Free Republic

Richards Murphy writes that Boko Haram is the brainchild of some powerful interests targeting the untapped natural resources in Northern NigeriaThe curse of natural resources is apparently real or more accurately, cursed interests in resource exploration are real. This evil often goes about masked as something less sinister. Take for instance the insanity that is todayÂ’s Afghanistan, which began in a fashion not too different from what Boko Haram is acting out in Nigeria today. Somewhere in the convoluted mix of transitions and mishmash of Mujahedeen, Taliban and al-Qaeda was UNOCAL, an oil multinational and its effort to construct pipelines...

Executive Summary:On March 21, 2012, a group of Army mutineers appeared on Mali's national television station to declare that they had ended President Amadou Toumani Toure's regime and put in place the “National Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of State” (CNRDR). In the days following the coup, the leader of the CNRDR – Captain Amadou Sanago, a virtually unknown junior officer, has shown an inability to command discipline from his troops – who have looted the capital. The disappearance of President Toure and the factional infighting of the Army have made the country defenseless against AQIM’s...

Armored vehicles rumbled through the deserted streets of Bamako, Mali, last week, while the rattle of fire from assault rifles could be heard coming from the western part of the capital, especially around the presidential guard's barracks and in the city's slums. .................................................. Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has called the situation "very, very worrying." Mhand Berkouk, director of the Echaab Center for Strategic Studies, in Algiers, fears an "Afghanization of the entire Sahel region." Berkouk believes Azawad could become a base for terrorists from around the world.