Mali's military no match for Islamic militants
Diabaly Explosions rang out at 3 a.m. last week as the radical Islamists descended on the town of Diabaly, home to a Malian military camp. Residents cowering in their homes believed the Malian soldiers would protect them.
Instead dozens of Malian troops fled in fear, ripping off their uniforms and taking off on foot into the dark.
"We thought for sure the Malian army would hit back," said local resident Gaoussou Kone of the Jan. 14 attack. "We were surprised to learn that our soldiers ran away. There is no African country that is strong enough to fight these people on their own. They are too well-armed."
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Returning to the central town Monday, after the Islamist extremists retreated, the Malian soldiers found the entrance to their military camp littered with charred cars and weapons destroyed by the French air strikes.
U.S. planes land in Mali
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that France launched the strikes last week, as powerless Malian troops fled the militants' advance on Mali's capital. When Malian soldiers returned to the reclaimed towns, with the French soldiers, they found nothing but abandoned weapons and residents grateful for the rescue.
Inside, they found ransacked buildings which the Islamists had pillaged in search of food and weapons. Not even the cafeteria was spared, with pots and lids thrown about.
One thing the Islamists didn't take — the gris-gris, or talismans, that members of the Malian military wore for protection, but the army will need more than charms to effectively fight the rebels.
Security experts have long expressed concern about the weakness of Mali's military and its inability to contribute forcefully in the international intervention against the Islamist extremists, who are well-armed and determined fighters.
When a Tuareg rebellion erupted in northern Mali more than a year ago, Malian soldiers complained that those sent to fight in the harsh desert environment were not given sufficient supplies, including arms and food. The fighting claimed the lives of numerous soldiers. Then, after the military coup in March 2012, the Malian army gave little to no resistance as the Islamists seized the major cities of northern Mali: Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.
After holding northern Mali for several months, the Islamists went on the offensive again and seized the central Malian town of Diabaly on Jan. 14. But this time the French military was in Mali and began air strikes later that evening. Residents say the Islamists fled the town later in the week.
The Malian soldiers would not have been able to recapture the city without French help, according to many residents, including Modibo Sawadogo.
"We are happy about the presence of (foreign) soldiers who can reassure us because without them our military wouldn't be able to return," he said.
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Algeria Attack Vindicates Mitt Romney On Mali In War On Terror
Posted 01/22/2013 07:01 PM ET
War On Terror: In the final debate, GOP candidate Mitt Romney was mocked for bringing up the spread of terrorism to Mali, which has been implicated in the weekend's Algerian terrorist massacre. So who is out of touch?
'Mitt, do you know that most of America thinks Mali is one of Obama's daughters," tweeted hipster television personality Bill Maher last October, to ridicule Romney's debate statement that global terrorism was not dead at all and in fact was spreading.
"Mali has been taken over ... the northern part of Mali, by al-Qaida-style individuals," Romney said in the first four minutes of the Oct. 23 debate.
A "mini-seminar on Mali," sniped the New Yorker. "Mali Appears On Mitt Romney's Radar" mocked France's Le Monde. "Was that in the morning briefing book?" sneered a New York Times editorial. "Molly? Oh, Mali," live-blogged The Guardian.
Romney campaign staff later scrambled to assure the press that Romney was not a hopeless wonk out of touch with the electorate by bringing up obscure countries in the middle of an election, but was in fact receiving U.S. intelligence briefings, as all presidential candidates do after their convention.
After all, a monstrous terrorist attack had happened in Libya last Sept. 11, which resulted in the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens who was apparently attempting to stop the smuggling of Libyan weapons to terrorists in the Maghreb.
Romney listened to those briefings, understood the reality and stated it: that far from being over, terrorism was spreading dangerously through Africa, which the Algerian attack now underscores.
That contrasts sharply with current U.S. foreign policy led by President Obama, who is still, even today, going out of his way to downplay any extended war on terror even as two more Americans are being pulled from the rubble of an Algerian terrorist attack over the weekend.
"A decade of war is now ending. And economic recovery has begun," President Obama grandly declared at his second inaugural Monday.
It's what he's said all along — that al-Qaida has been "decimated," terrorism "is on the run" and now is the time to forget about it as a relic of President Bush's era and turn to gay rights, gun control and global warming.
But there's reason to think he knows better.
Word is out that the attack was organized from Mali by al-Qaida-linked terrorists using weapons spirited out of the chaos of Libya, a blunder that culminated in the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack in Benghazi which still has yet to be adequately explained by the Obama administration.
Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/012213-641533-mitt-romney-mocked-and-now-vindicated-on-mali-terrorism.htm#ixzz2IpWyZn8T
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