Mali coup leaders pledge to hand over power as Tuareg rebels take Timbuktu

Disarray following a March 21 coup has allowed Tuareg rebels to take over much of Mali's north. West African neighbors worry about spillover.?

Tuareg rebels in Mali?s north claim to have?taken the fabled city of Timbuktu on Sunday, the latest in a string of military successes following the Malian Army?s overthrow of the elected government last month.

Skip to next paragraph

A wave of Tuareg military victories is the direct result of instability following a March 21 coup, led by junior officers in the Malian Army. It?s an ironic fact, given that the junior officers who launched the coup did so because they felt the government of President Amadou Toumani Toure was not providing them with the funding, arms, or supplies to defend the country against a resurgent Tuareg rebellion in the north. Now, within the past few days, Tuareg rebels have taken the major garrison towns of Kidal, Gao, and now Timbuktu (see map), raising concerns for Mali?s West African neighbors about the Army?s capacity to retain control of the country.

Coup leader Capt. Amadou Sanogo ? increasingly isolated by Mali?s West African neighbors -- announced on Sunday that he would reinstate the country?s Constitution and would hand over power to a civilian government as soon as elections can be held.

In the days before Sept. 11, 2001, a rebellion in Mali would have caused few ripples outside of the capitals of West Africa. Tuaregs launched rebellions in the 1990s and as recently as 2006, and Mali has experienced coups ? the president who was ousted in March, Mr. Toure, himself came to power in a March 1991 coup. But in the post-9/11 world, the combination of a military coup and a separatist rebellion is a matter of deep concern far beyond the arid sub-Saharan region known as the Sahel.

For one thing, the Tuareg rebels marching from one town to another seem to have been unintended beneficiaries of the military overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Qaddafi had established entire Tuareg battalions within the Libyan army and had funded separatist rebels in many of his weaker neighbors. Adding to the discomfort is the fact that a small but active chapter of Al Qaeda uses northern Mali as a base of operations, and any disarray for the Malian Army would only serve to strengthen this group, even if it has no direct relationship with Tuareg rebels.

The US military?s new African Command ? known as Africom ? has spent a good deal of time and millions of dollars training Mali?s army to fight a counter-insurgency campaign against the Islamist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic lands of the Maghreb (AQIM). Those training programs and future funding for new military equipment have been suspended following the March 21 coup.

auld lang syne end of the world 2012 pink martini times square 2012 predictions new years eve ball drop new years eve times square 2012