On the Mauritanian al-Qaida strike

Here they come!

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — Suspected al-Qaida militants killed 12 Mauritanian soldiers Monday, two senior officials said. The attack, which came after the terror group promised to avenge the country's recent coup, was the worst suffered by the military in three years.

Assailants ambushed an army unit patrolling the desert in Tourine, about 530 miles north of Nouakchott, a lieutenant-colonel told The Associated Press. The same account also was given by a senior official in the presidency. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

About two dozen soldiers in four vehicles were on a routine patrol when their convoy was raked with machine gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, the lieutenant-colonel said. Three of the vehicles were destroyed, and a fourth managed to return to base with 10 soldiers aboard. Among the dead was the captain who had led the patrol.

1. If the above info checks out, this is the third major operation by jihadis in Mauritania in three years. The previous two were the 2005 assault on the military base at Lemgheiti, which killed 15 soldiers, and the Christmas 2007 murder of a French family. Apart from this, there have been some minor plots and shootouts. Three in three years, not an awesome track record, but by launching full-scale ambushes against the regular army, al-Qaida proves it can muster at least some capacity for real guerrilla warfare, rather than just terrorist bombings.

[picture: zouërate region, northern mauritania]

2. This is in the north of the country, in a desolate Saharan region with, shall we say, somewhat lax standards of law-enforcement. This is in large part a legacy of the Western Sahara conflict, which has effectively deprived Mauritania of whatever control it could plausibly exercise over its long, northern border. The Moroccan berm even cuts through northern Mauritania in the corner north of Bir Mohgrein, and Polisario military units move freely throughout the area with no regard for borders -- and the same goes for civilian Tindouf dwellers, traders, Bedouins, smugglers and others, also from Algeria and Mali. The Nouakchott government has resigned itself to this state of affairs, and securing the border properly won't be done, and can't be done, until the conflict is over. In the meantime, it will be very difficult to apply necessary pressure on al-Qaida/GSPC or similar groups if they manage to implant themselves well enough in the smuggling business, as it would seem they already have. What could help a lot is a formal framework for Algeria-Mauritania-Polisario-Mali policing, since these parties are already on friendly terms with each other, while Morocco is somewhat disconnected from the whole thing (by the berm). But, for political reasons, that wouldn't sit at all well with Rabat -- and one should keep in mind that high army/state officials with all of the above (including both Polisario and Morocco, I am compelled to say) seem to have business interests at stake here.

[picture: a portrait of the terrorist as a young man -- mokhtar belmokhtar]

3. The al-Qaida/GSPC group that is involved here is the southern/Saharan wing that is headed by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a.k.a. Belaaouar (real name Khaled Aboul-Abbas). It consists both of northerners (mainly Algerians, but also some Moroccans, Libyans and Tunisians) and locals, moving in the tribal border regions straddled by multi-national Touareg and Moors, and it has a fairly distinct identity within the larger GSPC framework. Belmokhtar has had sympathetic contacts with al-Qaida even before the GSPC leadership was accepted as part of the group, but, at the same time, he seems far less dedicated to spectacular terrorist stunts thas his colleagues/superiors up in the Kabylie. One example is the two kidnapped German tourists, who were picked up in Tunisia and spirited into the Algerian south in February this year. They haven't been killed (yet) and the kidnappers so far seem intent on extracting a high ransom rather than proving their gruesome political point. In fact, Belmokhtar's activities are mostly centered on smuggling and taxing trade routes, and opinions differ on whether he's really a radical Islamist terrorist or a cynical crime baron. I'd argue they aren't mutually exclusive. (Related: Mali's Touareg uprising & US military assistance.)

[picture: belmokhtar's boys]

4. As you can see above (and in an unquoted later segment of the AP dispatch), there are claims that al-Qaida has decided to launch this holy war "in retaliation" for the coup d'état in Mauritania in August. This, now apparently an established fact for the Associated Press, is solely based on how someone at Reuters interpreted a communiqué issued by al-Qaida right after the coup, in which they made the usual calls for overthrowing local regimes, including that recently established in Mauritania. The timing & framing was of course intentional, and they did get a lot of headlines by latching on to the news of the coup, but there was absolutely nothing new about them wanting to destroy an "infidel" regime in Mauritania. The 2005 attack on Lemgheiti, which Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for, predates both of Gen. Mohamed ould Abdelaziz's two coups (Aug. 2005, Aug 2008), and so does the flood of blood-curling anti-regime communiqués by al-Qaida and their affiliates. Their so-called Jihad has nothing to do with who rules Nouakchott. Still, the new Mauritanian regime will not be eager to correct this, since they are pinning their hopes of international recognition following the coup on a claim to be fighting Islamism. That so many manage to miss this transparent trick, and insist on taking both putschists and jihadists at their word, is far beyond gullible: it is completely failed journalism.