This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler cover image

Desert Flashpoint: Crisis in the Sahel

This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

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Al-Qaida in Mali - The One Eye

Mali is an incredibly poor country much of which is a vast, trackless desert. It was easy for al-Qaeda warriors displaced from Algeria to find safe havens there. These Tuareg received another boost by gaining thousands of weapons looted from Libyan armories. The reason why they were Jihadist in Mali in 2012 is because some Jihadists rejected the amnesty program that Algeria offered to end the civil war. Mokhtar Bel Mokhtar got this local Jihadist network officially recognised by Al-Qaeda as being part of the global franchise.

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