahara: Mali, Niger, Chad and Algeria. Paris used this education to control the resource-rich countries, to use and exploit raw materials: oil, gas and uranium. Plans were thwarted during the Cold War. France was forced to disband OCRS in 1962, due to the independence of Algeria and the anti-colonial mood in Africa. [29] Neo-colonial ambitions in Paris, however, have not gone away.
Landstroy adds that Washington was clearly referring to these energy-rich and resource-rich areas when he declared which areas of Africa should be “cleansed” from alleged terrorist cells and factions. At least now AFRICOM had a “plan” for its new African strategy. The French Institute of International Relations (Institut français des relations internationals, IFRI) openly discussed this link between terrorists and energy-rich areas in its March 2011 report. [27]
The map used by Washington in the fight against terrorism in the framework of the Pan-Sahel Initiative shows the field of activity of terrorists inside Algeria, Libya, Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, in accordance with the instructions of Washington. The Trans-Saharan Anti-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) was launched by the Pentagon in 2005. Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Niger have now joined Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria and Tunisia in the ring of military cooperation with the Pentagon. The Trans-Saharan Anti-Terrorism Initiative was handed over to the AFRICOM 1 Command on October 2008. [28]
The French make no secret of their anxiety about the growing Chinese influence in former French Africa. French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said in Abidjan last December that French companies should go on the offensive and fight the growing influence of China’s competitor for a share in the increasingly competitive markets of Africa. "It is obvious that China is more and more present in Africa ... (French) company, which have the means, must go on the offensive. They must strengthen their presence. They must fight," Moscovici said during a trip to Côte d'Ivoire . [30]
Apparently, Paris was referring to a military offensive in order to support the expected economic onslaught of French companies in Africa.
Notes
[1] James Kirkup, David Cameron: The Telegraph, London, 20 January 2013.
[2] Thierry Meyssan, Mali: One war can hide another Voltaire Network, 23 January 2013.
[3] Staff Sgt. United States Air Forces in Mali, AFNS, January, 25, 2013.
[4] S. Alambaigi, French Defense Minister: 2000 boots on foot in Mali, 19. January 2013.
[5] Frei Petersen, France aiming for a total reconquest of Mali, French foreign minister says, January 20, 2013.
[6] Christian v. Hiller, Mali's hidden Treasures, April 12, 2012, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
[7] Sources include US military active in Africa.
[8] William Thornberry and Jaclyn Levy, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, CSIS, September 2011, Case Study No. 4.
[9] August 30, 2011.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Jason Howerton, Rand Paul Grills Clinton at Benghazi Hearing: "Had I Been President ... I Would Be Relieved by You Post," www.theblaze.com, Jan. 23, 2013.
[12] Craig Whitlock, Leader of the Mali military couple trained in the US, March 24, 2012, The Washington Post.
[13] Thierry Meyssan, op. cit.
[14] AFP, [Ivory Coast's ex-President Gbagbo 'arrested in French' by French forces Ouattara troops, April 11th, 2011.
[15] Thierry Meyssan, op. cit.
[16] Cheick Dioura and Adama Diarra, Mali Rebels Assault Gao, Northern Garrison, The Huffington Post, Reuters.
[17] Frank E. Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping, London, 1971, Faber and Faber.
[18] CM Olsson and EP Guittet, Counter Insurgency, Low Intensity Conflict and Peace Operations: A Transformations of Warfare, March 5, 2005
[19] Grant T. Hammond, Low-intensity Conflict: War by another name, London, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol.1, Issue 3, December 1990, pp. 226-238.
[20] Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, US Hands Off Mali An Analysis of the Recent Events in the Republic of Mali ,. MRzine, May 2, 2012.
[21] Adam Nossiter, Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti, French Strikes in New York Times, January 13, 2013.
[22] Joe Bavier, French firms have to go to Moscow — Moscovici ,, Reuters, December 1, 2012.
[23] AFRICOM, US Africa Command Fact Sheet, September 2, 2010.
[24] Ibid.
[25] FDX, 26, 2011.
[26] Dahlus Nazimroaya and Julien Teil, America's Conquest of Africa: The Global News, October 06, 2011.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Joe Bavier, Op. Cit.
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