Did ECOWAS support a counter-coup that failed?
Mali's military junta said on Tuesday it remained in control of key sites in and around the capital after an attempted counter-coup backed by foreigners, according to a message aired over state television.
It was led by presidential guard troops loyal to the ousted president. Was ECOWAS the "foreigners" involved or are the coup leaders just wrongly assuming that? Yet how such a small group of counter-coup forces could expect to win without outside support is beyond me.
Meanwhile, jihadis gain appear to strength in the north (from my Jane's email updates):
Unverified reports from Mali's Timbuktou region on 16 April claimed that representatives of militant Islamist group Harakat Ansar al-Din had recently met with senior Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) commanders Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Abdelhamid Abou Zeid to discuss a purported plan to appoint AQIM commander Jamal Oukacha (alias Yahya Abou al-Hammam) as regional governor. While unsubstantiated, the report exacerbated international concerns over the establishment of a militant Islamist presence in northern Mali[.]
This really is going to require direct French intervention.
UPDATE: More on the attempted counter-coup, including deep suspicions that ECOWAS was somehow behind it. France is "deeply concerned," but I still hold that their deep concern and a French Foreign Legion regiment are what is needed to begin resolving the problem of coup, secession, and jihadi penetration of the region.
UPDATE: Fighting in the south continues:
Gunfire rang out in Mali's capital Bamako on Wednesday in the third day of clashes between the military junta and soldiers loyal to the ousted president, forcing residents to flee.
ECOWAS seems more interested in making sure the junta people can't influend the election by holding it fast than in reversing the northern secession. Internal fighting between the southerners means that nobody can move north to fight the secession.
Only France is capable of doing the job and preventing jihadis from setting up shop and spreading their violence to neighboring weak states.
