One regional diplomat is trying to divide the northern secessionists, at least:
A rare diplomatic opening inside Islamist-held northern Mali was tried on Tuesday by the foreign minister of neighboring Burkina Faso — an attempt to avert a war that some Western officials say is now nearly inevitable. ...
“He wants to proceed to consultations immediately after the end of Ramadan” in just under two weeks, the foreign minister said. “He said he was ready to negotiate.”
Still, Mr. Bassolé added: “As long as he is the ally of Al Qaeda, it is not possible. One can’t negotiate with Al Qaeda. He’s got to abandon his alliance with Al Qaeda.”
So far, though, Ansar Dine, itself a radicalized offshoot of the organization of nomadic Tuareg tribesmen who first seized the region, has shown no sign of doing so.
The mainstream Tuaregs are souring on alliance with the jihadis. I've read that they might be open to turning on the jihadis in exchange for simply more autonomy within Mali.
If even some of the jihadis are uncomfortable with other jihadis, the southerners have an opportunity to exploit some serious divisions.
Meanwhile, the regional bloc is getting ready to send troops to southern Mali:
ECOWAS protocol stipulates that a standby force can be deployed after a formal request is made by a member state of the bloc. Ugoh said the bloc expects leaders in Mali to officially request deployment of a standby force.
Ugoh said ECOWAS had already asked for a U.N. Security Council mandate to allow deployment of the standby force to Mali.
The Mali coup leaders have been cool on an ECOWAS force, fearing it would focus more on the internal divisions in the south rather than on dealing with the northern secession. Perhaps southern Mali factions have come to terms to focus on the north.
With the threat of al Qaeda setting up shop in northern Mali and the example of secession (in Africa, once that is a real option, where does it stop?) to unite Western and African interests, I assumed that eventually force would be used to reverse the secession.
I still don't think the ECOWAS force and whatever Mali can scrape together are capable of taking down the Tuareg/jihadi forces.
Either France (with a lower profile assist from America and Britain) provides the edge to the southerners by sending a Foreign Legion regiment to lead the advance; or the Tuaregs have to split with the jihadis to join with the southerners and ECOWAS troops moving north. The Tuaregs might trust the ECOWAS troops to be more neutral than southern troops.
At least delay in responding to the northern revolt has given the jihadis time to alienate Tuaregs and give them second thoughts about their jihadi allies. Now they just need to do something about it before terror can solidify jihadi control.
