War on Terror in the Sahara

I have a long piece on the War on Terror in the Sahara desert up at Rob's Arabic Media Shack. I wrote it before the recent attack by AQIM in Mauritania, but oh well.

Also thanks to the Western Sahara Info blog that gave me a couple links. An apparent communique from AQIM that is translated there seems to confirm what I wrote tentatively about in my piece at the Arabic Media Shack - that Mokhtar Belmokhtar is no longer the head of AQIM-South (perhaps he's relaxing on the beach in Benin) and has been replaced by Yahia Djouadi.  I believe he was previously head of AQIM's military committee, so he's likely to be on board with Droukdel's pro-bin-Ladin-ism.  That will make it interesting to see whether there are a lot of defections from Belmokhtar's former gang, as Belmokhtar reportedly was not big on martyring himself for the greater glory of the Caliphate.

Also through Western Sahara Info's blogroll I found a few more good blogs: Parmenides' Fallacy, The Moor Next Door, and Nick Brook's Sand & Dust.

Looking at insurgencies, and data selection

Via Zenpundit, I came across a good article in Armed Forces Journal by Capt. Robert Chamberlain that looks at the faulty idea that insurgencies/counterinsurgencies always take a long time:

It is simply untrue that counterinsurgencies are inherently long-term struggles.

When I started studying the Tuareg insurgencies in Mali and Niger, I was surprised to learn that there had been an insurgency in 1963-1964 in Mali. I had never heard of it, because it hadn't killed very many people. One Tuareg clan - the Kel Adagh, based near Kidal, Mali - rebelled against the Malian government and were brutally crushed in short order. As I wrote in my thesis:

The Malian Army crushed the Kel Adagh rebellion by using widespread violence against civilians, torture, declaring the countryside outside of a few towns a vast free-fire zone, poisoning wells necessary for any activity outside towns, killing Tuareg herds of cattle and camels to force them into the cities, executing the religious and political leaders of both rebel and neutral clans, and threatening napalm bombing from fighter-bombers.

In Chamberlain's metaphor, this was a "kitchen fire" rather than a five-alarm blaze, and because it did not reach 1000 battle deaths, the 1963 rebellion does not appear in the main intra-state war database, Correlates of War (COW).

When academics study insurgencies en masse, they create databases full of very bloody, long insurgencies that kill lots of people but ignore the many many more small, short-lived insurgencies. Consequently our understanding of insurgency as a mode of conflict is skewed towards large bloody messes. I'd hazard a guess that this problem doesn't have the same degree of impact in studying conventional wars, because conventional wars are easier to find in the historical record, and usually the combatants are states that wield significant combat power, meaning there aren't as many kitchen fires that don't turn into five-alarm blazes.

The problem of data selection is cemented in the Correlates of War database. This database is a one-stop shop for researchers on war, but it only counts conflicts that result in more than one thousand battle deaths. Some sort of filter like that is necessary or else the data set would be too large to be useful. The problem comes when researchers like Paul Collier take the COW data, look at intra-state conflict and extrapolate their findings to all intra-state conflict ever, instead of just intra-state conflict with more than 1000 battle deaths.

Using COW data, Collier and Hoeffler reached the conclusion that rebellions happen when there exist opportunities for rebellion (rather than grievances for rebellion). Had they thought about the limitations of their data, they would have realized that their argument only showed that rebellions survive to create conflicts large enough to appear on COW's radar when the opportunity exists for large rebellions - and that rebellions driven by grievances might occur in hostile environments for rebellion but would be wiped out quickly, like the 1963 rebellion by the Kel Adagh.

Dan Byman, the head of my old program, said something related in a talk a couple months ago. He noted that a lot of people argue that terrorism doesn't kill large numbers of people. Byman argued that's only true because when terrorism does start to kill lots of people, we don't call it terrorism any more. Exhibit A, the firebombings of Germany and Tokyo. Exhibit B, the 1990s civil war in Algeria. Exhibit C, the situation in Iraq.

This whole problem is similar to Taleb's idea of "silent evidence" - in order to understand big house fires, you have to look at the big fires themselves, as well as small fires that don't become big fires. Only then can you really understand what factors are important in turning small fires into big ones (click the link to see that even Harvard professors do not understand this concept).

The point of Chamberlain's article was that the mantra that 'counterinsurgency campaigns take a long time' has been used as an excuse for the failure to provide a coherent strategy for a favorable outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan:

According to conventional wisdom, we will be in Iraq and Afghanistan for at least 10 years because they are insurgencies, and that’s how long insurgencies take...
This is an abdication of the responsibilities of strategic leadership. The American public is owed more of an explanation than, “Well, these things take a while.” It is owed a comprehensive strategic vision...

Fabius Maximus continues this point by arguing that when an insurgency has carried on long enough and is damaging enough for a country to beg for large-scale American military involvement, that country is probably doomed to lose anyway. A more effective counterinsurgency strategy for the United States would focus on the small "kitchen fires", and try to keep those kitchen fires from becoming big fires, rather than reacting late to put out big fires.

Brief thoughts on Lebanon

Although it was billed as a "civil war", it seems the recent violence in Lebanon was Hezbollah eliminating a bunch of rival militias before they could pose a threat to its power. According to a lot of reports, rival militia members, many of whom are simply hired guns, ran away without firing a shot. The Lebanese army didn't do anything, for fear of not being able to do anything.

Hezbollah gains a lot of its strength from its provision of social services - schools, hospitals, welfare programs, agricultural centers, etc. These gain it loyalty amongst Lebanon's Shia population, through building the credibility of the organization (compare Hezbollah's actions after the summer 2006 war to FEMA in Katrina), trust amongst members, basically social capital. That loyalty in turn is what gives Hezbollah military strength - fighters willing to die for the cause. The other militias in Lebanon do not have these broad social/political structures.

Hezbollah's social services are thus the source of its military power. New militias that attempt to join the game have to go through a period of vulnerability - it takes time to build loyalty and social capital in order to get fighters willing to die for you, and I guess Hezbollah decided to strike before its rivals crossed that threshold.

Hezbollah is being described as a "state within a state." But it's not within anything, the 'state' of Lebanon exists just like the 'state' of Iraq. Little legitimacy, little actual power. So Hezbollah is really just a state by itself.

I haven't been following the current violence in depth, but some good sources are Abu Muqawama, BBC, Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal, the Angry Arab, and the Media Shack who has been posting on Arab media reactions to what's going on.

More than pieces of paper

Although the government of Mali signed a truce with rebel insurgents about a month ago, there has been a recent spate of attacks over the last few days. Is it worth signing peace deals when you know they will be broken?

Mali (and its neighbor Niger) is in the midst of what Wikipedia calls the "Second Tuareg Rebellion." It began in Mali in May of 2006, but the main rebel groups agreed on peace the following July. The sole holdout was a group loyal to Ibrahim Bahanga, which kept fighting until a cease fire signed last month under the 'guidance' of the Libyans. This peace deal held up until about a week ago, when there were a number of violent clashes between security forces and insurgents. It is not certain that Bahanga's men are responsible for these attacks, but it is a reasonable assumption.

If we look back to 1990, the government of Mali has signed peace deals in 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2006, and 2008, and none of them have held up. Yet Malian officials and even the Malian military still sees political agreements as vital to solving the "problem of the North." Even those these peace deals keep getting broken, I think they are still beneficial to the government for several reasons:

1) They strengthen Mali's democratic tradition, in which consensus-based decentralized governance plays a key role;
2) They demonstrate to nomadic populations the willingness of the government to engage nomads politically rather than just militarily, as was the case in the past;
3) They emphasize the health of civil-military relations in Mali (especially relative to other countries in the region) which also helps with American military training;
4) They demonstrate to the West that Mali "speaks democracy" and is thus deserving of Western aid;
5) The failure of rebels to adhere to the peace deals delegitimizes them in the eyes of the local population because the rebels either break their word or lack the power to control their fighters.

The danger of all these peace deals is that the government makes promises that it can't deliver on, such as large amounts of development and aid (the mistake of the 1991 and 1992 peace deals), or integrating lots of rebels into Mali's military, which can backfire (as it did last week).

The alternative to signing peace deals and political agreements is to pursue a military solution, like Mali's neighbor Niger is doing. The situation is not strictly analogous, but Niger's military has pressured the president into letting them pursue a military solution to the MNJ problem. The result has been (so far) a military stalemate. Libya might have flipped its policy away from the MNJ and towards the Niger government, so perhaps that stalemate will move in favor of the government soon, but so far the results of a purely military strategy have not been better than Mali's political strategy.

The peace deal a month ago was "preliminary" and provided a cease fire and a framework to hammer out a more conclusive peace deal in the future. Whatever peace deal is signed in the future, it too will probably be broken, maybe by Bahanga, maybe by someone else. But even so, it is still worthwhile to sign these things.

Key fact about Lebanon

"In Lebanon, even Mr./Ms. Potato head has a militia."

Jumble of stuff

Below the cut are a bunch of cool stuff I've come across, most of which I would dedicate full posts to if I had the time.

Here is something that really ticks me off. People in the media, like Cokie Roberts in this video, and David Brooks in the New York Times, justify asking candidates stupid and inane questions because, according to Cokie, "these are the kinds of questions that will come up in the general election." Notice the use of the passive voice there. Do the questions ask themselves? Will a bush burst into flames and a booming voice ask Senator Obama "WHERE IS YOUR FLAG LAPEL PIN?" Cokie Roberts uses the passive voice to hide the fact that the media is the one that decides the questions will arise in the general campaign. If she was honest, what she would say is "we are justified in asking dumb questions in the primary, because we plan on asking dumb questions in the general election too." Paul Waldman makes the same point at the Prospect.

Some guy in prison in Texas is going to be on the ballot in Idaho's Democratic presidential primary, just by paying $1000 and taking advantage of stupid officials.

Here are some awesome pictures courtesy of the EPA's photo contest for Earth Day.

Via Kevin Drum, apparently there is a newer new left, made up of:

...about a new breed of liberal writers who have emerged on the web—a network of writers who are bringing together reformism and idealism in a way we haven't seen in many years. I'm thinking of people like Joshua Micah Marshall (the man behind Talking Points Memo); Eric Alterman, the Nation columnist, author of many books, and blogger for Media Matters for America; Ezra Klein (The American Prospect); Kevin Drum (the Washington Monthly); Glenn Greenwald (Salon); Matthew Yglesias (the Atlantic); Bob Somerby (the Daily Howler); Rick Perlstein (the Campaign for America's Future); and the writer who goes by the name of Digby who blogs for her own website, digbysblog.

This Congressional Quarterly story by Jeff Stein is, according to Google News, literally THE ONLY story on the ongoing Italian trial of twenty-six American CIA agents for kidnapping (here's the Wikipedia article on it). The only thing more amazing than the story itself is the total lack of interest from the American press.

Andrew Exum writes in the Guardian on the difference between McCain, Clinton and Obama on defense, and specifically on how they view counterinsurgency. More Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have contributed to Obama than either McCain or Hillary.

This is a ten minute video, courtesy of Ghosts of Alexander, that perfectly highlights what Kalyvas calls the core/periphery cleavage in civil war. Two villages are on opposite sides of the Taliban/Government split, not necessarily because of ideology, but because they've had a historic rivalry. The microfoundations of conflict.

Nexus between organized crime and terrorism

I went to an interesting talk tonight on the nexus between organized crime and terrorism. For me, the most interesting part was a specific logic outlined by Georgetown Professor Vanda Felbab-Brown on how terrorist, insurgent, or other "belligerent" groups interact with illicit economies. Prof. Felbab-Brown has a book coming out soon, "Shooting Up", which I assume contains these arguments in full.

Prof. Felbab-Brown argues that belligerents derive political benefits from controlling illicit economies. The local population that survives on the illicit economy owes their economic wellbeing to the belligerent group (a term that includes terrorists, insurgents, gangs, etc.). The government, whether its trying to eliminate poppies in Afghanistan, trying to shut down smuggling networks in the Sahara, or trying to eliminate coca in Colombia, is trying to shut down the economies that many ordinary people's lives depend on. Thus, a belligerent group's motivations for controlling an illicit economy is not just that they are greedy (although they may be), but the desire for control over illicit economies can be to gain political power.

This is the situation in Niger and Mali regarding the Tuareg rebellion. U.S. official policy seems to be oriented towards shutting down smuggling networks that aid terrorists. However, as former ICG anthropologist Mike McGovern argues, shutting down smuggling networks with the goal of denying terrorist networks support and sanctuary, while not replacing them with legitimate economic opportunities, could backfire and “threaten to turn people towards more extreme politics."

Felbab-Brown also made the point that labor-intensive illicit economies give the belligerent groups greater benefits, because, she argued, more people are dependent on the illicit economy for survival. Thus more people are indirectly dependent on whichever insurgent or terrorist group that controls the illicit economy for survival. I didn't get a chance to ask her whether a situation like Niger would give broader legitimacy to belligerents - in Niger, the illicit economy is based on smuggling, which is not labor-intensive, however because of the lack of other economic opportunities and because of the key role smuggling has in the economy (makes many other activities affordable, like eating), a larger segment of the population is dependent on the illicit economy than might otherwise be the case with most smuggling networks.

Felbab-Brown argued that the state of the legal economy is directly related to the legitimacy of the government in power. It'd follow that the state of the illicit economy, if controlled by a belligerent group, is also directly related the legitimacy of that belligerent group. This is because, just like governments create markets by enforcing property laws, facilitating information flows, etc., belligerent groups police illicit markets, protecting them from the state and from rival groups.

Felbab-Brown closed her talk with the observation that no terrorist or insurgent group has ever been defeated by the government targeting the illicit economy it relies on to deny it funds. Instead it can backfire: Econ 101 tells us that targeting supply while ignoring demand will cause prices to rise, an observable effect of the War on Drugs (tm). This makes illicit economic activity more profitable for the belligerent group controlling the economy. In economies that rely on smuggling, it would also make life harder for the population that government policy is supposed to win over.

To apply this reasoning to the Tuareg situation, targeting smugglers in Mali and Niger might restrict supply for smuggled goods, but would not shrink the demand. Prices would therefore go up, and with them one would expect smugglers' profits to rise as well. However the population that depends on smuggled goods to survive would see their wallets pinched as a result of government policy. They would then be alienated from the government, the exact opposite of the intended result.

During the Q&A session, I asked her a question on how to distinguish between scenarios in which insurgent/terrorist groups engage in smuggling themselves, and individuals associated with insurgent/terrorist groups profit off of smuggling. I think this question goes to the heart of Niger's accusations against the MNJ that they are just smugglers and bandits, as well as MNJ accusations that the Nigerien Army is itself a criminal organization engaged in smuggling. To my delight, Felbab-Brown's answer was basically: Kalyvas! She said analysts should disassociate between the stated goals of the organization and the motivations of individual members, which might include profit, and also revenge, honor, hate, or whatever else.

All in all it was a good talk. Plus there was free pizza!

Voice of America enters Web 2.0!

Voice of America is now "hip" and "cool"! They have put three (hopefully only a beginning) of VOA reporter Phuong Tran's news reports on the Tuareg rebellion in northern Niger on YouTube. The videos are embedded below the cut. The funniest part is how the user is VOAvideo, "Joined: March 14, 2008, subscribers, 13." Don't worry VOAvideo! You beat my YouTube channel subscription of 8!

Niger Rebellion, April 3rd, 2008



Student Road Trip to Join Rebels, April 10th, 2008



Gasoline Smuggling in the Sahara, April 15th, 2008

AQIM/GSPC kidnaps two in Tunisia

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, aka the Groupe Salafist pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC, standing for Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) took two Austrian tourists hostage in Tunisia. The Austrians were kidnapped between February 18th and 25th, but the GSPC only put out an announcement on Monday. The two hostages are now apparently in Mali, near Kidal. This bears some resemblance to the GSPC's last high-profile kidnapping effort in 2003. As with everything in the Sahara, facts are hard to come by.

Here are the facts as I understand them about the current kidnapping situation. The two Austrians, Andrea Kloiber and Wolfgang Ebner, were kidnapped in February in Tunisia, or maybe Algeria. Ms. Kloiber is a nurse and Mr. Ebner is a consultant. Austria is proclaiming that it will not negotiate with the GSPC. A GSPC spokesman says that if their demands are not met by Sunday, the Ms. Kloiber and Mr. Ebner will be executed.

It's my guess that the GSPC held off on announcing their kidnapping until they had been transported from Tunisia to outside Kidal, Mali, where they possibly are being held. This is a journey of over a thousand miles. Assuming the couple were actually kidnapped in Tunisia rather than getting lost and ending up in Algeria, that means that the GSPC was able to transport two foreign hostages across the Tunisian/Algerian border, across the length of Algeria, across the Algerian/Malian border, probably through the smuggling routes near Tin-Za, and to north-western Mali. Even if the couple was abducted in Algeria instead of Tunisia, the GSPC still had to transport them across the entirety of Algeria and across an international border without being detected, demonstrating impressive logistics.

My guess is that they are somewhere in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains. This is due to the pictures I've seen and because they've been reported in both Kidal and Tessalit. If true this would mean that presumably they have come to some sort of arrangement with Malian Tuareg groups that control that region. The GSPC's guy in northern Mali, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has cooperated with Tuareg leaders in the past on smuggling, but they had a falling out in 2006 when the Tuareg rebel group ADC (Alliance for Democracy and Change) ambushed a bunch of GSPC fighters at a meeting over smuggling rights in order to get in the good graces of the Algerians who were negotiating peace between the ADC and Mali at the time.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, aka Khaled Abu al-Abbas, aka Benouar, aka "The One-Eyed", is more of a smuggler and criminal than a hardcore ideological terrorist. His outfit, also known as the GSL (Groupe Salafiste Liberation, or Free Salafist Group) started as a smuggling ring and joined up with the GSPC later, probably out of profit motive. He was reported killed in clashes between the ADC and his GSPC smuggling outfit back in September 2006. He was also reportedly killed last month. Apparently he's still alive, as I've heard recently from some local military people that he was trying to secure amnesty from various governments so he could take his cash and retire.

Clay Varney at Threatswatch writes that this move should be seen as a move targeting Westerners similar to the killing of four French tourists in Mali last December. First, as far as I know, there was no evidence of GSPC/AQIM responsibility for those killings beyond claims by the Mauritanian government. It's just as possible that the perps were common criminals. Second, I think it is more likely that GSPC is simply looking for leverage in attaining specific demands, especially if the GSPC simply came across these Austrians as they were lost in the desert, rather than planning an elaborate operation. GSPC claims to have treated the hostages well so far and is trying to use them for ransom, demanding the release of imprisoned GSPC members and possibly cash as well. If it was an attack designed to specifically target Westerners, Frau Kloiber and Herr Ebner would already be dead.

The GSPC is split between one faction who is ideologically close to Osama bin Ladin's Al Qaeda and focused on a global struggle, and another faction that is more focused on Algeria and opposed the two declarations of allegiance to Al Qaeda, the first in 2003 and the second in January 2007 that accompanied their official name change to AQIM. Abdelmalek el-Droukdel (aka Abu Musab abd al-Wadoud), the current official leader of the group, is the driving force behind the pledge of allegiance to bin Ladin. Hassan Hattab is representative of the opposition within GSPC. He surrendered to Algerian authorities last October in order to gain protection from Droukdel's men who were trying to kill him. Belmokhtar, also against the name change and allegiance to Al Qaeda, had a falling out with Droukdel in January 2007.

Thus if it's true that the two hostages are being held in Mali, then it's likely that the Austrians were captured by GSPC elements loyal to Hattab or Belmokhtar and transported down to Mali so the kidnappers could benefit monetarily. It seems unlikely that Droukdel would take such trouble and risk to transport hostages over a thousand miles to Belmokhtar's area of operations given the efforts Droukdel has taken to marginalize Belmokhtar. Droukdel, the force behind the GSPC's increased targeting of Westerners, might not even be in the loop.

Bottom line: I don't know anything for certain! But this is what seems likely to me.

Why study the Tuareg insurgency?

"Why study the Tuareg insurgency?" People ask me this question in a variety of ways, from the polite "Oh that's very interesting, how did you pick that topic?" to the blank stare I receive after I explain to someone what my thesis is about. Obviously every conflict deserves to be studied, and I'd go nuts if I forced myself to study Iraq in depth for the next five months. In this post I'll explain why I picked this specific conflict to study and what I think the Tuareg insurgencies can teach us, specifically in comparing insurgent/COIN effectiveness, and looking at the impact of environmental change, smuggling, resource extraction, and U.S. involvement in local conflicts.

Over this past winter break, I was lazing around my parents' house watching the mediocre Matthew McConaughey/Penelope Cruz movie Sahara. In it, McConaughey is traipsing about the Sahara looking for buried treasure while Penelope Cruz is trying to find starving Africans to save. On the way they run into some rebels (in Hollywood, African governments are usually bad and the rebels are usually good).

I had just finished reading T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and so the prospect of studying a desert insurgency caught my interest. While watching the movie I decided to poke around Wikipedia to see whether there are any active insurgencies in the Sahara, and I found the entry for the Second Tuareg Rebellion. I had heard of the Tuareg because my mother is involved in African art and the Tuaregs have very good silversmiths. Reading the article, a couple things jumped out at me.

The Wikipedia article treats the conflicts in Mali and Niger as essentially the same conflict. While I'm now finding that the situations in Mali and Niger have a couple major differences, it's still a good opportunity to study the evolution of a transnational insurgency and compare counterinsurgency policies between Mali and Niger. Because every insurgency is different from every other insurgency, it can be difficult to draw comparisons between, say, Malaya and Vietnam, to see which strategy was more effective. This is true in all military analysis but especially so in studying insurgencies as politics matters much more. However due to the close links between Tuaregs in Mali and Niger, it will be possible to make some direct comparisons between the counterinsurgency strategies of Mali and Niger.

Another reason to study this conflict is because it involves some factors that I think will become more important drivers of conflict in the future. The first of these is environmental change. The Tuareg nomadic lifestyle is highly dependent on the environment. The desertification of the Sahel is putting more pressure on both nomads and farmers as they compete for shrinking resources. Global climate change promises that environmental change will be a significant driver of conflict (I've written more on this, for example here).

Second, the role of smuggling is important in the Sahara. The BBC program Secrets in the Sand gives a good overview of how smuggling is funding warlords like Mokhtar Belmokhtar, but also provides the backbone for local economies. If smuggling is eliminated through counter-terrorism programs, economies in Mali and Niger will be devastated. The importance of smuggling in this conflict provides a good backdrop on which to examine the "war as crime/crime as war" debate.

One of the few legitimate economic activities in the Sahara is resource extraction. For the Tuareg this means uranium deposits in Niger. One of the grievances of the MNJ rebel group is that the Tuareg don't see enough revenue from the uranium that the French uranium mining company Areva extracts. On the other hand the Nigerien government/military believes that Areva has paid MNJ leaders to attack rival uranium companies. Obviously the politics of resource extraction has relevance to Iraq (oil), Nigeria (oil), Sierra Leone (diamonds), Congo (everything), etc.

Finally, the U.S. has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Sahara by training local militaries. Under the logic of "Phase Zero" operations, the Pentagon hopes that by assisting local militaries, local conflicts will never blow up big enough to require outside intervention by the U.S. This money is given on the assumption that Al Qaeda exists in the Sahara, which itself is a controversial assertion. In researching the current Tuareg insurgency, I'll be able to simultaneously evaluate the effectiveness of this policy.

In addition to these reasons, the notion of studying a conflict that nobody else knows anything about appeals to me for a couple reasons. First, I get to do a lot of original research, although admittedly not as much as I'd like seeing as I don't have the funds or language skills to do any fieldwork. Also, one of academia's big contributions to society can be studying obscure things on the off-chance that they become important to a broader segment of society. If I ever end up working for some think tank or agency, I won't have the freedom to study whatever obscure conflict I want - better use that freedom now.

Bibliography on Tuareg Insurgency

I just submitted my research design for my thesis on the Tuareg rebellion. Below I've pasted my bibliography for the benefit of anyone else studying this conflict (other than interviews which I will be keeping confidential). I've separated the sources into categories: general insurgency/counterinsurgency theory, general information on the Tuareg insurgency, the environmental factor, the resource-extraction factor, economic marginalization, and the impact of the U.S. "Global War on Terrorism".

Theoretical works on Insurgency

Collier, Paul. 2000. Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Economic Analysis of Conflict. Vol. 44, No. 6, December, 2000. Pages 839-853

Collier, Paul. Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy. World Bank.. June 15, 2000.

Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. Greed and Grievance in Civil War. Oxford Economic Papers. Vol. 56, No. 4, September, 2004. Pages 563-596.

Fearon, James D., and David D. Laintin. Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political Science Review. Vol. 97, No. 1, February 2003. Pages 75-90.

Galula, David. Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958. RAND. 2006.

Kalyvas, Stathis. The Ontology of “Political Violence”: Action and Identity in Civil Wars. Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 1, No. 3, September 2003. Pages 475-494.

Kalyvas, Stathis. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006.

Kilcullen, David. Counterinsurgency Redux. Survival. Vol. 48, No. 4, Winter 2006-2007. Pages 111-130.

Lawrence, T. E. The 27 Articles of T. E. Lawrence. The Arab Bulletin. August 1917.

Lawrence, T. E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph. New York: Anchor, 1991.

Sepp, Kalev I. “Best Practices” in Counterinsurgency. Military Review. May-June 2005, pages 8-12.

Trinquier, Roger. Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency. Pall Mall Press, London, 1964.

General on Tuareg Insurgency

Accord D'Alger Pour La Restauration de la Paix, de la Securite et du Developpement dans la Region de Kidal. July 2006 peace accords between Mali and the May 23, 2006 Democratic Alliance for Change.

Alliance Touaregue Niger-Mali. Blog of the ATNM. Updated infrequently. http://atnm.blogspot.com/.

Bush, Ray, and Jeremy Keenan. North Africa: Power, Politics & Promise. ROAPE. 33/108, 175-184.

Giuffrida, Alessandra. Clerics, Rebels and Refugees: Mobility Strategies and Networks among the Kel Antessar. Journal of North African Studies. 10/3, September 2005.

Humphreys, Macartan, and Habaye Ag Mohamed. Senegal and Mali. Understanding Civil War, Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis, eds. World Bank, 2005.

Keenan, Jeremy. The Lesser Gods of the Sahara: Social Change and Indigenous Rights. Routledge, 2004.

Keenan, Jeremy. Tuareg take up arms. ROAPE. Vol. 33, Is. 108, 325-368.

Keita, Kalifa. Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Sahel: The Tuareg Insurgency in Mali. Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army. May 1, 1998.

Lecocq, Baz. That Desert is Our Country:Tuareg Rebellions and Competing Nationalism in Contemporary Mali (1946-1996). Unpublished PhD thesis, Amsterdam University, 2002.

Lecocq, Baz. This Country is Your Country: Territory, Borders, and Decentralisation in Tuareg Politics. Itinerario. 27/1, 2003, 58-78.

Mouvement des Nigeriens pour la Justice. Blog of the MNJ rebel movement. Updated regularly. http://m-n-j.blogspot.com/.

Niger: Extrajudicial Executions and Population Displacement in the North of the Country. Amnesty International. December 19, 2007.

Rasmussen, Susan J. The Tuareg. Endangered Peoples of Africa & the Middle East. Hitchcock & Osborn, ed., 2002.

Seely, Jennifer C. A political analysis of decentralisation: coopting the Tuareg threat in Mali. Journal of Modern African Studies, 39/3, 2001.

Weinberg, Bill. Voice of the Tuareg Resistance. World War 4 Report. December 1, 2007. Online at http://www.ww4report.com/node/4739.

Reuters, Voice Of America, La Republicain (Niger), Info-Matin (Mali) and L'Essor (Mali) will be my sources for government statements from Mali and Niger and other current news.

Environment

Brooks, Nick, and Isabelle Chiapello, Savino Di Lernia, Nick Drake, Michel Legrand, Cyril Moulin and Joseph Prospero. The Climate-Environment-Society Nexus in the Sahara from Prehistoric Times to the Presnt Day. The Journal of North African Studies. Vol. 10, No. 3, September 2005. Pages 253-292.

Brown, Oli, and Anne Hammill and Robert McLeman. Climate change as the 'new' security threat: implications for Africa. International Affairs. Vol. 83, No. 6, 2007. Pages 1141-1154.

Hershkowitz, Ann. The Tuareg in Mali and Niger: The Role of Desertification in Violent Conflict. ICE Case Studies. No. 151, August 2005. Available at http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/tuareg.htm.

Hirshleifer, Jack. The Bioeconomic Causes of War. Managerial and Decision Economics. Vol. 19, No. 7/8, Management, Organization and Human Nature, November 1998. Pages 457-466.

McConnell, Tristan. How Tuaregs, Hausas are Avoiding Another Darfur. Christian Science Monitor. October 3, 2007.

Pedersen, Jon, and Tor A. Benjaminsen. One Leg or Two? Food Security and Pastoralism in the Northern Sahel. Human Ecology. Vol. 36, Is. 1, February 2008, pages 43-57.

Trench, Pippa, and John Rowley, Marthe Diarra, Fernand Sano, and Boubacar Keita. Beyond Any Drought: Root causes of chronic vulnerability in the Sahel. Sahel Working Group. June 2007.

I'm still looking for a good data set for environmental data in the Sahara/Sahel region.

Uranium and the Rentier State

Addison, Tony, and Philippe Le Billon, and S. Mansoob Murshed. Conflict in Africa: The Cost of Peaceflu Behaviour. Journal of African Economies. Vol. 11, No. 3. Pages 365-386.

ag Maha, Issouf. Interview, Paris, November 22, 2007. (Issouf Ag Maha is the mayor of Tchirozerine in Niger, and is linked with the MNJ.) Video at http://www.dailymotion.com/related/4293876/video/x3m4v0_interview-issouf-ag-maha_news.

ag Maha, Issouf. Bravo for France, congratulatory [sic] for Areva, it's a pity for Tuaregs. north-of-africa.com. November 30, 2007. Online at http://www.north-of-africa.com/article.php3?id_article=453.

Barnes, Sandra. Global Flows: Terror, Oil & Strategic Philanthropy. Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE), 32/104, 235-252.

Corbier, Laurent. AREVA in Niger. AREVA Press Release. August 7, 2007.

Herbst, Jeffrey. Economic Incentives, Natural Resrouces and Conflict in Africa. Journal of African Economies. Vol. 9, No. 3. Pages 270-294.

Stratfor. Niger: Rebels, Resources and the Niger Delta Parallel. July 11, 2007.

Stratfor. Niger: The Tuaregs and Uranium Wealth. January 22, 2008.

Stratfor. Mali: Rising Tensions and Interest in the Sahel. September 13, 2007.

Economic Marginialization (almost all general articles contain info on marginalization)

Bergeret, Yves. School, the Tuaregs' New Weapon. The Unesco Courier, October 2000.

Mazzitelli, Antonio L. Transnational organized crime in West Africa; the additional challenge. International Affairs, 83/6, 2007.

Al Qaeda/GWoT

Abramovici, Pierre. United States: the new scramble for Africa. Le Monde diplomatique. July 2004. At: http://mondediplo.com/2004/07/07usinafrica.

Archer, Toby, and Tihomir Popovic. The Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative: The US War on Terrorism in North Africa. Finnish Institute of International Affairs. 2007.

Barth, Mustafa. Sand Castles in the Sahara: US Military Basing in Algeria. ROAPE. 30/98, 679-685.

Berschinski, Robert G. AFRICOM's Dilemma: The “Global War on Terrorism,” “Capacity Buliding,” Humanitarianism, and the future of U.S. security policy in Africa. Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army, November 2007.

Burton, Fred and Scott Stewart. Tablighi Jamaat: An Indirect Line to Terrorism. Stratfor. January 23, 2008.

Gutelius, David. Islam in Northern Mali and the War on Terror. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 25/1 January 2007.

Gutelius, David. War on Terror and Social Networks in Mali. ISIM Review, Spring 2006.

Hunt, Emily. Islamist Terrorism in Northwestern Africa: A 'Thorn in the Neck' of the United States? The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Policy Focus #65, February 2007.

International Crisis Group. Islamist Terrorism in the Sahel: Fact or Fiction? Africa Report No. 92, March 31^st 2005.

Jebnoun, Noureddine. Is the Maghreb the “Next Afghanistan:?: Mapping the Radicalization of the Algerian Salafi Jihadist Movement. Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown, 2007.

Jourde, Cedric. Constructing Representations of the Global War on Terror in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 25/1, January 2007.

Kaplan, Robert. America's African Rifles. The Atlantic Monthly. April 2005.

Keenan, Jeremy. Americans & 'bad people' in the Sahara-Sahel. Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE). Vol. 31, Is. 99, March 2004, 125-164.

Keenan, Jeremy. Political Destabilisation and 'Blowback' in the Sahel. ROAPE. Vol. 31, Is. 102, 691-698.

Keenan, Jeremy. Famine in Niger is not all that it seems. ROAPE. Vol. 32, Is. 104, 395-477.

Keenan, Jeremy. Terror in the Sahara: The Impliactions of US Imperialism for North & West Africa. ROAPE. Vol. 33, Is. 101, 475-496.

Keenan, Jeremy. Security & Insecurity in North Africa. ROAPE. Vol. 33, Is. 108, pp. 269-296.

Keenan, Jeremy. Military bases, construction contracts, & Hydrocarbons in North Africa. ROAPE. Vol. 33, Is. 109, 577-614.

Keenan, Jeremy. US Silence as Sahara Military Base Gathers Dust. ROAPE. Vol. 34, Is. 113, 588-590.

Keenan, Jeremy. The Collapse of the Second Front. Foreign Policy in Focus. September 26, 2006. Online at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3544.

Keenan, Jeremy. Conspiracy theories and 'terrorists': How the 'war on terror' is placing new responsibilities on anthropology. Anthropology Today, Vol. 22, Is. 6, December 2006, 4-9.

Keenan, Jeremy. The Banana Theory of Terrorism: Alternative Truths and the Collapse of the 'Second' (Saharan) Front in the War on Terror. Journal of Contemporary African Studies. Vol. 25, No. 1, Jan 2007, 31-58.

Keenan, Jeremy. My country right or wrong. Anthropology Today. Vol. 23, Is. 1, February 2007 , 26-27.

Khatchadourian, Raffi. Pursuing Terrorists in the Great Desert: The U.S. Military's $500 Million Gamble to Prevent the Next Afghanistan. The Village Voice. January 31st, 2006.

Lecocq, Baz, and Paul Schrijver. The War on Terror in a Haze of Dust: Potholes and Pitfalls on the Saharan Front. Journal of Contempotrary African Studies. 25/1, January 2007.

Le Sage, Andre. African Counterterrorism Cooperation: Assessing Regional and Subregional Initiatives. Potomac Books Inc., 2007.

Mellah, Salima, and Jean-Baptiste Rivoire. El Para, the Maghreb's Bin Laden. Le Monde diplomatique. February 2005.

Secrets in the Sand. BBC Radio program. August 8th, 2005.

Tattersall, Nick. Tuareg rebels in southern Sahara no Islamist threat. Reuters. September 23, 2007.

Also, U.S. involvement in Niger and Mali has received coverage in a lot of Stars & Stripes articles that I'll use (although searches for “Tuareg” and “Touareg” get zero hits).

Have fun reading!

Washington Post editorial

Washington Post's "Good Sense on Iraq"

The progress since last summer has been remarkable. ...it's worth asking why Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton remain so unwilling to alter their outdated and dogmatic views about the war.

Contrast with:

What with this and the Anbar Salvation Council threatening to take up arms against the elected council and refusing to fly the new Iraqi flag and dismissing the entire Parliament as illegitimate and Awakenings leaders declaring that no Iraqi police are allowed in their territory and clashing with them when they do and blaming Shi'ite militias (and not al-Qaeda) for the wave of attacks against them and fighting over territory and threatening to quit if they aren't paid, it really is hard to see why anybody would think that there might be anything troublesome about the relationship between the Awakenings and the Iraqi "state". Nothing to see here but great big gobs of victory folks, please move along.

One has a track record of good analysis, and the other has a large audience. The Washington Post editorial board (aka Fred Hiatt) is disconnected from reality. I'm pretty sure that if we had just listened to Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post for the last 6 years, and then done the opposite, it'd be like hitting the easy button and freedom would be on the march. It's ironic that, at the very moment that Fred Hiatt is labeling Obama and Clinton's policy views "outdated", McClatchy runs a story on the failure of the policy that Hiatt champions.

Violence in Iraq is increasing, because the groups that had allied with us (CLCs and tribal Awakening groups) finally got fed up with the lack of political benefits. They decided, why be allied with Americans if the Shi'a still kill us? We were unable to answer the question Marc Lynch had been asking for over a year, about how to integrate our local Sunni allies with the Shi'a government.

Tuareg rebels threaten Nigerien uranium, cities

This story was picked up by Reuters and Thomson. Rhissa Ag Boula, leader of the MNJ, has issued a direct threat to Areva and other companies trying to exploit Niger's uranium. The Nigerien economy, being heavily dependent on uranium, is thus hostage to the MNJ - "You can't exploit uranium without us" according to Ag Boula.

Also interesting is that the MNJ, which is a rural insurgency, based in the desert, has now threatened to occupy Nigerien cities such as Arlit, close to the uranium mines, and Agadez, the regional capital. It will be interesting to see whether a largely rural insurgency can make the transition to urban warfare.

Tuareg MNJ get their message out

The Tuareg rebel group MNJ (Movement of Nigeriens for Justice) attacked the town of Tanout in Niger on Monday. They fought Ministry of Internal Security (FNIS), stole weapons and ammunition, and then withdrew - classic guerrilla tactics. The Nigerien government claims they lost 3 dead and 5 wounded, but the MNJ claims they killed 7 and took 11 prisoners, including the "prefet" (prefect?) of the town, and officers in the FNIS and police. After the raid, the FNIS attacked the MNJ as they were withdrawing, resulting in (according to MNJ) more FNIS casualties and the destruction of an FNIS 4x4 and military truck at the cost of no MNJ casualties.

This is an interesting example of an insurgency using classic guerrilla tactics, but adding a modern communications strategy. Hours after their attack, MNJ posted on their website their version of events, detailing casualties, loot, and exactly why they attacked Tanout - they accuse the prefect of Tanout of "subversive behavior" and of dividing Nigeriens against each other (interesting accusation from an armed rebel group). I read it as the MNJ showing their power over Tanout, including over Tanout elites.

The day after their attack they posted again, criticizing RFI for running a story without consulting their own blog first for the rebels' version, and basing the RFI story on the government's version instead. RFI claimed MNJ casualties, while MNJ claims they lost no-one. Similar to how American politicians criticize the media whenever the media runs stories contrary to the politicians' desired narrative.

Bombing our way to 'victory' in Iraq

As part of Operation Phantom Phoenix in Iraq, the US is stepping up its use of air power.

NYTimes:

American bombers and fighter aircraft dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on suspected militant hide-outs, storehouses and defensive positions in the southern outskirts of Baghdad on Thursday, the United States military said.
In one of the largest airstrikes in recent months, two B-1 and four F-16 aircraft dropped 38 bombs within 10 minutes near the Latifiya district south of Baghdad, the military said. The airstrikes were accompanied by a large Iraqi and American ground assault.

38 bombings in 10 minutes in Baghdad alone. Operation Phantom Phoenix is nationwide, so I'd assume many more air operations throughout the country, especially in Miqdadiyah (in Diyala province) and Samarra (source). That is a bad thing.

Airpower --> collateral damage --> pissed off Iraqis --> creating more insurgents --> bad counterinsurgency practice. Airpower in terms of dropping bombs didn't work for the Israelis in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, and it hasn't worked for the US in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"No, we don't use airstrikes because we don't have enough troops. We use airstrikes because they're in our repertoire."

Check out this Abu Muqawama post on airpower in counterinsurgency if you are interested.

Also on Iraq, this piece by Brian Katulis and classmate Peter Juul on "Four Ticking Time Bombs" in regards to Iraq:

• The collapse of “bottom up” reconciliation among Sunnis
• Increased instability in northern Iraq
• The continuing plight of refugees and internally displaced Iraqis
• Continued deadlock among Iraq’s national political leaders

Request for Info on Tuareg Rebellion

I'm back in DC for my last semester, when I have to write my thesis. I'm thinking about writing on the Tuareg rebellion(s) in Mali and Niger. For background on the conflict, this Reuters article is a good source.



It seems a pretty good potential case study, as similar rebellions have taken different courses in the two countries, plus there is the role of environmental change and desertification as a driver of conflict, and U.S. involvement through the Trans-Sahel Counterterrorism Partnership. The problem is that most of the material on the rebellions is in French, which I don't speak or read. There doesn't seem to be much stuff on the military situation in English other than occasional news articles. I'll have plenty of material on the Tuareg themselves thanks to my mom and her contacts (she is an expert in African art). I think I'll have plenty of information on U.S. involvement as well - I just need information on the rebellion itself - military aspects, who's involved, countermeasures, any journal articles on it, etc.

I found a few useful links:

Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Sahel: The Tuareg Insurgency in Mali, by Lieutenant Colonel Kalifa Keita.

The site tuaregs.online.fr, with chronologies of the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s in Mali and Niger, as well as other cultural information on the Tuareg.

An American University ICE (Inventory of Conflict and Environment) case study titled The Tuareg in Mali and Niger: The Role of Desertification in Violent Conflict.

Some IRIN (UN agency) articles on the resumption of violence in Niger and allegations of atrocities.

There's some information on the ICG's website, on Niger and Mali.

Tiemoko Diallo seems to be covering the conflict for Reuters.

There was a slight news bump on the Tuareg back in September when they fired at an American plane, but Western news articles have little information other than the basic facts about the insurgency.

The Tuareg rock band Tinariwen has a chronology of the conflict on their site.

There is also the website for the Mouvement des Nigeriens pour la Justice, unfortunately only in French, as well as the Alliance Touaregue Niger-Mali, which I assume is another rebel group.

If anyone finds more stuff, please email it to me or leave it as a comment!

I'll be updating this post as I come across more stuff.

A Resurgent Tuareg Insurgency? Neil Thompson

Making Sense of the New Tuareg Rebellion, David Zounmenou

Tuareg rebellion in Niger - lots of photos

A drugs-smuggling connection? Articles on possible connections between Tuaregs and cocaine smuggling at the Taipei Times.

It appears that contacting the NMJ or similar groups will be difficult - two French journalists were arrested for trying to do so and may be executed. Perhaps in Mali it might be easier.

The Niger Movement for Justice posted a yearly assessment of their activities on their blog, from their leader He celebrates the defection of some Nigerien soldiers to the NMJ, and an alliance between the NMJ and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the Sahara, a group that kidnapped a couple Italian tourists in 2006. He also promises better discipline to stop civilian casualties, and declares against uranium mining.

StockInterview.com has a couple pieces on the Tuareg rebellion, focusing on the uranium question.

Jeremy Keenan is an expert on the Tuareg and has also written on US counterterrorism policies in the Sahara region.

Fake Terror and Instability in North Africa by Sam Urquhart - challenges the notion that there is a terrorism threat in North Africa, or at least that there was before U.S. involvement.

A blog called the Head Heeb has some posts on the Tuareg rebellion. The latest one is from May 18th.

Another piece related to the uranium mining: Niger rebels pressure uranium miners, by James Finch

Another piece from April 10 2006 on uranium mining in Niger doesn't mention the conflict, and is unintentionally funny.

"We were concerned with any political situations, but both North and Kreczmer assured us the country is stable. “When I first went to Niger in November 2004, and that was during the last election, it honestly looked like a lot of fun... My experience with Niger is that it’s a peaceful, democratic country with no civil unrest. Let’s put it this way. They have less civil unrest than France."

Blogger Bouba has a few posts on the Tuareg, including a petition for Tuareg independence, an interview (unfortunately for me in French) and a video of the music group Tinariwen.

From Reuters, INTERVIEW-W.Africa is crime, terrorism "black hole"-UN expert

[Antonio Mazzitelli] cited indications that armed rebellions by Tuareg desert fighters in northern Niger and Mali, ostensibly launched on political grounds, were actually a front for large-scale trafficking of drugs and arms.

Tuareg Insurgency Spreads to Niger's Capital, by Nana Adu Ampofo, at Global Insight Daily Analysis (via Factiva):

With the death of journalist Abdou "Jeannot" Mahamane, the Tuareg insurgency raging in northern Niger since February 2007 appears to have spread to the capital, Niamey, for the first time. Mahamane was killed by a landmine Tuesday (8 January) evening. Quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), government spokesperson Mohamed Ben Omar has attributed the attack to the Movement for Justice in Niger (MNJ), which has led the violent campaign in Agadez province, ostensibly for Tuareg rights. The MNJ has denied responsibility for the Niamey mines and counters on its Web site that the attribution is a government effort to turn public opinion against it. A second, unexploded mine has been found in the area by the authorities.Significance: The international non-governmental organisation (NGO) Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently criticised the MNJ for conducting an indiscriminate land mine campaign in northern Niger.
An estimated 80 people have been killed or injured since February 2007 by land mines in the troubled region, a third of them civilians, HRW reports. The government was also criticised for targeting the civilian population. However, despite the length of the conflict and the apparent ineffectiveness of the exclusively military government response, there has been little change in strategy on either side. Until recently Nigerien president Mamadou Tandja would only refer to the MNJ as bandits. Tandja still refuses to recognise any legitimate basis for negotiation with the MNJ and has referred to MNJ activities as terrorism. That being the case, Global Insight expects to see the conflict continue through 2008.

See other stories here. Journalists have been targeted by the Nigerien government - I wouldn't be surprised if MNJ is correct and the government killed a journalist and blamed it on MNJ.

Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities on both sides in Niger. Amnesty International is alarmed at Nigerien Army's killing of civilians. The Nigerien Association for the Defence of Human Rights has condemned government killings (via Factiva). The Nigerien Army disagrees, but admits that it has killed civilians (Factiva).

Omar Ansari and Slimane Chenine are apparent experts on the Tuareg situation (Factiva).

Endangered Peoples of Africa and the Middle East - has a chapter by Susan Rasmussen on the Tuareg.

Art of Being Tuareg - interesting book.

Tuareg nomads set to intensify rebellion in Niger, Christian Science Monitor, Tristan McConnell

How Tuaregs, Hausas are avoiding another Darfur, CSM, Tristan McConnell - about how Tuareg are fighting desertification

Africa's Unfolding Desert War, ISA Consulting, Dulue Mbachu

Famine not Fanaticism the Real Enemy in West Africa

Thanks goes to New Yorker in DC for helping me figure out how to put most of this post behind a cut!

Stratfor has two pieces related to the conflict - Mali: Rising Tensions and Interests in the Sahel, and Niger: Rebels, Resources and the Niger Delta Parallel.

BBC - Secrets in the Sand, Part 1 and Part 2 - audio program.

West Africa leaders plan Sahara security conference - in part to deal with the Tuareg rebellions in Niger and Mali. AFP article also.

BBC - Tuareg rebels abduct town's mayor

Tuareg rebels in Niger have attacked a town killing or abducting several people in the biggest raid in recent months.
...
The West African regional body Ecowas is increasingly concerned and is to hold a summit soon to tackle the issue.
They will also consider a smaller rebellion in neighbouring Mali.

Summary of Baz Lecocq's thesis on the Tuareg. I emailed Mr. Lecocq for a copy but unfortunately he is out of copies. Baz Lecocq has also written many other papers on the Tuareg, including "The War on Terror in a Haze of Dust: Potholes and Pitfalls on the Saharan Front", by Baz Lecocq and Paul Schrijver, in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 25, 1, Jan. 2007. From that same issue, David Gutelius' paper "Islam in Northern Mali and the War on
Terror" is also very good.

Other scholarly articles include ICG's "Islamist Terrorism in the Sahel, Fact or Fiction?"

I am trying to get a handle on the relationship between the Tuareg and the GSPC.
Articles which reference antagonistic relationships:
Algeria Watch, Mali Tuaregs say Algerian militant killed in clash
Reuters, Algerian Militans Ambush Malian Tuaregs, Kill 9

Articles that reference cooperative relationships:
An article on Winds of Change - seems like speculation though.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar is the GSPC leader that supposedly has Tuareg links - he has married Tuareg women for political reasons, but I'm not sure whether that gains him support or just being left alone.

I posted an RFI at the PMC discussion group.

Ethnic Conflict and Regions of Wealth in North Africa - Dar Al Hayat opinion piece, Nov 23 2007.

www.niger1.com has lots of good coverage, pulling articles from various sources that I'd otherwise miss (thanks to a poster at PMCs discussion group).

The Tuareg Culture and News blog is a goldmine of information.

The local websites Temoust and Kidal.info have good coverage, and Kidal.info has an English forum.