Mali
Mali exports gold?it hast the third-highest gold production in Africa?yet it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Formerly a stable democracy, the country saw its president thrown out by the military last July. Then rebels called the Tuareg seized part of the northern part of the nation. They were joined, and later replaced, by Islamist rebels who have been making gains and imposing repressive Shariah law.
One example: Groups have been compiling lists of unmarried women in areas they occupied, according to a United Nations official who visited Mali last year. Last July, Islamists stoned a couple to death in public for committing adultery. The official also said women and children were being sold.
France
Ties to Mali run deep?the nation, once a French colony, achieved independence from France only in 1960. French president Fran?ois Hollande ordered an intervention in Mali last Friday. Airstrikes rattled the interior, and French special forces are starting operations against rebels in northern towns. Reports of human shields and house-to-house fighting are already surfacing.
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb
While Americans watch Zero Dark Thirty earn Oscar nominations for its portrayal of the killing of Osama bin Laden, his ideological heirs have been spreading around the world in offshoot groups. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb is one of the most successful, having allied itself with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, based in Iraq.
The group has been implicated in the attack on the American facilities in Benghazi, Libya, which killed the American ambassador and other personnel. This high-profile raid is another sign they are well-organized, are willing to strike, and have a flair for the dramatic. (It could be that the French intervention provided an excuse to launch an attack militants already had planned, the way a controversial American-made movie provided a convenient pretext for the already-planned Benghazi attack.)
Algeria
To hurt Europe, rebels in Africa need only target Algeria. The Northern African nation is the third-largest supplier of natural gas to Europe and is poised to grow. ?We?re already involved in several major fields and we are actively exploring for more," StatoilHydro?s website says.
There?s a long, porous border between Mali and Algeria, and there are plenty of Islamist fighters in Libya as well. So raiding this major economic driver destabilizes the region and ensures that France and the rest of the world will pay both a literal and symbolic price for intervention.
U.S.
With at least three Americans being held hostage (the numbers vary in different reports out of Algeria?some say seven Americans), this otherwise African?European crisis will likely spread to Washington, D.C. And the involvement of a notorious al-Qaida franchise will make a response more likely, and if not now, then soon.
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