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REVOLUTION: TESHUMARA AND TANEKRA 243existence of the movement, notably by a premeditated strike in Mali and Nigerby a small group of ishumar in 1982. These men, apparently on their own initiative,had attacked an administrative post at the village of Fanfi, Mali, and atthe uranium mines at Arlit, in Niger. Whereas the attackers at Fanfi werelargely unarmed, those at Arlit had firearms. 101 Both attacks failed and a numberof assailants were arrested and interrogated, which to some extent exposed theexistence of the Kel Tamasheq network. As a result, the FPLSAC office atTripoli was closed and a number of its members were arrested.However, in March 1983 two new training camps were opened in Libya forKel Tamasheq recruits: Camp Ithnân Mars and Camp Rawd, both in the vicinityof Tripoli. This time, the camps were explicitly open only to Nigerien Kel Tamasheq,but a number of the Lebanon veterans integrated the camps, and soonthey were responsible for organisation and part of the instruction. Many of thenew recruits were Malian Kel Tamasheq holding Nigerien passports. The recruitswere deployed in Qadhafi’s campaigns in Chad where he was heavilyimmixed in the complicated policies of rebellion in that country. 102 Again, theLibyans used the Kel Tamasheq for their own political intentions. The ishumarwere fully aware of this, but they did not mind. Their gain was militaryexperience, and the creation of a well-trained army of their own. The KelTamasheq who soldiered in the Libyan campaigns in Chad received a salary of30,000 Libyan Dinar. One third of this salary was handed over to the organisationof the newly recreated movement, which was now called al-Jebha liTakhrîr ash-Shimâl al-Mali: The Liberation Front of Northern Mali. 103 Themovement’s leader, Iyad ag Ghali, and a number of his comrades had movedback to Algeria and Mali. The money that was raised among the Kel Tamasheqsoldiers was used to buy cars in which the leaders toured Northern Mali to findnew recruits. These were amply available, due to the second drought that struckMali and Niger in those years. The disaster of 1973 repeating itself on a smallerscale, paired with the same problems of unequal aid distribution and corruption,gave ample proof to the Kel Tamasheq of the need to topple the Traoré Governmentand to break loose from Mali.Despite the organisational efficiency of the Lebanon veterans internal divisionsand treason undermined the effective organisation of the Tanekra. TheTanekra started out as a movement of the Kel Adagh looking for a way to upliftegha and to rekindle the rebellion they had started in 1963. From the beginning,a small number of Kel Tamasheq from other clans or federations had joined.101Interviews with Fituk. Ménaka, 30/03/1999; and Alhadi Alhaji, Niger 1995. Courtesyof Nadia Belalimat who conducted this second interview.102The recruits were most likely deployed in support of the GUNT’s attempts to takeover the BET region and Faya Largeau, 1983, 1984. Buijtenhuijs, R. 1987: 377-385.103Interview with Taghlift. Ménaka, 19/04/1999.