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EPILOGUE 333attention could put pressure on the international community. But although therewas international media attention, this was thwarted by news of the Rwandangenocide in a media landscape where the importance of African news was evermore decided by the number of victims. Of course, there was an internationaldimension to the conflict in so far as neighbouring countries mediated or acceptedto host refugees from the conflict, but there was no further interventionfrom their side. Hoever, since 2001, the international setting was one in whichthe remotest areas of the Muslim world were under the attention of the onlyremaining superpower and in which a number of international mining companieswere looking for new oilfields in a market of ever-staggering demandsand prices. Next to the US, the Algerian Government was also very interested inthe situation in Northern Mali as the area served as a rear base to the GSPC.Then, on a far smaller scale, the European Union and the United Nations wereinterested since they saw the region as a hub in the international traffic in drugs,arms and prospective migrants to Europe. On 25 May 2006, the Malian Armyretook the city of Kidal with the help of US soldiers stationed semi-permanentlyin Gao as part of the Pan Sahel Initiative. The US Air Force provided furtherassistance in flying material for the Malian Army to the North, to which theADC reacted by firing at these planes with the seized anti-aircraft guns. The USArmy formally confirmed both the assistance to the Malian Army and the ADCassault on a USAF C-130 transport. 32 Never before had foreign troops beenofficially engaged in Northern Mali in the context of a Tamasheq rebellion. TheUS assistance had obvious reasons. While the Malian Government had nowfully learned to differentiate between Kel Tamasheq identities, which in practicemeant that this differentiation was actually lived up to by those groups, the USGovernment still had to learn who was who in the Sahara. The ADC thereforefound it necessary to add a communiqué to its website which indicated that theirstruggle had nothing to do whatsoever with Islamic militancy and terrorism. On9 June 2006 one could read on Azawad-union.blogspot.com:Denial of any connection between our movement and the GSPC. We could fight forIslam, but we fight first for our living conditions. 33Indeed, on 26 September 2006 the ADC attacked a group of GSPC fightersstill present in Northern Mali and using it as a base for activities in the Sahel,3233Soares, C. ‘Tuareg rebels attack US plane as insurgency in Mali intensifies’, TheIndependent, 14/09/2007. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/tuaregrebels-attack-us-plane-as-insurgency-in-mali-intensifies-402323.htmlhttp://azawad-union.blogspot.com/2006/06/dementi-pour-toute-connexion-denotre.html