[size=16pt]Mali, Wahabis and Saudis[/size]
by THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN

A well armed and supplied Wahabi movement in the African country of Mali, funded by the Saudis, has taken over most of northern Mali and has begun to, amongst other Wahabi practices, destroy tombs of Islamic African kings, the world famous Mansas of Mali that are world heritage sites.

This latest in a series of extremist Wahabi movements exploded on the scene following the western attack on Libya and the destruction of the Gaddafi government in 2011.

Mali, as in most of the central and western Sahel region in Africa, is in the midst of a years long drought that has left hundreds of thousands starving and millions more, especially children, damaged by malnutrition. With the pastoral, nomadic economy collapsing where did the sudden major influx of funds come from that allowed the rapid expansion of the Wahabi movement in the Sahel to take place?

While human trafficking and to a much lesser extent, drug smuggling, has been a source of income for the criminal elements of the Tuareg peoples of the region, since the western military destroyed the Gaddafi government in Libya in 2011, the major destination of the human traffickers, the numbers of migrants trafficked by the criminal gangs to Libya has fallen to a fraction of its past levels and most of the cash flow for these criminals has dried up.

The Tuareg peoples of the Sahel, along with their more northern, agricultural cousins the Berbers, predate the Arab invasion of Northern Africa by millennia and have long been victims of marginalization by both the western, mainly French, colonialists and later the neocolonialist regimes installed by their former western masters.

In the case in Chad, the French uranium mines have polluted the ground water and left the land literally life threatening. As a result for decades now the Tuareg have been in an ongoing state of armed resistance to the crimes committed against their people and have a legitimate claim to much of the Sahel region, in the case of Mali, the land of “Azawad” as they have proclaimed it.

But the traditional Tuareg fighters, suffering from famine and a collapsing economy have been outgunned and driven from the cities of northern Mali by the Wahabis, with their shining new pickup trucks, plentiful fuel and seemingly inexhaustible flow of weaponry and supplies.

So where is the funding for the Mali Wahabis coming from? Every Wahabi movement that has been competently investigated has been tied to the Saudis, in most cases to the almost 30,000 strong Saudi royal family and the Mali Wahabis are no exception.

In Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq, Egypt and North Africa and even Syria, Saudi money, billion$ of dollar$ worth, has funded the most reactionary, extreme and violently dangerous centers of terrorism and backwardness.

Murdering girls for going to school? Massacring religious pilgrims for the crime of being Shiite “heretics”? Destroying world heritage historical sites whether Buddhist statues in Afghanistan or tombs of the world famous Mansas of Mali, Islamic tombs, but still not “pure” enough for these Wahabis?

And all paid for by one of the most corrupt and reactionary regimes on the planet, who just happen to be a major ally of the western regimes, the Saudi Arabian royal family.

Once again when one digs into the real source of the crimes being committed in Africa one uncovers a foreign source, whether western or a major western ally, the Wahabi regime installed by the British on the Arabian peninsula almost a century ago, the Kingdom of the House of Saud, Saudi Arabia.

Until the very real, and growing threat of Wahabism is contained, all sorts of crimes almost unthinkable in many parts of the world just decades ago will continue to spill the blood of innocents, create chaos and anarchy and leave in its wake backwardness and suffering in the populations inflicted by this most reactionary of ideologies, an ideology that was put in power and supplied with arms and industry by the western powers that so hypocritically claim to oppose all such ignorance and oppression.

Mali, Wahabis and Saudis, follow the money trail and find out who is really to blame for the crimes committed in the name of the long suffering Tuaregs of the Sahel. And no amount of western funded West African troops who may invade and occupy Mali will do anything other than cause more suffering to Mali’s people.

[size=16pt]Britain to send aircraft to Mali to assist French fight against rebels[/size]







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Britain to send aircraft to Mali to assist French fight against rebels

Fears of terrorist reprisals in Europe rise as more than 120 reported dead after French air strikes on extremists

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Peter Beaumont, Cass Jones and Kim Willsher in Paris
The Observer, Sunday 13 January 2013
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French troops in Chad
French troops in Chad prepare to be airlifted into Mali yesterday. Photograph: Nicolas Vissac/AFP/Getty Images

Britain announced on Saturday night that it was deploying aircraft to assist French military operations against Islamist rebels in Mali as an escalation in hostilities was claimed to have killed more than 120 people.

David Cameron's offer to transport foreign troops and equipment involved Britain in a fresh conflict that could provoke terrorist reprisals against European targets. President François Hollande yesterday placed France on high alert as French planes bombarded targets in Mali.

Downing Street said two transport planes would be dispatched, but British troops would not join the French military mission to help recapture the north of Mali from al-Qaida-linked rebels acting against the country's government.

"The prime minister spoke to President Hollande this evening to discuss the deteriorating situation in Mali and how the UK can support French military assistance provided to the Malian government to contain rebel and extremist groups in the north of the country," a spokeswoman said. "Both leaders agreed that the situation in Mali poses a real threat to international security given terrorist activity there."

Earlier, Hollande warned that two days of air strikes by French war planes were only the opening salvoes in a longer campaign. "We have already held back the progress of our adversaries and inflicted heavy losses on them. But our mission is not over yet," he said.

The latest aerial bombardment led to the death of a French pilot, Damien Boiteux, and, according to a senior army officer in Mali, those of more than 100 rebel troops following fighting for the strategic town of Konna. Malian officials said 11 government soldiers had been killed in efforts to wrest the town from rebel control. Human rights groups counted 10 civilian deaths.

France insists it is undertaking military operations in Mali, which had been a stable democracy until a military coup last March paved the way for the Islamist rebellion, to provide support to a West African troop deployment backed by the United Nations.

Regional economic bloc Ecowas has accelerated its efforts to send troops to the international campaign in Mali, authorising the immediate deployment of 3,300 troops.

The United States was also said to be weighing possible involvement with the Pentagon considering options such as intelligence-sharing with France and logistics support.

For Hollande, the intervention in Mali represents the biggest foreign policy test he has faced since becoming president in May. So far he has enjoyed widespread political support at home and abroad for the African mission.

France's defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said hundreds of French troops and aircraft had been involved in fighting at three locations in the centre of Mali, including against an Islamist command centre.

A French army unit also attacked a column of rebels heading towards the town of Mopti. He insisted that France was compelled to act quickly to stop the Islamist offensive, which he said could allow "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe".

In a separate military operation in Somalia, a French soldier was killed during a botched commando raid on an Islamist compound to rescue a captured secret service agent. The hostage is also believed to have been killed in the operation.

Another commando is listed as missing amid claims that he was injured and captured by fighters belonging to the Islamist al-Shabaab movement.

The operation had failed "despite the sacrifice of two of our soldiers and without doubt the assassination of our hostage", Hollande said. But he said it confirmed "France's determination not to give in to the blackmail of terrorists" and reiterated his commitment to pursuing military intervention in Mali.

Although officials denied there was any connection between the rescue effort and the operation launched in Mali, the French military escalation would have complicated the position of the hostage in Somalia.

The secret service agent, "Denis Allex", is believed to have been killed by his captors during a failed helicopter raid in Bula Mareer, 70 miles south of Mogadishu. The assault faltered after resistance at the compound, which was reinforced by fighters at a neighbouring training camp who heard the helicopters.

The agent and a colleague were kidnapped in 2009 while assigned to the international effort to assist Somalia's transitional government in Mogadishu. His colleague escaped a month later.

Residents of the town described explosions and gunfire while an al-Shabaab official said that the fighting began after helicopters had dropped off French commandos.

The French ministry of defence said that the decision to launch the raid to rescue Allex had been taken after there had been no progress in three years of attempted negotiations to secure his release.

"Faced with the intransigence of the terrorists, who refused for three years to engage in all negotiations, and who were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions, an operation was planned and set in effect," said a spokesman.

Lol the article sounds like Iran begging the west to destroy the Saudis, as it is common knowledge that Saudi has been affected negatively by al qaeda and has been at the fore front of fighting al qaeda!