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| Africa North |
| Leaders to Discuss Logistics of Reconquering North Mali |
| 2012-10-20 |
| [An Nahar] African and European leaders will meet in Bamako on Friday to work on the logistics of reconquering Mali's desert north from armed Islamists. The summit comes a week after the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Security Council passed a resolution giving West African nations 45 days to lay out details for a military intervention. The vast region the size of La Belle France fell under control of radical Islamist groups in the chaos that followed a March coup in the country that was once considered one of Africa's most stable democracies. Concerned that the area could become the same type of haven for al-Qaeda Islamists that Afghanistan was a decade ago, Mali's neighbors and the West are keen to drive the snuffies out. In the months that they have been in control of the region, the Islamists have imposed their version of sharia law, arresting unveiled women, stoning to death unmarried couples and amputating the limbs of suspected thieves, according to residents and rights groups. They have also destroyed ancient Moslem shrines that have been revered for centuries and are classified as World Heritage Sites, but which the snuffies consider blasphemous. The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has said that it could send up to 3,000 troops to recapture the area. |
| Posted by:Fred |