Separatist War looms in post-coup MaliCitizens carried placards and banners reading Down with the international community and Down with Sarkozy, while chanting slogans in praise of junta leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo. [1] Although Sanogo has visited the US several times after being handpicked by the Pentagon to participate in an International Military Education and Training program sponsored by the US State Department [2], representatives of the United States have called on coup leaders in Mali on to step down and allow for elections to take place. [3] Under the banner of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), armed militias have reportedly seized the northeastern region of Kidal, prompting the poorly equipped Malian army to abandon its strategic northward positions. [8] The Tuareg are a traditionally nomadic and pastoralist ethnic minority group of some 1.5 million people who seek to secede from the Malian republic and form an independent nation called Azawad; the group has traditionally existed in a territory scattered across the Sahel and Sahara countries largely operated by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Although the Tuareg have been credited with the recent destabilization in Northern Mali, a strong possibility exists that AQIM has more accurately been behind insurgent activity in the region. [9] The MNLA has stated that the objective of its independence campaign is develop a stronghold from which to safeguard against violent AQIM activity, while Bamako has asserted that the MNLA seek to found a ridged Islamist state in partnership with AQIM. [10] Subsequent to the fall of Gaddafi in NATOs Libyan war-theater, armed Malian and Nigerien ethnic-Tuareg fighters were seen descending into the Sahara in army issue Toyota Hi-Lux technical trucks used by al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan rebels [11]. While it may be difficult to distinguish the true protagonists of violence in northern Mali, the resurgence of their activity has been greatly enhanced by their access to mortars, machine guns, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons originally belonging to the radical Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). [12] The crisis in Mali bears a striking parallel to events in Nigeria, a nation struggling with the Islamic insurgent activities of separatist Boko Haram to its north. Given the political instability in Abuja, a coup orchestrated by low-ranking officers against Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan based on the Malian model would not be unthinkable. As the World Bank and African Development Bank suspend all aid to Mali, some form of military intervention is conceivable if the UNSCs calls for the immediate restoration of constitutional rule and the democratically elected government are not heeded [16]. As the US military counters the Lords Resistance Army by expanding its military presence through AFRICOM (United States Africa Command) in the Democratic Peoples Republic of the Congo, the worsening situation in both Mali and Nigeria provide further justification for foreign intervention and war profiteering. [19] New Mali leaders reveal constitution, Russia Today March 23, 2012 Article originally posted Nile Bowies blog here. Nile Bowie is a syndicated freelance writer and photojournalist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 