As reported by The Trentinonian Most of the rebels who took over the central town for five days this month were Malian and spoke the local languages of the north and the south. However their leaders were different, local residents said. "They were speaking Arabic".
Six bodyguards protected the most senior commander with the
gray-speckled beard and black turban. The Islamist militant ate
Algerian-made spaghetti and Mauritanian-made canned tomato sauce. Malian
fighters only served as his translators or brought him intelligence
reports.
“The Arabic speakers were in charge,” recalled Moussa Sangire, 71, a
retired soldier who lived next to a house taken over by a group of
foreign fighters.
What began as a home-grown, Malian-led rebellion is now firmly
entrenched as a conflict directed by al-Qaida’s West and North Africa
wing, mostly foreign fighters from Algeria and Mauritania, according to
western diplomats, Malian military officials and analysts.
As French and Malian forces advance in northern Mali, they are
learning more about the rebels who have held this Texas-sized swath of
territory for months, mostly out of view of outsiders. Diabaly, briefly
held by the militants, has now changed hands and offers a small window
into the leadership of the jihadists.
They are an enemy that appears determined to broaden the conflict
into a wider struggle against the West. The first reaction by the
insurgents to the French forces’ takeover of parts of the town of Gao on
Saturday came from a top regional al-Qaida leader, published on the
Arabic website of the Al Jazeera television network. He vowed to resist
what he described as a “new Crusader aggression,” adding that a
“jihadist Islamist emirate” would be created in northern Mali.
“It seems that these groups are being led by AQIM,” said Bertrand
Soret, chief political adviser to the European Union delegation in Mali,
referring to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. “The tactical backbone of
the rebels is more influenced by AQIM.”
