Free Republic

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...

**SNIP** The catalyst for the Islamic fighters was a military coup nine months ago that transformed Mali from a once-stable nation to the failed state it is today. On March 21, disgruntled soldiers invaded the presidential palace. The fall of the nation's democratically elected government at the hands of junior officers destroyed the military's command-and-control structure, creating the vacuum which allowed a mix of rebel groups to move in. With no clear instructions from their higher-ups, the humiliated soldiers left to defend those towns tore off their uniforms, piled into trucks and beat a retreat as far as Mopti, roughly...