Security Council - World Model United Nations

divergence in their aims. 190 In Timbuktu, the Ansar
Dine “had [now] begun ordering women to cover
themselves with veils,” declaring that they wanted
imposition of Islamic sharia law rather than seeking
an independent Azawad. 191 Ansar Dine’s leader, Ag
Ghali, appeared publicly in Timbuktu with Algerian
AQIM leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar the following
day, on the heels of Belmokhtar’s alleged “shopping
trip” to Libya for weapons, further confirming a link
between the terrorist group Al Qaeda and the Ansar
dine. 192
Map of lands claimed by Tuareg rebels (as of 5 April 2012)
On 6 April, MNLA rebels seized control of Gao,
declaring it the capital city of a new independent
state called Azawad. 193 the African union, european
union, and former West African colonial power
France refused to recognize this declaration of
independence. 194 Nevertheless, ECOWAS and the
CNRdR managed to reach a deal in which the
junta surrendered power to parliament speaker
dioncounda traore, who was sworn in as the new
interim president of Mali on 12 April. 195
Current Situation in Mali: From Tuareg Self-
Determination to Radical Islamic Terror
Although the standoff between the MNLA and
Malian government had been tentatively stabilized,
the northern Mali conflict had already expanded
to involve several insurgent groups. From April
onwards, the MNLA found itself fighting the Ansar
Dine, other newly mobilized Arab militia groups, and
protestors—setting up a more complex insurgency
landscape than ever before. The National Liberation
Front of Azawad (FNLA), a local ethnic Arab militia
that had been allied with the Malian government
prior to the coup but defected sides after the ousting
of traore from power in March, 196 entered the fray
on 8 April when it announced its decision to oppose
Tuareg rule. The FLNA’s Secretary-General Mohamed
Lamine Sidad stated that his group sought to neither
gain independence nor impose sharia law, but rather
to secure the Arab trading community’s economic
interests in Timbuktu, which had been overrun by
MNLA rebels. 197 to further complicate allegiances
after the coup, those Malians who did not support
partitioning of the country vis-à-vis the MNLA’s
separatist push for an independent Azawad often
cast their support to islamist groups who challenged
the largely-Tuareg MNLA.
Following the Battle of Gao, the Ansar dine and
the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa
(MOJWA), an al-Qaeda offshoot that has allied with
the Ansar Dine, claimed complete control over
Mali’s desert north. The shootout in Gao on 26 June
between Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-linked
islamists culminated in 20 deaths. 198
Ansar Dine’s role in the northern Mali conflict has
progressed beyond wresting control of the void left
by Malian government forces after the March coup.
To the Tuaregs’ acute discontent, the ascendency
of Ansar dine threatens the fate of Azawad, with
northern Mali firmly under Islamist control. Moreover,
the focus of the Islamist insurgency is more ambitious
in scope—the imposition of sharia law throughout all
of Mali—and has therefore proven to be more violent
than perhaps the Tuareg rebellion that preceded it.
On September 1, the Ansar Dine gained a strategic
victory when MOJWA fighters seized control of the
central Malian town of Douentza after a brief skirmish
with Douentza’s local militia, causing the broader
conflict to spread beyond northern Mali. 199
earlier in August, united Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon addressed the “deeply troubling
situation” in Mali and called on the UN Security
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