Hillary Clinton in Algeria to press for Mali military action "There is a strong recognition that Algeria has to be a central part of the solution," added the diplomat. The common influence among the fundamentalist armed groups ruling northern Mali is AQIM, which originated in Algeria and is active in regional countries including Mauritania. The Security Council on October 12 approved a resolution urging West African states to speed up preparations for a force of up to 3,000 troops that would attempt to recapture northern Mali. It gave the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) until November 26 to clarify its plans. Algeria, with its powerful army, was at first opposed to any military intervention in Mali, fearing a destabilisation of its territory inhabited by 50,000 Tuaregs. Since April, AQIM and Tuareg allies Ansar Dine and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) have imposed Islamist sharia law in parts of Mali that they have effectively partitioned. And according to another State Department official travelling with Clinton, Algeria has been "warming to the idea" of intervention led by West African states. "One of the things that we'll be talking about is... the role that Algeria could play if ECOWAS provides the boots on the ground... in coordination with the forces of Mali," said the official. But an Algerian Tuareg chief, MP Mahmud Guemama, spelt out why he opposed military intervention, in an interview with Elkhabar newspaper published on Monday. "What the United States and France are asking will cause a lot of problems," he said, warning that such action had "colonial objectives." "We are more concerned about Algerian towns in the Sahara than northern Mali," he said. We know how military intention starts but never know the end. Libya was a good example.