Tuaregs Fighting for Gaddafi

Niger Rebels have been given asylum and support by Gadaffi in Libya for half a century; so it is natural that he would call on the Tuareg in Northern Nigeria to help him start an insurgency.

Shimron Issachar ( see article below)

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The Libyan leader has turned for additional firepower to the Tuareg berber people, who have a history of relations with Tripoli -- and their own longstanding conflict with the Niger government.

Doctors in Brega, Libya show identity card of a slain pro-Gaddafi fighter they say was a Tuareg from Niger

AGADEZ - “We’re here, and everything’s fine. They gave us weapons in Tripoli, and for now we have to stick to Sabaha (in southern Libya). But we’ll be on the frontlines soon….Long live Gaddafi!”

Reached from Agadez, in northern Niger, Suleiman’s laughter is lost in the static of the cell phone. Communication is cut off somewhere in the Sahara desert, a thousand kilometers away from the Aïr mountains of Niger where Suleiman was born.

The northern mountain range remains the stronghold of the rebellion of the Tuareg, a nomadic Berber people, who have fought on and off against the authorities in the capital of Niamey.
That Tuaregs from Niger have been recruited as mercenaries for the Libyan regime is Agadez’s worst kept secret. But it is hard to meet a volunteer who’ll speak openly about it -- and impossible to know just how many have taken Muammar Gaddafi’s side since the beginning of the Libyan crisis.

“There are hundreds of them,” estimates a former rebel leader in Agadez. “They leave in caravans. The ride is long but easy. We avoid Nigerien army checkpoints, and once in Libya, we’re at home. We’ve always been welcome there.”

The desert is unconquerable. North of a line going from the Malian border to Libya, passing through Tahoua, Agadez and Dirkou, the Tuaregs know the dirt roads that lead up into Algeria and Libya better than anyone else.

These roads see all sorts of traffic: arms and drugs, goods and African migrants heading to Europe. For years, these roads have been leading them to Libya, a land of asylum and a sanctuary for generations of Tuareg rebels since the 1960s.

It is a land of financial and personal integration for the luckiest, of thankless seasonal labor for others. For a Tuareg community that doesn’t feel welcome in its own country, one of the poorest in the world, Libya is a gold mine.

“Unemployment, idleness, destitution and political frustration, added to the feeling that they are in debt to Gaddafi… All the ingredients are there to make the Tuaregs fight by his side.

Gaddafi doesn’t need equipment or money, he needs menNigerien Patriotic Front (NPF) rebel group.,” says Issuf Maha, 46, a former official of the

• Nigerien Tuaregs in Libya, with full access to Gaddafi’s inner circle, have activated networks.
• “Rhissa Boula and Aghali Alambo (two former rebel leaders) contacted a number of people,” Maha adds.
• One young man, Houcene, hasn’t made up his mind about going to Tripoli. “A friend called me,” he says. “They promised up to $100 a day. It’s tempting, but I don’t really want to fight for a foreign country, even if it’s Libya.” One of his friends went. “He left with about 60 others from the Tahoua region.
• Once in Tripoli, thanks to the old commanders’ connections, Libya gave them weapons. They formed small units and now they’re in Benghazi (the opposition stronghold) to take the city.”

Gaddafi has often used battalions of Tuaregs, picking these rugged warriors from tribes living in Southern Libya but mostly in the Tuareg communities of Mali and Niger, the largest, “about 1.5 million people for a population 11 million,” according to a Nigerien general.

Integrated in the ranks of the Islamic Legion, these men fought in Lebanon, despite not speaking Arabic, and in Chad in the 1980’s. Many then stayed in Libya. Some worked their way up to the top of the Libyan military ranks, unheard of in their native Niger, where Tuaregs are under-represented in government bodies. One of Gaddafi’s closest advisors is a Tuareg and two Southern shabiyats (districts), Ghat and Wadi al Hayaa are run by Tuaregs.

In Agadez, many dream of such promotions. “If we want security in the North of the country, we have to integrate Tuaregs in the army. They know the region better than anyone else. But the army sees us as thugs,” regrets Mohamed Anako.

Still, Agadez has been precariously calm since a verbal peace agreement quickly put together in the Libyan port city of Syrte in April 2009, under Gaddafi’s supervision, which put an end to a two-year Tuareg uprising in Niger.

“It was just a tacit agreement to start the peace process,” says Aklou Sidi Sidi. Niamey only partly recognized the protocol. “Gaddafi paid for everything but as usual, he just gave suitcases full of dollars to rebel leaders,” says Maha.

With the Libyan money, the 3,000 or so identified rebels were demobilized and disarmed. In exchange, Niamey called a general amnesty, freed prisoners and lifted the state of exception installed in Agadez and the surrounding region. But no economic or social measures were taken.

“They should have integrated former rebels, given young people jobs, but they never followed up,” says the region’s governor, Colonel Yaye Garba, a Zarma appointed in Agadez by the military junta.

The makeshift peace agreement has frustrated 35-year-old Houcene. He’s among those low-ranking rebels who only got a little money for their demobilization after two years of guerilla in the bush. “Former leaders took the lion’s share.

They drive around Niamey in fancy SUVs, live in big villas,” he says. Some haven’t even been back to Agadez, afraid to face their former brothers in arms. Especially since the money paid was less then what Libya had promised. “Gaddafi promised $20 million and only paid four million,” says Issouf Maha. Houcene, who’s been unemployed since he gave up his weapons, says there’s no place left to turn.

“We were betrayed by everyone: Niamey, Tripoli and our own leaders.”
Read the original article in French

By Christophe Chatelot

The Rest @ WorldCrunch-LeMonde

Is Le Mouvement des Nigeriens pour la Justice ( MNJ ) Getting Al Qaeda Resources?

The MNJ uprising in Niger, North Africa has a marketing scheme underway that is sophisticated, multi-dimensional, and has European connections. The government's main response is to ban cigarettes, displaying a breath taking lack of awareness that the MNJ's funding has evolved from just Sahara cigarette smuggling, to al-Qaeda-like criminality, including sophsitacted weapons and kidnapping.


First, The MNJ's propoganda tools keep getting better.

Seven months ago youtube got a new user envouaturesimone who seems to be close to the MNJ leadership, and has produced two low quality videos which champion the MNJ cause. This Month, al Jazeera sent a team in and has done several reports, including Niger's Nomand Army, and several others by other news groups.

Perhaps it is coincidetal that all this new video coverage has hit the web since the MNJ web set added three European Based "leaders" Issouf MAHA, who claims to be Chargé de la Communication Cellule Politique MNJ en Europe (Communication for political cells in Europe), Ahmed AKOLI, claiming to be Secrétaire Général Cellule Politique MNJ en Europe, (Seceretary General for political cells), and Ghissa FELTOU, who claims to be Coordinateur Cellule Politique MNJ en Europe, Coordinator of political cells).


Second, Their Weapons keep getting better.

The MNJ recently claim to have new anti-tank missiles that look suspiciously like the missils sold to Libya by France in an oild deal a cuple of months ago. Though It is likely these were bought from a corrupt Libyan official, it suggests that funding sources for the MNJ have become more diverse.

The Libyan connection casues me wonder if the MNJ are connected to the The Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad (MDJT)the group that has held American Aid Worker Steve Godbold since September, 2007.

The MNJ has recently announced a new offensive, and claimed to have "downed" two Russian made government MI-24 Attack Helicopters.

Finally, This is the same pattern that AQIM followed before they became the al-Qaeda franchise in the Magreb region of the Western Sahara Desert.


What ever the reason, The situation put's France's primary Uranium source (nuclear power) at risk.

-Shimron

UN Food Program and the MNJ

It appears that the UN Food Program Office in France may be gathering information on an obscure Rebel Commander in the MNJ named Aghali Alambo, possibly to see if there is an al Qaeda connection.

-Shimron

M-N-J (MNJ) Promises to Step up attacks in Niger

The following article was posted in France by a media outlet that has been accused byt the Niger government of having direct connections to the NMJ leadership. Possible conclusion from the article and other related traffic:

• The MNJ has been a nationalist rebel group, generally without Islamist objectives
• Islamist Jihadists often practice a perceived quranic and Hadith requirement to warn their enemies to repent before they attack.
• In the last year before other attacks, MNJ has initatied this practice
• This warning was released 12 days ago
• therefore attaks on Areva and other Uranium interests in Niger may be iminent

-Shimron


Paris - Niger's Tuareg rebels will attack uranium mines and convoys in a new phase of their battle against the industry, a leading figure in the rebellion warned in an interview published on Thursday.

The Tuareg Movement of Nigeriens for Justice (MNJ) can mobilise up to 1 000 fighters under military chief Aghali Alambo, the leader of the rebellion Rhissa Ag Boula told French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur.

"We are going to attack the uranium mines, including those of (French nuclear giant) Areva, to stop factories functioning, prevent the exploitation of new quarries, and seize the cargo that is en route to the sea," he said.

"You can't exploit uranium without us," he warned.

Poor and restive Niger finds itself sitting on a surprising treasure trove of uranium. The west African state on the edge of the Sahara is the world's third largest producer of an element whose price has soared.

Areva is Niger's top private employer and has operated two uranium mines in the country for the past 40 years.

The stakes are particularly high for former colonial power France: three-quarters of the nuclear-powered electricity produced by its main electricity company EDF uses uranium imported from Niger.

In April last year, MNJ rebels attacked Areva's biggest uranium project in Niger, demanding better application of the economic aspects of the 1995 peace agreements that ended the first Tuareg rebellion.

The MNJ says peace will not return to the north of Niger without better integration of Tuaregs into the army, paramilitary corps and the local mining sector. Since February 2007 it has carried out attacks on military targets in the area.

Rhissa Ag Boula said this new phase of the Tuareg rebellion would soon see the rebels occupy a dozen urban centres in the uranium-rich north, such as Agadez, Arlit, Iferouane, and In Gall.
"There will be legislative and presidential elections in 2009. This will all happen before then," he said.

President Mamadou Tandja, who refuses to negotiate with the MNJ, in November extended by three months a state of emergency that has reinforced the army's powers in the conflict zone.
The Tuaregs are a grouping of nomadic tribes who have roamed the Sahara since centuries before the countries of the region gained independence from colonial powers.

The Rest @ News 24