ByJohn R Bradley, John R Bradley
Mali to Zanzibar: why terror is eating Africa
January 17, 2013 10:30
2 min read
ByJohn R Bradley, John R Bradley
The decision by Britain and France to launch strikes in northern Mali, where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its myriad affiliates have taken control, has brought to the world’s attention how the poisonous tentacles of the Arab Spring have reached a great swathe of Africa.
From Zanzibar to the Maldives, Somalia to Nigeria, a re-energised, disciplined and heavily armed network of Islamist terror groups are now on the warpath — as their counterparts in the Arab world consolidate their own new power bases in Syria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and beyond.
The airstrikes in Mali followed a botched, French-led attempt to rescue one of its captive nationals. And as France braced for retaliatory terror attacks at home, in Benghazi, Libya, the French Consul’s bulletproof car saved him from an assassination attempt. That little-reported event points to a grim reality the Western media would prefer to ignore. Namely, that by forming short-term alliances with al-Qaeda franchises, while offering uncritical support of their dictatorial paymasters Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West is responsible for sowing the seeds for a massive Islamist blowback.
It was in Benghazi, after all, that Nato trained and armed al-Qaeda fighters — as they are now doing in Syria. After Gaddafi’s fall, the Nato-installed interim regime was reduced to begging Qatar to cease arming the by then out-of-control Islamist militias.
