country:algeria

The U.S. Military and the Unraveling of Africa » Print
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2013/06/18/the-u-s-military-and-the-unraveling-of-africa/print

#terrorisme en #Afrique engendré et alimenté par #africom et ses subordonnés

En 2000, un rapport préparé sous les auspices du Strategic Studies Institute de l’US Army War College a examiné "l’environnement sécuritaire en Afrique." Bien qu’il a abordé "les mouvements séparatistes ou rebelles internes" dans les « Etats faibles », ainsi que des acteurs non étatiques comme les milices et les "armées de seigneurs de guerre," il n’a fait aucune mention de l’extrémisme islamique ou des menaces terroristes transnationales majeures. En fait, avant 2001, les Etats-Unis ne reconnaissaient aucune organisation terroriste en Afrique sub-saharienne.

Peu après les attentats du 11/9, un haut responsable du Pentagone a affirmé que l’invasion américaine de l’Afghanistan pourrait entraîner des "terroristes" hors de ce pays et dans les pays africains. "Les terroristes liés à al-Qaïda et les groupes terroristes autochtones ont été et continuent d’être une présence dans cette région", a-t-il dit. "Ces terroristes, bien entendu, menaceront le personnel et les installations des Etats-Unis."

Lorsqu’on lui a demandé plus de précisions sur les dangers transnationaux réels, le fonctionnaire a fait référence aux militants somaliens mais a finalement admis que même les islamistes les plus extrêmes sur place, "n’ont pas vraiment participé à des actes de terrorisme en dehors de la Somalie." De même, lorsqu’il a été interrogé sur les connexions entre le noyau Al-Qaïda d’Oussama ben Laden et les extrémistes africains, il n’a évoqué que les liens les plus ténus, comme le "salut" de Ben Laden aux militants somaliens qui ont tué des soldats américains au cours de l’infâme incident "Black Hawk Down" de 1993.

Malgré cela, les États-Unis ont envoyé du personnel en Afrique dans le cadre du Groupe de forces interarmées - Corne de l’Afrique (CJTF-HOA) en 2002. L’année suivante, CJTF-HOA a élu domicile au Camp Lemonnier à Djibouti, où il réside à ce jour sur la seule base américaine officiellement avouée en Afrique.

Alors que le CJTF-HOA démarrait, le département d’Etat a lancé un programme multi-million de dollar de lutte contre le terrorisme , connu comme l’Initiative Pan-Sahel [Pan-Sahel Initiative], pour soutenir les forces armées du Mali, du Niger, du Tchad et de la Mauritanie. En 2004, par exemple, des équipes de formation des forces spéciales ont été envoyées au Mali dans le cadre de l’initiative. En 2005, le programme a été élargi pour inclure le Nigeria, le Sénégal, le Maroc, l’Algérie et la Tunisie et a été rebaptisé Partenariat Antiterroriste Transsaharien [Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership].

Dans le New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Schmidle a noté que le programme a vu le déploiement sur une année d’un personnel des Forces spéciales "pour former les armées locales à combattre les insurrections et les rébellions et pour empêcher l’expansion de Ben Laden et ses alliés dans la région." Le Partenariat Antiterroriste Transsaharien et son programme compagnon du ministère de la Défense, alors connu sous le nom de Enduring Freedom Operation- Trans-Sahara, ont été, à leur tour, englobés dans l’US Africa Command quand celui-ci a pris la responsabilité militaire du continent en 2008.

Comme Schmidle l’a noté, les résultats des efforts américains dans la région semblaient en contradiction avec les objectifs déclarés de l’AFRICOM [ c’est moi qui met en gras ]. " Al-Qaïda a établi des sanctuaires dans le Sahel, et en 2006, il a acquis une franchise en Afrique du Nord [Al-Qaïda au Maghreb islamique] ", a-t-il écrit. " Les attaques terroristes dans la région ont augmenté en nombre et en létalité ."

En fait, un regard sur la liste officielle des organisations terroristes du Département d’Etat indique une augmentation constante du nombre des groupes radicaux islamiques en Afrique parallèlement à la croissance des efforts de contre-terrorisme américains sur place - avec l’ajout du Groupe islamique combattant libyen en 2004, de l’al-Shabab somalien en 2008 et de l’Ansar al-Dine malien en 2013. En 2012, le général Carter Ham, alors chef de l’AFRICOM, a ajouté les militants islamistes de Boko Haram du Nigeria à sa propre liste des menaces extrémistes.

Le renversement de Kadhafi en Libye par une coalition interventionniste, dont les Etats-Unis, la France, la Grande-Bretagne, a également renforcé une foule de nouveaux groupes islamistes militants comme les Brigades de Omar Abdul Rahman, qui ont depuis effectué plusieurs attaques contre des intérêts occidentaux, et l’organisation proche d’al- Qaeda Ansar al-Sharia, dont les combattants ont agressé des installations américaines à Benghazi, en Libye, le 11 Septembre 2012, tuant l’ambassadeur Christopher Stevens et trois autres Américains. En fait, juste avant cette attaque, selon le New York Times, la CIA suivait "un éventail de groupes militants armés dans et autour" de cette seule ville.

Selon Frederic Wehrey, analyste politique senior à la Carnegie Endowment for International Peace et expert de la Libye, ce pays est maintenant un "terrain fertile" pour les militants en provenance de la péninsule arabique et d’autres endroits du Moyen-Orient comme ailleurs en Afrique pour recruter des combattants, recevoir une formation, et récupérer. "C’est vraiment devenu un nouveau pôle," m’a-t-il dit.

Samira, the first installation of Nicola Mai’s Emborders project | antiAtlas des frontières

http://www.antiatlas.net/samira-the-first-installation-of-nicola-mais-emborders-project

Karim is an Algerian migrant man selling sex as SAMIRA at night in Marseille. He left Algeria as a young man as her breasts started developing as a result of taking hormones and was granted asylum in France as a transgender woman. Twenty years later, as his father is dying and he is about to become the head of the family Samira surgically removes her breasts and marries a woman in order to get a new passport allowing him to return to Algeria to assume his new role.

http://www.antiatlas.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen-Shot-2013-05-22-at-18.35.08-300x187.png

SAMIRA (Emborders 1) is the first of Emborders’ 4 installation/movies. It is being produced by IMeRA in co-operation with SATIS (Departement Sciences Arts et Techniques de l’image et du Son of the Aix-Marseille University). The Emborders filmmaking/research project questions the effectiveness and scope of sexual humanitarian initiatives protecting, controlling and deporting migrants working in the sex industry and sexual minority asylum seekers. In order to get their rights recognised and avoid deportation migrants targeted by sexual humanitarianism reassemble their bodies and perform their subjectivities according to standardised victimhood, vulnerability and gender/sex scripts. In the process only a minority of migrants targeted by anti-trafficking interventions and applying for asylum obtain protection, refugee status and the associated rights. The vast majority are treated as collateral damage and become either irregularly resident in immigration countries or forcefully deported against their will and in often dangerous circumstances to their countries of origin.

#migrations #asile #réfugiés

UAE’s Algeria outreach means more than just business | GulfNews.com
http://m.gulfnews.com/opinion/uae-s-algeria-outreach-means-more-than-just-business-1.1195786

The past few weeks have seen a number of senior-level meetings between Algerian and UAE officials. The UAE foreign minister led a high-level delegation to Algiers at the end of last month to build up on the Joint Committee meetings that were held in Abu Dhabi just two weeks earlier. Already Dubai-based DP World is managing two ports in the North African state, including the port of Algiers. In 2009, Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala started operating a $900 million (Dh3.31 billion) power plant in Tipaza with state energy giant Sonatrach. Last year, Ras Al Khaimah-based Julphar Pharmaceuticals laid the foundation stone for a factory in Algiers to serve the Algerian market and North Africa.

The signs have been positive even before the Arab uprisings began with trade between the UAE and Algeria growing at 60 per cent annually from 2005 when it was $16 million to about $173 million in 2010 — partly thanks to the 10,000 Algerians residing in the UAE. Algeria’s gross domestic product, at almost $200 billion is only about half of UAE’s this year. However, it is growing at an impressive rate and has tripled in the decade to 2011. Bilateral trade between the two countries, at $271 million in the first eight months of last year, is negligible and needs to be encouraged to grow. The size of Algeria’s sovereign wealth fund was believed to be $57 billion in 2011 (compared to Abu Dhabi’s $400-$600 billion ADIA fund), while the country’s foreign reserves are believed to be $200 billion — thanks to high oil prices.

But business is just one component of this increasingly strategic relationship. Algeria today is the last major civil Arab state, following the rise of a Shiite Islamist state in Iraq, a Sunni Islamist state in Egypt and the collapse of the state in Syria.

Algeria, despite the existence of half a dozen Islamic political parties is neither a Salafist nor a Brotherhood state. Its 36 million-strong population makes it the second largest Arab state demographically after Egypt and with an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres is the largest Arab country. Algeria also has a well-trained army and the largest military budget in Africa. In fact, Algeria is said to have “the most powerful and best-equipped military in North Africa and the Sahel”.

Algeria’s special forces are also a force to reckon with. Last January, a hostage crisis ensued at the In Amenas gas plant, lasting several days and resulting in around 40 hostages being killed and 800 survivors leading up to the rescue. One of the survivors remarked that the Algerian military ‘did a bloody good job’. Compare this with the hostage crisis of 2004 in the Beslan school in Russia in which 334 out of the 1,120 hostages were killed during the botched rescue operation.

Israel selling military wares to Mideast countries, Britain says -
By Aluf Benn

Haaretz Daily Newspaper
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-selling-military-wares-to-mideast-countries-britain-says.premium-1.5

Israel has exported security equipment over the past five years to Pakistan and four Arab countries, according to a British government report. The report, which deals with British government permits for arms and security equipment exports, says that in addition to Pakistan, Israel has exported such equipment to Egypt, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

The report was released by Britain’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees security exports and publishes regular reports on permits granted or denied to purchase arms, military equipment or civilian items that are monitored because they can be put to security uses.

ChikuwaQ: RT @ozuckan: Full Transcript: Defiant Erdoğan returns from Africa | Yeşil Gazete: http://t.co/kHZvWEdB3m #OccupyGezi
http://twitter.com/ChikuwaQ/statuses/343008206311800832

ChikuwaQ: RT @ozuckan: Full Transcript: Defiant Erdoğan returns from Africa | Yeşil Gazete: http://t.co/kHZvWEdB3m #OccupyGezi

Minority Rights Group International : Mali : Mali Overview

http://www.minorityrights.org/?lid=5319

Via @cdb_77

The Republic of Mali is a landlocked state in West Africa that extends into the Sahara Desert in the north, where its north-eastern border with Algeria begins. A long border with Mauritania extends from the north, then juts west to Senegal. In the west, Mali borders Senegal and Guinea; to the south, Côte d’Ivoire; to the south-east Burkina Faso, and in the east, Niger. The country straddles the Sahara and Sahel, home primarily to nomadic herders, and the less-arid south, predominately populated by farming peoples. The Niger River arches through southern and central Mali, where it feeds sizeable lakes. The Senegal river is an important resource in the west. Mali has mineral resources, notably gold and phosphorous.

#mali #minorités

M of A - Erdogan Is Toast
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/06/erdogan-is-toast.html#more

There are now four possible ways out of these troubles:

The protests run out of steam and peter out. Unlikely in my view, especially as the labor unions are now joining.
Erdogan becomes a humble man, stops the Taksim square project and apologizes. This would be counter to everything that is know about Erdogan’s personality and seems unlikely.
The military launches a coup. It is dubious that a majority of Turks would support another coup and the military might not be willing to take on the burden. Why not just sit back, simply watch the show and smile?
Some faction in Erodgan’s AKP launches a party coup against him and put him out of office.

For now my bet is on the third alternative. But it will take a while. More clashes - maybe even outright shootings, more economic damage, more political strife will happen before someone dares to take the sultan down. The process could take weeks or months. But however it ends Erdogan will, in the end, lose out. There is no going back. He is toast.

Les actualité du jour toute ici : - http://www.ruedelinfo.com
- http://www.lecourrierderussie.com
- http://www.letempsdz.com//content/blogcategory/14/177
- http://pro.orange.fr/sinformer/actualite_economique
- http://www.lopinion.fr

Autre :
Informations médicales du jour ici : http://aujourlejour.midiblogs.com/archive/2013/05/29/informations-medicales-du-jour-enfants-hyperactifs-lobbying.

À l’étrangé :

– http://www.1stheadlines.com/index.htm
– http://icito.com/category/world-news
– http://rofnews.com
– http://www.stratfor.com
– http://www.freenewspos.com/english

et bien d’autre !! bonne soirée à tous et bienvenue à ce qui se sont abonné cette semaine sur mon seenthis :) sa fait toujours plaisir de voir qu’on n’est un peut suivi

.:Middle East Online ::Algeria : Mideast’s next revolt if soccer is barometer :.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=58854

Algeria: Mideast’s next revolt if soccer is barometer

there is increasingly little doubt that soccer is signaling popular discontent could again spill into streets of Algiers, other major cities.

James Dorsey, le spécialiste de la sociologie du foot arabe, verrait bien l’Algérie dans l’oeil du prochain syclone, à en croire le bruit des stades.

China commits billions in aid to Africa as part of charm offensive - interactive | Global development | The Guardian

►http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/interactive/2013/apr/29/china-commits-billions-aid-africa-interactive

Series: China in Africa: soft power, hard cash

http://interactive.guim.co.uk/2013/apr/china-in-africa/assets/images/title.jpg

China commits billions in aid to Africa as part of charm offensive - interactive

Database reveals government has backed 1,700 projects on continent since 2000 in apparent attempt to win favour. The country’s financial commitments are significantly larger than previous estimates

Et le projet “AId Data” là
http://aiddatachina.org/content/about_the_project

Et la carte là :
Chinese Investments in Africa
http://www.location-source.com/latest-news/chinese-investments-in-africa.html?goback=.gde_1033567_member_23684

#données #data #statistiques #base_de_données #chine #afrique #chinafrique

Adolescence denied

Hundreds, thousand, hidden in the abandoned industrial areas that surround the port of Patras; I stayed with them in the old disused train station in the centre of Corinth; I found them in the ‘urban holes’ that dot the landscape of an Athens wounded by the crisis. They are the kids I followed for this project, some of whom are very young. After desperate journeys, they arrive from the wars which have tormented their countries in recent years. But war, for them, was only the beginning of the tragedy. Those who come from the Middle East and Central Asia try to reach Europe, the land I am lucky enough to call home, through its eastern door, Greece. They then get stuck there, amidst increasingly harsh security checks and racism which tragically often degenerates into neo-Nazi violence. For many, there is the hope of being able to rebuild the sort of life which would be impossible in their country of origin. The young Afghans I met are mainly fleeing the forced militarization practiced by the Taliban in Afghanistan, subsequent to the war that affected the country in 2001. For many others who are fleeing a scorching North Africa in revolt, the hope is to have the rights they were denied by the radicalization of the violence in their country of origin, recognized. Persecution for religious and ethnic reasons, or due to political opinion, could allow them to obtain refugee status in European Union countries, but certainly not in Greece. There, the rules are so tight that more than 99.5% of requests for asylum are refused. For this reason, they are forced to hide, because having a Greek police record would mean the end of the dream of safe reception in Europe. I learned that this is set out by the Dublin Regulation, the EU law with responsibility for granting asylum. According to the regulation, the country where a person is first identified is the country that has the duty and right to decide whether to grant refugee status or not, irrespective of where the application for asylum is made. Attempts to harmonize regulations on asylum in Europe have been dramatically swept away by the economic crisis. The Mediterranean countries have been the most affected by the flows and at the same time, have the fewest economic resources to manage them. What’s more, the difficult social conditions in these countries are providing an outlet for the phenomena of cultural closure, xenophobia and violence, which represent, for those who arrive, an insurmountable obstacle to obtaining the enjoyment of even the most basic human rights.

http://c0875922.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/67375.story_x_large.jpg

#photo #photographie #Grèce #migration #Patras #réfugiés #asile #Dublin #droits_humains #xénophobie

China commits billions in aid to Africa as part of charm offensive - interactive | Global development | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/interactive/2013/apr/29/china-commits-billions-aid-africa-interactive

China has committed $75bn (£48bn) on aid and development projects in Africa in the past decade, according to research which reveals the scale of what some have called Beijing’s escalating soft power “charm offensive” to secure political and economic clout on the continent.

The Chinese government releases very little information on its foreign aid activities, which remain state secrets. In one of the most ambitious attempts to date to chip away at this secrecy, US researchers have launched the largest public database of Chinese development finance in Africa, detailing almost 1,700 projects in 50 countries between 2000 and 2011.

China’s financial commitments are significantly larger than previous estimates of the country’s development finance, though still less than the estimated $90bn the US committed over that period. Researchers at AidData, at the College of William and Mary, have spent 18 months compiling and encoding thousands of media reports to construct the database, and hope users will contribute further detail on the projects.

The data, which challenges what has for years been the dominant story – Beijing’s unrelenting quest for natural resources – is likely to fuel ongoing debate over China’s motives in Africa.

There are few mining projects in the database and, while transport, storage and energy initiatives account for some of the largest sums, the data also reveals how China has put hundreds of millions of dollars towards health, education and cultural projects.

#Chine #Afrique #développement #cartographie
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/7si5954mjn7fuv8/chinafrique.jpg

Jospeh Massad sur une analyse historique de l’utilisation de la politique du Boycott par des Etats apartheid

“There is however a different history of the uses of the boycott. In contrast with its uses to force the end of race, class and colonial injustice, boycott would also be deployed as a tactic to bring about colonial and racial injustice. Zionism would be a pioneer in this regard. Upon the formalisation of Zionist settler colonialism in the 1897 First Zionist Congress, Jewish colonists were incensed that earlier Russian Jewish agricultural colonists who had settled in Palestine since the 1880s would employ Palestinian labour in their colonies, on account of its availability and cheapness. It was in this context that Zionism would develop its racially separatist notion of ‘Hebrew labour’, insisting and later imposing its regulations on all Jewish colonists in Palestine, namely that Jewish labour should be used exclusively in the Jewish settler-colony.”

http://m.aljazeera.com/story/201331884943284526

#boycott #Israel #Algérie #apartheid

Pas de médiation algérienne enter le Bahreïn et l’Iran

Bahrain’s foreign minister has denied reports that he had requested Algeria to mediate between his country and Iran.
“A brother does not mediate between his brother and a foreigner,” Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa was quoted as saying when he was asked about the tension between Bahrain and Iran and the chances of Manama requesting Algiers to mediate with Tehran.

A memorandum of understanding on political consultancy that will broaden coordination was signed by the two countries during the visit.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/bahrain-denies-iran-mediation-request-1.1165750

Libya’s south teeters toward chaos — and militant extremists -

latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-libya-dangerous-20130331,0,4597838.story

SABHA, Libya — Their fatigues don’t match and their pickup has no windshield. Their antiaircraft gun, clogged with grit, is perched between a refugee camp and ripped market tents scattered over an ancient caravan route. But the tribesmen keep their rifles cocked and eyes fixed on a terrain of scouring light where the oasis succumbs to desert.

“If we leave this outpost the Islamist militants will come and use Libya as a base. We can’t let that happen,” said Zakaria Ali Krayem, the oldest among the Tabu warriors. “But the government hasn’t paid us in 14 months. They won’t even give us money to buy needles to mend our uniforms.”

Krayem is battling smugglers, illegal migrants bound for Europe and armed extremists who stream across a swath of the Sahara near the porous intersection of southern Libya, Chad, Niger and Algeria. Since the 2011 Arab uprisings that swept away Moammar Kadafi and other autocrats, Western countries and Libya’s neighbors fear that this nation may emerge as an Islamist militant foothold.

Kadafi was replaced by a weak central government that has struggled with economic turmoil and the lack of judicial reform and a new constitution. The long-neglected south has grown more lawless. The Al Qaeda-linked militants, including Libyans, behind the January assault on a natural gas processing complex in Algeria that killed at least 37 foreigners traveled from Mali through Niger and Libya’s poorly patrolled hinterlands.

Drone base in Niger gives U.S. a strategic foothold in West Africa - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-base-in-niger-gives-us-a-strategic-foothold-in-west-africa/2013/03/21/700ee8d0-9170-11e2-9c4d-798c073d7ec8_story_1.html

Two U.S. defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said the Pentagon ultimately wants to move the Predators to the Saharan city of Agadez, in northern Niger.

Agadez is closer to parts of southern Algeria and southern Libya where fighters and arms traffickers allied with al-Qaeda have taken refuge.

The Africa Command did not respond to questions about how many U.S. troops are in Niger, but one U.S. official said the number of Air Force personnel had increased beyond the 100 troops Obama said last month he had deployed.

#drones #niger #afrique #africom

.:Middle East Online ::Algerian women march in capital to defend ‘haik’ :.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=57699

Algerian women march in capital to defend ‘haik’

Around 30 women dressed in white take to Algiers streets to defend Algeria’s tradition dress against hijab, niqab.

Compliqué à expliquer à un public gaulois, mais on peut s’intéresser à cette marche d’Algériennes revendiquant le traditionnel haïk face aux variations du Golfe...

Sur Israël et la notion de boycott, par Joseph Massad. Attention, c’est assez terrifiant… Israel and the politics of boycott
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201331884943284526.html

As a racially separatist Jewish economy and colony established on the lands of the Palestinians continued to be the primary goal of Zionism, the principle of boycott of Palestinian labour and products would become more aggressive as time passed. Like its parent Zionist movement before it, which used the tactic of boycott to effect racial separation and discrimination rather than end it, the Zionist labour Federation, the Histadrut, would begin in 1927 to use the time-honoured act of picketing. Picketing is traditionally used by workers and unions to end practices involving the exploitation and unfair treatment of workers. In the case of the Jewish colonists, they used picketing to bring about discrimination against Palestinian workers and to deny them employment in their own country. The Zionist picketing campaign sought to boycott Jewish businesses which continued to employ Palestinian labour as well as the goods the Palestinians produced. This was not only confined to the agricultural Jewish colonies in the Palestinian countryside, but also included urban settings where Jewish businesses employed Palestinians in the area of construction.

Qatar moving closer to Algeria ? |

openDemocracy

http://www.opendemocracy.net/mehdi-lazar/qatar-moving-closer-to-algeria

Difficile de savoir si cela relève de la réalité ou de ce que souhaite l’auteur de l’article

Qatar sees Algeria as an emerging country with a large market, many economic opportunities, and political stability, especially compared to other Arab countries. Convergence of interests around gas production also exists between the two states, and in this new energy landscape, facing existing global competition - Russia and Iran - or emerging - the United States - it is important to create alliances. In addition, Algeria remains a major strategic player in the region: the country has the largest defense budget in the African continent, is a recognized expertise in the fight against terrorism and a founding member of several forums that fight against terrorism, both regionally and globally.

So firstly, economic rapprochement between the two states could thus be seen as a way for Qatar to try to put pressure on Algeria to change its position vis-à-vis some conflicts, especially in Syria. Plus, the intensification of economic cooperation - which is very advantageous to both  – might be a way to achieve a deepening of political relations, in the context of a possible evolution of regional diplomacy on the part of the two countries.

A prominent Saudi cleric and member of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, blamed al-Qaeda for international intervention in Mali and bloodshed in Algeria. The Saudi cleric, Abdullazizi al-Fouzan, called on al-Qaeda to stop intervening in Mali’s affairs or those of any other Islamic nation, saying their (al-Qaeda’s) actions open the door to “the enemies of the Islamic nation” to intervene in their affairs.

Al Arabiya

Mali : c’est bien parti pour la « longue guerre », avec essentiellement les Français au sol et les drones étasuniens dans les airs.

Terror Leader Emerges, Then Vanishes, in Sahara
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323511804578296170934762536.html

The U.S. is employing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Joint Special Operations Command in a manhunt that underscores how quickly Washington is eyeing an expansion of its counterterrorism actions in northwestern Africa following the gas-plant attack. Senior U.S. officials are pressing to add Mr. Belmokhtar to a list of U.S. targets for capture or killing.

(...)

In recent days, France has dispatched attack helicopters and fighter jets on bombing runs, so far without result. The U.S. has sent surveillance planes and is considering a drone base in neighboring Niger.

Even with its 21st-century hardware and intelligence assistance from the U.S., France is finding it must send in troops.

“You can’t see anything from the air,” said a French colonel and spokesman at the French air base in Sevare, Mali. “You’ve got to have troops on the ground, with intelligence.”

#Mali #Africom #Contre-terrorisme #drone #longue-guerre

A lire en complément d’un précédent post : http://seenthis.net/messages/11126

The Crisis in Mali: A Historical Perspective on the Tuareg People | Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-crisis-in-mali-a-historical-perspective-on-the-tuareg-people/5321407

Currently the ongoing situation in Mali is gaining traction in the media with the reporting of Al Qaeda members within the ranks of the Tuareg rebels.

The situation in quite complicated and involves not only France, but also the US and partially Canada and links to the interests of these Western powers with not just Mali, but with the African continent as a whole.

However, in order to get a better handle on the situation, there must first be an understanding of the domestic actors, namely the Tuareg people.

#Touaregs #histoire #Mali

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) - Council on Foreign Relations

Un petit résumé de ce que fait Al-Qaida au maghreb

http://www.cfr.org/north-africa/al-qaeda-islamic-maghreb-aqim/p12717?cid=nlc-public-the_world_this_week-link15-20130125

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a Salafi-jihadist militant group and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization operating in North Africa’s Sahara and Sahel. The group can trace its provenance back to Algeria’s civil war, and has since become an al-Qaeda affiliate with broader regional and international ambitions. While many experts suggest AQIM is the primary transnational terror threat in North Africa, the risk it poses to Europe and the United States remains unclear.

AQIM’s activities have garnered heightened scrutiny in recent months, particularly after the group, along with other jihadist factions, expanded its foothold in Mali’s vast ungoverned north. In early 2013, a French-led military intervention has, thus far, halted the southward advance of Islamist insurgents, but analysts warn that the operation may fail unless followed up with a robust contingent of African ground forces. Western nations, including the United States, Britain, and Canada have provided some

#aqmi #sahel #maghreb

Was There A January 25 Revolution ?
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/9766/was-there-a-january-25-revolution

Pas vraiment long and worth it ! Par Joel Beinin, « la révolution du 25 janvier [en Egypte] n’est pas finie. » En fait, elle n’a pas encore eu lieu. Très décoiffante lecture en écho à 1919 et 1952 du 25 janvier 2011.

The January 25 Revolution is not over. Rather, it has not yet occurred. There was a popular revolutionary upsurge that until now has been outmaneuvered by the military and the Muslim Brothers. There have been repeated popular upsurges – most recently the massive protests against President Mohamed Morsi’s anti-democratic constitutional declaration of 22 November 2012 and the new constitution – that have registered some successes and limited or rolled back regressive measures favored by the Brothers and the army.

#egypt, #révolution

#Qatar_Leaks: The Business of Foreign Affairs | Al Akhbar English
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/qatar-leaks-business-foreign-affairs

The first one is the minutes of a meeting between Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani and Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi that took place in September 2012, in which they discussed the situation in Syria.

In it, the Qatari prime minister talks of contacting Russia to convince it of abandoning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, offering guarantees from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that Moscow’s naval base can remain in Syria.

The document also reveals that what Qatar offered Egypt in terms of financial assistance after the revolution is little more than loans with interest in return for giving the Qataris incentives such as investing in Egypt’s steel industry.

The second document is the minutes of a meeting between Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. The meeting took place in mid-March 2011 during the early stages of battle in Libya and the discussion revolves mainly about the situation on the ground there.

As for the third document, it also contains minutes of a meeting, this time between the Qatari Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and foreign minister Davutoğlu.

In it, the foreign minister stresses the importance of not allowing Assad to complete his term in office, which ends in 2014, because he will use it to defeat the opposition.