Since November 2003, the United States of America (USA) has been conducting a military and political campaign in the Sahara that threatens the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous peoples of that region.
The stated aims of the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) are to fight against Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist training allegedly taking place in several Saharan states. PSI is intended to improve the military and border-security capacity of West Africa states that do not traditionally co-operate on intelligence sharing and border management. PSI includes both US military personnel on the ground in West Africa as well as substantial financial assistance to particular Sahelian states to improve their control of Saharan border areas.
The Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC) has put together this report to help raise awareness of the risks that PSI poses to the lives of indigenous peoples. The Sahara has been a theatre of conflict between the indigenous nomadic peoples and the governments in the area for decades. Mali and Niger , notably, committed extreme human rights abuses against indigenous peoples between 1991 – 1995. Rather than attempting to improve the relationship between economically and culturally vulnerable peoples of the Sahara, the US initiative is placing indigenous peoples in a more vulnerable situation with a strong likelihood of renewed human rights abuses by respective Sahelian armed forces.
An analysis of US media shows that, as with Iraq , the reasons stated by the US for its military and political interventions are less convincing than its overt interest in securing access to oil and other fuel sources, particularly in Mauritania , Algeria and Libya . The American strategy of using force rather than improved governance, which has been so damaging in Afghanistan and Iraq , may increase conflict in an unstable region and augment sympathies for Islamic extremists.
IPACC encourages democratic, indigenous and human rights organisations and member states of the United Nations to monitor this situation and provide solidarity to the indigenous nomadic peoples of the Sahara . See updates on our website: www.ipacc.org.za
On 7 November 2002 , the American government released a press statement announcing the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) [1]. Under the guidance of the US State Department, the US military based in Europe is expanding its ‘war against terror' to West Africa through PSI, a US$ 100 million anti-terror programme designed to help seal the predominantly Islamic region off from al-Qaeda affiliates. The agreement followed a number of diplomatic initiatives, mostly focussed on Mauritania , a state previously sympathetic to pan-Arabist ideology and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq .
On 10 January 2004, t he first wave of the PSI military resources were put into position with an 'anti-terror team' of 500 US troops arriving in Nouakchott, Mauritania, and the deployment of 400 US Rangers into the Chad-Niger border region the following week. During the next two months, private defence contractors and US army experts provided training and funds to local military units and regional border security forces of Mauritania , Mali , Chad and Niger . With American troops already stationed at Gao and reportedly at Tessalit in Mali , the number of US troops now deployed across the Sahara-Sahel is in the order of 1,000 [2].
According to the official US Department of State website:
PSI is a State-led effort to assist Mali , Niger , Chad , and Mauritania in detecting and responding to suspicious movement of people and goods across and within their borders through training, equipment and cooperation. Its goals support two U.S. national security interests in Africa : waging the war on terrorism and enhancing regional peace and security. [3]
According to US military officials
"When 9/11 happened we sat down here at Eucom [European Command]. We put together a special planning team to decide what defensive and preventive measures we needed to take in Eucom in terms of combating terrorism and protecting U.S. citizens and interests. … The region that rose to the top was northern Africa because of the large Islamic populations, because of the large areas of uncontrolled territory where the nation have a difficult time controlling their sovereign areas and because of what one would call a sympathetic or apathetic population and a number of other reasons."
"Terrorists training in the Sahel can be in the United States or Europe in a matter of hours," retired General Carlton W. Fulford [4]
According to one source, PSI “comes in direct response to concerns that militant Islamic groups, such as Algeria's Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC), may use the lawless Saharan borders of these states as an operational haven.” [5]
It is evident from the bombings in Casablanca , Morocco ( 16 May 2003 ), that Al Qaeda allies are active in North Africa . Algeria and Morocco have long been caught up in domestic efforts to quell militant Islamist tendencies in both countries. This local problem has been transformed by Osama Bin Laden's strategy of recruiting regional radical Islamic movements and bringing them into the Al Qaeda ‘family'. Bin Laden provides them with a bigger picture of their struggle, promoting the fundamentalist and anti-imperialist ideology of his movement, and supplies where possible better training and arms. Bin Laden appears to look for non-Arab recruits (the Taliban, Pakistanis, Iranians, Filipinos, Indonesians, Sudanese and Algerians) to the Al Qaeda movement [6].
However, the presence of Al Qaeda aligned interest groups appears to be outside the countries covered by PSI. It is not clear that the US had any specific military reason for intervening in Mauritania, Niger and Chad, all of which are extremely poor and do not have a history of Islamic extremist movements (unlike Morocco, Algeria, Sudan, Nigeria and Egypt). There is even a question as to whether the Sahara could be a base for terrorist training. It is hard to hide in a desert where all movement requires covering great distances in the open and can be detected easily by satellite and local intelligence.
Oxford Analytica reacts to US claims of an imminent risk of Islamic terrorism in the Sahara with its own risk analysis:
Low risk. Roughly 40% of Africa 's population -- some 250 million people -- are Muslims. The United States fears that Muslim communities in Africa could develop radicalism in the same manner as Indonesia and other peripheral Muslim states. However, with the exception of the Tabliq sect of the Ugandan Allied Democratic Front, the recent incidence of Islamic militancy is actually very low in almost all African states.
In fact, traditional African religions are more closely linked to the insurgent warfare on the continent. Muslim communities largely draw on the moderate Suwarian tradition of Sufi Islam, which has not engaged in jihad in Africa since the 19th century. Importantly, these communities remain largely detached towards the Arab-Israeli conflict. [7]
In another news report, former Chadian ambassador to the United States Ahmat Soubiane:
…made clear that Chad is not a fertile ground for Islamist terrorism or extremism. This is contrary to what has been said by Bush administration officials who support expanding the US military presence in the country. Soubiane stressed that, "the Chadian people have learned through experience that Islamic and non-Islamic believers must co-exist — an idea that is crystallized in the popular consensus in support of a secular government." [8]
The main premises stated by the US for PSI are not supported by evidence or by independent analysis. We are reminded of how the US set out its criteria for invading Iraq , based on a set of false premises that Saddam Hussein was harbouring Al Qaeda terrorists and equipping Iraq with Weapons of Mass Destruction. These criteria turned out to be false and ran counter to the intelligence that had been gathered. The only country that did fulfil these criteria was the main US ally in the region, Pakistan .
Keenan argues that the US has genuine military interests in the region, though not the PSI countries:
As for US [military] basing rights and field-training operations, that picture is also becoming progressively clearer. In early January 2004, US government officials confirmed that a key goal of the Bush administration was to establish basing rights in Algeria and Morocco and that the issue had been raised by Secretary of State Colin Powell as well as a range of US military leaders during their visits to North African states during 2003.
Allowing that there is a genuine interest of the US to secure military co-operation with Moslem or majority Moslem states, there is evidence that other priorities are driving President Bush's actions in Africa .
A revealing story about US interests in the Sahel relates to the apprehension of the leader of an Algerian GSPC movement allied to Al Qaeda.
In March 2004, Chadian rebels belonging to the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad (MDJT), apprehended Amari Saifi (aka Abderazzak Lamari, ‘El Para') , head of the Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC). The GSPC is wanted for kidnapping German tourists and has declared that it's intent to kill every infidel (non-Moslem) in Algeria .
On 11 May 2004 , the New York Times reported that US troops had been involved in the pursuit of Saifi, implying that US troops had recently crossed from Chad into Niger and then Algeria to catch Saifi. This pursuit cuts through the heartland of Tuareg and Tubu nomadic indigenous peoples. Later it emerged that the events were two months earlier than the news reports and that the MDJT who had Saifi in custody had thus far failed to get the US to agree to terms for his handover.
Despite Saifi being wanted in Germany and Algeria , no one was willing to take him of the hands f the MDJT. MDJT released two of Saifi's deputies to Libyan authorities as an act of good faith, and, apparently, both were then shot dead by Libya at the border [9] suggesting that there are things the GSPC know that some people do not want to be revealed in courts.
From May 2004, following the New York Times coverage, PSI achieved a higher profile in the US media even though PSI had been under negotiations for a year and the rebel seizure of Saifi had taken place two months earlier with very little media attention.
News24.com, for example, reported the events in June 2004 quoting:
US officials credit …the Pan-Sahel Initiative - with helping in a dramatic, little-noticed four-nation trans-Sahara chase last month that ended in the capture of one of North Africa's most-wanted terror suspects.
On the one hand we are told that the US is willing to spend US$100 million on anti-terrorism in the Sahel , and then when the prime mover in the terror network is apprehended the US is not interested in securing his incarceration. Significantly, the main thrust of PSI is meant to deal with Islamic terrorist threats in Mauritania , Mali and Niger , whereas Saifi is an Algerian and his deputies were Nigerians, not Nigeriens, Chadians or Malians.
Though the US is undoubtedly nervous about Bin Laden's ability to recruit radical Islamist nationalists into his terror network, the evidence coming out of the Sahara is insufficient to justify why this region must become a theatre for foreign military intervention. It is worth examining other events in the region to determine what the primary US interests are in intervening in West Africa .
Oil and other fuel needs have been a driving force in US foreign and military policy since its first fuel crisis in the 1970s when southern producers formed the oil cartel OPEC, and began to exert some control over pricing. The US , a single country, uses 25% of the world's fossil fuels and is vulnerable to even small disruptions to its supply [10].
With the anti-American revolution in Iran in the 1980s, and the subsequent Iraq-Iran war, exporting of oil out of the Gulf area has become increasingly hazardous [11]. Successive US presidents have attempted to deal with this. Efforts to pump oil out of Central Asia via Afghanistan through Pakistan strongly influenced US tolerance of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Americans' main, yet unstable, ally in the region, Pakistan .
Though President G.W. Bush attempted to convince the American public that he was invading Iraq due to the presence of Al Qaeda, Iraqi support for global terrorism, and their having Weapons of Mass Destruction, all three issues have been repeatedly refuted, including by US ‘Czar on Terrorism', Richard Clarke. In his 2004 book about what the White House knew about Al Qaeda, Clarke emphasises that there was every reason not to think Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. This reinforces the widely accepted geopolitical conclusion that the US invasion of Iraq was driven by oil concerns.
In 2002, the first evidence came forth that Mauritania had substantial oil and natural gas reserves that were not being tapped [12]. Mauritania is one of the poorest countries in the world and an oil breakthrough would help them substantially. Over the last two years, the value of the oil fields in Mauritania has soared dramatically. The Oxford Analytica notes that:
Oil is an important part of the strategic concern. Without African crude oil, "each year the U.S. would need an additional 10 billion gallons of gasoline," the president of Chevron Texaco Overseas Petroleum, George Kirkland, told the AEI meeting. "That's about enough for fourteen and a half million cars and trucks," he said - "more than the total number of registered vehicles in the state of New York ." In 10 years, thirty percent of U.S. oil will come from the Gulf of Guinea , Wald said. "We will also become very dependent on natural gas from Africa ."
Mauritania 's outputs will not be substantial compared to other major oil producing countries, however geo-politically it is situated very strategically. The US can bring oil out of West Africa , directly to the US without having to navigate past hostile countries. Mauritania is evidently the key ally in the US strategy as demonstrated in their assistance package, however, the more substantial oil sources are likely to come from Algeria and Libya, both historically anti-American though both suddenly swinging into a more pro-Western alignment.
As further evidence of the geopolitical interests, the US has been negotiating behind closed doors with Morocco and Mauritania to short circuit the political independence the Arab Democratic Republic of the Western Sahara [13]. Western Sahara has been a complicated and intractable African policy arena, which caused the expulsion of Morocco from the Organisation of African Unity. Now Morocco has been through its own process of political reform, Polisario, the Sahraoui government, finds itself isolated politically and its ideological commitment to Arabism has likely focussed US attention on its inconvenient location between the US and its new oil interests.
Oil is not only an issue for Mauritania . The oil story is significant in the Chadian arena. Wayne Madsen of the News Insider reports that:
With the commencement …of the pumping of oil in October 2003 from Chad through the new Chad-Cameron pipeline, a project backed by a consortium consisting of Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, Petronas of Malaysia, Halliburton, and the World Bank, [Chadian President Idriss] Deby is adopting the policy of oil cronyism of Equatorial Guinea's dictator Teodoro Obiang. … in June 2003, Deby appointed his inexperienced nephew as Prime Minister and in January 2004 appointed his brother-in-law to head Chad's Central African Bank and, by default, president of the 9-member Chadian Revenue Management Oversight Committee, which oversees how the oil revenues, which are deposited in an escrow account in a London bank, are spent.
Non-government organisations, such as Forest People Project have supported Cameroonian Mbororo nomads and Pygmy peoples in their protests to World Bank for funding the Chad – Cameroon pipeline.
Madsen points out that the US backing of Deby is spilling over into neighbouring Sudan , where more nomadic pastoralists are the victims of state sponsored human rights violations:
Chad is receiving US military aid and training under the Pan Sahel Initiative. However, Soubiane cited Deby's involvement in the bloody and near-genocidal inter-ethnic fighting in the neighbouring Darfur province of Sudan , which he fears will eventually spill over into Chad . Soubiane said the fighting in Darfur was initiated by former members of Deby's Presidential Guard who hail from the province. To repay his debt, Deby is providing advanced weaponry, including all terrain vehicles, fuel, small arms, and anti-aircraft guns to the Darfur rebels who are fighting the Sudanese central government. Some of Chad's military equipment is being provided by the United States under the Pan Sahel Initiative . [emphasis added] The Bush administration and its evangelical Christian allies have targeted Khartoum 's Islamic government by supplying weapons to various factions opposed to it. Like Chad , Sudan is also sitting on top of huge oil reserves.
US military support for Deby and his allied Sudanese rebels is resulting in nothing less than another African genocide, closely approaching those of Rwanda and Congo in death toll. The people of Darfur are dying and the Bush administration throws gasoline on the flames by granting military assistance to the perpetrators of genocide.
When put together, the evidence is dramatic and disturbing. The US has used its political, military and economic influence, under the guise of fighting terrorism, to push its oil agenda forward in Africa without consideration for human rights, peace and the survival of indigenous peoples.
The concept of ‘indigenous peoples' in West Africa is not linked to a notion of exclusive ‘first peoples' or anteriority of occupation. As with other groups, such as the Maasai, the notion of ‘indigenous peoples' is linked to the following characteristics:
Groups claiming indigenous peoples' status include a variety of Saharan nomadic peoples including the Tuareg, Bororo, Wodaabe, Tubu and Mbororo.
In the wake of several more bad drought years, and other issues such as uranium mining in Niger , there were a series of eruptions amongst Tuareg and Tubu peoples. In 1991, the first armed conflicts started in the Meneka area near Gao in Mali . Soon the uprisings spread to Agadez, Kidal and Timbuktu . Parallel conflict was simmering in Chad and northern Nigeria involving Tubu and Wodaabe peoples.
According to Tuareg activists, the conflict was around the frustrations of northerners to the abuse of power by southern elites. The north was being drained of resources, people were living in poverty and corruption was wide spread. When this was combined with heavy handed attempts at controlling people it led to conflict. In Niger , the Niamey government had extracted great wealth out of the uranium price boom, and failed to translate this into any sustainable development in the north. The conflict was bloody; involving extreme human rights abuses, and was for the most part ignored by the world media.
Tuareg people were hunted down in Mali between 1991 and 1994. People were publicly executed in Gao. There are eyewitnesses to extreme uses of torture, executions and mass burials. Tuareg people had to flee all urban areas. Thousands of Tuareg fled from Mali into Mauritania . Mauritania refused to grant them refugee status. Some ended up in Burkina Faso . The Burkinabé government was more tolerant and supportive and also got involved in peace negotiations.
The other nomads, notably the Bororo and Wodaabe, were caught up in the conflict. Many Wodaabe were killed during fighting in Chad , and were sometimes the victims of Tubu aggression (see Indigenous World 1997). Southerners do not always understand the difference between the different nomadic groups, despite their different languages and customs. Arab minorities sometimes supported the Tuareg rebellion, such as in Mali , but were used by the Niger government against the Tuareg rebellion, fuelling ethnic conflict.
The armed conflict ended in 1995-96, with signing of peace accords in both Niger and Mali . The refugees returned from Mauritania with some assistance by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Little effort was made by either government to help people resettle or address any of the concerns that led to the original conflict. In Niger , the Niamey government has included a small group of rebels in the government. In Mali , a Tuareg has been appointed as the deputy Prime Minister. This is seen as a symbolic gesture that is more of an affront than a source of encouragement to Malian Tuareg.
What is clear is that neither Mali nor Niger is stable. The origins of the conflict have not been addressed. The economies of the north are vulnerable. The southern governments are still deeply corrupt. Mali , in particular, is rife with corruption and will eventually trigger new forms of conflict as much in the south as in the north. The Malian police and military are corrupt and arbitrary in their actions. They could start torturing or killing people again and there would be little that the civil society could do to stop it.
There is also the trauma of the torture and killing. Unlike South Africa and Rwanda , Mali has not had any process of truth and reconciliation. Mass murderers are still in place within the police and military.
The power balance shifted more substantially in Niger . Rebels lost the war but won the peace. They are working together to strengthen the economy of the north. The Tuareg are moving, along with other nomads, to create a type of federal system where the northern economy is fairly independent of the south. Niamey is not likely to want this, and the American PSI influence may give them the tools to re-impose state control over the nomads, particularly to manipulate the border, which is currently open for herd migrations. There will be room for renewed conflict under PSI.
The relationship between the indigenous peoples of North and West Africa , the states, and the radical Islamist movements are complicated and not easily summarised. Islamic fundamentalism in North Africa is often related to Pan Arabist elements. Most North African states allied themselves to Abdel Nasser's anti-colonial Pan-Arabist ideology. This later became a cover for denying the cultural and language rights of the multi-cultural societies, notably oppressing the indigenous Berber / Amazigh communities.
The Amazigh and Tuareg indigenous peoples movements have consistently supported a philosophy of tolerance for diversity, linguistic, cultural, religious, racial and economic. Though some indigenous people are likely sympathetic to those fighting corrupt regimes they are cautious and sometimes in direct opposition to those promoting a brand of Islam that is closely tied to new forms of Wahhabite Arabism. In Niger , the government used the Arab minority directly to attack and terrorise the Tuareg rebel regions during the rebellion in the 1990s.
The Pan Sahel Initiative has been justified as a ‘campaign against terrorism'. It is not clear that there is a terrorism threat in the Sahara , at least not in the PSI target countries of Mauritania , Mali , Niger and Chad . It is however clear that the Americans are looking for oil and there will be a partnership between the State Department, the military and the private sector to secure these resources. Recent experience shows that when the US begins to confuse its priorities that there can be a sharp clash between its alleged interest in promoting peace and fighting terrorism on the one hand, and its unquenchable thirst for oil and its willingness to trample human rights, either directly or through its despotic allies.
PSI is endangering the lives of Saharan indigenous peoples by heightening conflict, increasing the militarisation of this area, and pumping resources into corrupt and self-interested regimes that exclude nomads from policy making. Not one of the media or press releases found on the internet acknowledges that there are indigenous peoples in the Sahara or that they have been the victims of extreme human rights abuses by the very governments that are benefiting from PSI.
The irony of the US actions is that the violence they are stirring in the region will likely increase support for Al Qaeda. A key point made by Clarke in his book is that the Bush administration is driving Moslems into Bin Laden's camp by using force and attacking Moslem communities. The current regime in America is failing to offer an ideological alternative to the Al Qaeda philosophy that has successfully recruited a wide range of disaffected groups [14].
Keenan comes to the same conclusion:
The biggest threat to the Americans may come from their very presence in the region, especially when they are perceived to be allying themselves to corrupt, undemocratic and dictatorial regimes. It is precisely this sort of association that might well draw Islamic extremists into the hitherto relative calm of southern Algeria and its border regions. [15]
If one accepts Madsen's analysis of the Darfur crisis, it can be directly attributed to the impact of PSI on a delicate balance of power in the region. Malian Tuareg community organisations have reported recent gun battles between PSI troops north of Meneka and armed Islamic groups. Tuareg civilians were allegedly killed in the crossfire.
In the last few years at the United Nations, the United States of America has been consistently opposed to creating any international standards on the rights of indigenous peoples. The US has an ignominious history of trying to eliminate the first peoples of North America through military action, dispossession, deliberate spreading of diseases and the reservation system. After ten years of negotiations, the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been completely blocked in the Human Rights Commission as a result of US opposition and the co-operation of its Western allies, the United Kingdom and Australia .
The US spokespersons refer to ‘bad people' in the Sahara . The world needs to ask who precisely are the ‘bad' people in the Sahara . The US is spending $100 million in the Sahel to strengthen governments with notoriously bad human rights records. At the same time, the US is $480 million in arrears to the United Nations for peacekeeping, including for UN work in Sudan [16], where the US has triggered the newest human rights crisis.
The Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC) supports the right of Saharan indigenous peoples to self-determination. As with all indigenous peoples, Saharan nomads need an active role in governance, determining their economic and cultural relationship with the states governing that region. Member states of the United Nations need to hold countries like the US accountable for their actions and to seek avenues that promote peace and tolerance, rather than the use of force, torture, coercion and other human rights violations.
AfricaFocus ( 10 June 2004 ). USA/Africa: Peacekeeping Repackaged. allAfrica_com PanAfrica USA-Africa Peacekeeping Repackaged.htm
afrol News ( 5 February 2004 ) Good governance promoted in Mauritania . http://www.afrol.com/articles/13012
afrol News ( 9 July 2004 ) Mauritania 's oil adventure comes true. http://www.afrol.com/articles/13012
afrol News ( 12 June 2004 ) Baker resigns from Western Sahara role. http://www.afrol.com/articles/13336
Clarke, R (2004) Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. Free Press: New York .
Cobb Jr, C. ( 15 April 2004 ) General Sees Expanding Strategic Role for U.S. European Command In Africa . http://allafrica.com/ Washington , DC
Cobb Jr, C. ( 4 May 2004 ) Africa Command Not European Command, Says Official. http://allafrica.com/ Washington , DC
Darling, D (2004). Email posting on Salafist group. http://rantburg.com/default.asp?D=3/20/2004#28636
Diouf, N ( 8 July 2004 ) Rebels: Libyans Give Terrorist Deadline. Guardian Unlimited. http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4289167,00.html
Disinfopedia (no date, 2004) Pan Sahel Initiative. http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Pan-Sahel_Initiative
EIA Country Analysis Briefs: (February 2004) Arab Maghreb Union Country Analysis http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/maghreb.html
Environmental Literacy Council ( 21 January 2004 ) Petroleum. http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php?id=77&print=1
Fisher-Thompson, J. "U.S.-African Partnership Helps Counter Terrorists in Sahel Region. New Maghreb cooperation central to Pan Sahel Initiative," ( http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=March&x=20040323170343r1EJrehsiF0.1366693&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html )
Goldstein, R ( 30 March 2004 ) Africa : Oil, al-Qaeda and the US military . In Asia Times. http://www.atimes.com/atime s /Front_Page/FC30Aa02.html
Keena, J ( 23 February 2004 ) Seminar paper: Americans and 'bad people' in the Sahara-Sahel . Sahara Studies Programme, University of East Anglia .
Madsen, W. ( 03 May 2004 ) Bush Funding al-Qaeda Minions: US Money Keeps Sudan Extremists Alive. The News Insider: Letters from the Empire.
news24.com ( 18 June 2004 ) US training African armies. http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,6119,2-11-1447_1544216,00.html
Oxford Analytica ( 15 January 2004 ) AFRICA : Islamist terrorism thrives on weak states
Royal Oil Company Limited (no date) Mauritania : http://www.rocoil.com.au/Pages/World_Map/Mauritania/mauritania.html
Sambou, J ( 11 June 2004 ) Mauritanian Oil a Reality. The Independent. Banjul , Gambia . allAfrica.com http://allafrica.com/stories/200406110603.html
Smith, C ( 11 May 2004 ), the " U.S. [is] Training African Forces to Uproot Terrorists." New York Times , http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/international/africa/11AFRI.html?pagewanted=print&position
Smith, C ( 14 May 2004 ) Chad Rebel Group Says It Holds Qaeda-Linked Terrorist. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Sahara-Terror-Suspect.html
Smith, C ( 5 June 2004 ) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/06/05/MNGAG71APG1.DTL New York Times.
Strategy Page – Wars around the world ( 17 June 2004 ) military news about Algeria.htm
U.S. Department of State, 23 March 2004 . "Stripes' Q&A on DOD's Pan Sahel Initiative," ( http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=20669&archive=true ) Stars and Stripes ( Europe )
Ulmer, Lt. Phillip ( 9 March 2004 ) Special Forces Support Pan Sahel Initiative. In Defence & Arms. American Forces Press Service 8/3/04 .
US. Department of State ( 7 November 2003 ) Pan Sahel Initiative. Office of Counterterrorism. Washington , DC .
USA Today ( 16 June 2004 ) Rebels holding terror suspect seek ransom. http://w w w .usatoday.com/news/world/2004-06-16-rebels-terror_x.htm
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[1] See US. Department of State ( 7 November 2003 ) and Ulmer (2004)
[2] See Keenan, 2004: 1
[3] See U.S. Department of State, 23 March 2004 and Ulmer (2004)
[4] See Cobb Jr, C. ( 15 April 2004 )
[5] Oxford Analytica, 2004
[6] See Clarke, 2004
[7] See Oxford Analytica 15 January 2004
[8] See Madsen, The New Insider
[9] See Diouf, June 2004
[10] See Environmental Literacy Council
[11] See Clarke 2004
[12] See EIA analysis – Feb. 2004 and ROC
[13] Afrol New 12 June 2004 .
[14] Clarke 2004
[15] Keenan 2004: 7
[16] AfricaFocus ( 10 June 2004 ). USA/Africa: Peacekeeping Repackaged. allAfrica_com PanAfrica USA-Africa Peacekeeping Repackaged.htm