Thursday, March 3, 2011

From Mali and Niger to Libya: Gaddafi mercenaries recruited among the Tuareg

Fighters of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in Darfur, the Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi apparently recruited mercenaries in a big way in its southern neighboring countries, especially among the Tuareg in Mali and Niger. According to Mali's regional representatives from the northern Malian town of Kidal, a traditional settlement area of the Tuareg, are already hundreds of men have set out to Libya.


Among them are, according to the mayor of Kidal many former rebels. Is also speculated that one of the last leader of the Malian Tuareg rebel Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, is currently residing in Libya. Mali and Niger were in the nineties, the scene of the Tuareg rebellion, which were allegedly supported by Libya.

The Chairman of the Regional Council of Kidal in Mali, Abdou Salam Ag Assalat, was compared to the AFP news agency deeply concerned over the recruitment of mercenaries among the Tuaregs. "If these people come back and bring their weapons, which can again destabilize the entire Sahel," he said.

While the security services were trying to talk the predominantly young Tuaregs from their purpose, but is the view of the Libyans in the promised payment "hopeless". The sums are called, range from a few hundred dollars up to $ 1,000 for each combat mission, which is in poor Sahel a fortune.

Meanwhile, even a proper infrastructure for the transport of the mercenaries had arisen, which would be taken by Mali from off-road trucks across the Niger part of the Sahara in southern Libya. This region is also the retreat of Aqmi, such as the North African branch of Al-Qaeda terror network is called.

Another route is to run through the village of Zouar in northern Chad, the Chadian authorities deny that, however. Libya and Chad had delivered in the seventies and eighties of the last century, a bitter war for control of the Tibesti Mountains, located on the edge Zouar. Reliable data on the number of mercenaries in Gaddafi's series are however not available.

The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) estimates the number of black African mercenaries to 6,000 men, will be stationed by 3000 in which again the capital Tripoli. Evidence that particular fight rebels from the Eastern Sudan's Darfur region or on Gaddafi, as they had been spread by the Sudanese government in Khartoum before week period could not be confirmed yet.

However, the lives of a Sudanese rebel leader, Khalil Ibrahim, in Tripoli. Ibrahim leads the rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in May last year and had sought refuge in Libya, having previously had not allowed entry to Chad. The 1.5 million Tuareg living distributed to the countries of Algeria, Mali, Niger and Libya joins, however, a long shared history with the Libyan revolution leader.

" Between 1990 and 1995 there had been in Mali and Niger to Tuareg uprisings, demanding autonomy for their areas of settlement, because they opposed the black African governments in their countries. Both rebellions have received support from Libya. Both Mali and Niger could settle the conflict in 1995 after political concessions to the Tuareg.

Since 2007, but it is in both countries occasionally returned to attacks by Tuareg in Mali to State bodies in the Niger Arlit to important industrial complexes such as the French group Areva owned uranium mines. Especially in the case of Arlit was in the Nigerien press about a possible background Libyan been speculation, as the Libyan leadership had responded with a libel suit.

No comments:

Post a Comment