Adrian and the Emirs

Adrian has put up a great walkthrough of the Saharan terrorism circus at Arab Media Shack, which I highly recommend you to read. (I register a slight disagreement in comments, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's an excellent text.) His thesis on Touareg troubles in Niger & Mali, which I haven't quite finished yet, is also really good.

That said, I should admit that I'm not quite à jour with al-Qaida leader struggles. Adrian pointed out that there have been rumors of Mokhtar Belmokhtar stepping back, being replaced by Yahia Jouadi as leader in the south. Now a communiqé supposedly from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM, ex-GSPC) attributes the recent attack in Mauritania to this latter commander, labeling him the Emir of the Sahara. Either they're split threeways in some amicable division of labor, or Jouadi has moved up front (or some organizationally fuzzy combination of the two); but it seems reasonably clear that Belmokhtar, for whatever reason, is no longer the Emir of AQIM's southern branch. I wish to apologize to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Yahia Jouadi and Abdelmalek Droukdel, and their families, for any damage or inconvenience my statements may have caused.