This article warns of a counter-insurgency problem arising in Gao:
By the slow-moving Niger River at Gao, the north Malian town retaken by French troops from Islamist rebels last month, men repair fishing nets beside beached pirogues, women wash pots and children splash naked in the muddy water.
The scene looks tranquil enough but the French soldiers and their allied troops from Niger on the riverbank are alert, fingering their weapons and squinting southwest across the water to the village of Kadji, shrouded by eucalyptus trees.
Locals living along the bank have identified Kadji as a hotbed of al Qaeda-allied jihadists who last weekend surprised the French, Malian and Nigerien troops in Gao with two suicide bombings and a daring raid into the heart of the town.
Since Sunday's attack, the French and their African allies have been busy hunting down rebel suspects and dismantling bomb-making factories in the sprawling mud-brick Saharan town in a counter-insurgency operation that is tying them down.
"After Sunday, securing Gao is our priority," said a French officer who, like many involved in the operation, asked not to be identified. "Once we have done this, we will move out of town to help the Malians neutralize these pockets of Islamists."
The house-to-house searches, sandbagging of fixed defensive positions and reliance on tip-offs from locals already have the hallmarks of an arduous counter-guerrilla operation.
Remember, most Malians hated the jihadis. As long as the jihadis don't have the support of the people--either from love or fear--this is not a counter-insurgency as much as it is a fight against irregulars mounting hit-and-run raids. Many of the tasks the French and friendly troops will do will look like COIN work, but it will not be the same environment.
But there is a risk that this could become a counter-insurgency. The biggest problem is that a failure to come to an agreement with the Tuaregs who inhabit the north could create that network of civilian supporters that define an insurgency as opposed to a simpler irregular campaign against forces that operate in small groups without standing and fighting but who lack support from local people.
The second source of an insurgency is misbehavior by the Mali and African forces who are supposed to replace the well-trained French forces. Will ECOWAS forces be well trained enough to avoid angering the people as they try to single out the jihadis and their supporters?
We already know the Mali forces aren't well trained enough to avoid that error. Plus they have racial hatred and anger at losing during the spring. Mali forces want revenge and have no inclination to win hearts and minds even if they were trained well enough to achieve it.
If the French had led a counter-offensive north back in the early summer to quickly reverse the jihadi/Tuareg gains before jihadis flocked to northern Mali, it might have been possible to simply go back to the status quo ante where Mali forces (bolstered by ECOWAS troops) simply held the cities and roads in defiance of an angry Tuareg population.
But there are too many jihadis left out there. The French killed more jihadis than it first appeared in press accounts. But it wasn't enough. France needs the Mali government to come to an agreement with the Tuaregs that gets the Tuaregs actively involved in defeating the jihadis.
Remember, the fight in Mali is to kill jihadis and prevent them from gaining a sanctuary. We have no interest in perpetuating Mali control of the Tuaregs against the will of the Tuaregs. The Gao situation is a warning of what could happen all over Mali if we forget that.
