Al Qaeda In Mali

[From article]
Turbaned fighters now control all the major towns in the north,
carrying out amputations in public squares like the Taliban did. Just
as in Afghanistan, they are flogging women for not covering up. Since
taking control of Timbuktu, they have destroyed seven of the 16
mausoleums listed as world heritage sites.
The area under their rule is mostly desert and sparsely populated, but
analysts say that due to its size and the hostile nature of the
terrain, rooting out the extremists here could prove even more
difficult than it did in Afghanistan.
[. . .]

to me

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM, operates not just in
Mali, but in a corridor along much of the northern Sahel. This
7,000-kilometer (4,300-mile) long ribbon of land runs across the
widest part of Africa, and includes sections of Mauritania, Niger,
Algeria, Libya, Burkina Faso and Chad.
[. . .]
"The Islamists have dug tunnels, made roads, they've brought in
generators, and solar panels in order to have electricity," he said.
"They live inside the rocks."
Still further north, near Boghassa, is the second base, created by
fighters from Ansar Dine. They too have used seized explosives,
bulldozers and sledgehammers to make passages in the hills, he said.
[. . .]
the Islamists have inherited stores of Russian-made arms from former
Malian army bases, as well as from the arsenal of toppled Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi, a claim that military experts have confirmed.
Those weapons include the SA-7 and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles,
according to Hamaha, which can shoot down aircrafts.
[. . .]
Originally from Algeria, the fighters fled across the border into Mali
in 2003, after kidnapping 32 European tourists. Over the next decade,
they used the country's vast northern desert to hold French, Spanish,
Swiss, German, British, Austrian, Italian and Canadian hostages,
raising an estimated $89 million in ransom payments, according to
Stratfor, a global intelligence company.
[. . .]
In his four-month-long captivity, Fowler never saw his captors refill
at a gas station, or shop in a market. Yet they never ran out of gas.
And although their diet was meager, they never ran out of food, a
testament to the extensive supply network which they set up and are
now refining and expanding.





http://apnews.myway.com/article/20121231/DA3GLDF02.html

AP IMPACT: Al-Qaida carves out own country in Mali
AP
Dec 31, 4:11 AM (ET)
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI