American Commander Details Al Qaeda’s Strength in Mali
www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/world/africa/top-american-command...
Al Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa is operating terrorist training camps in northern Mali and providing arms, explosives and financing to a militant Islamist organization in northern Nigeria, the top American military commander in Africa said on Monday. The affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, has used the momentum gained since seizing control of the northern part of the impoverished country in March to increase recruiting across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Europe, said the commander, Gen. Carter F. Ham.

General Ham’s assessment is the most detailed and sobering American military analysis so far of the consequences of the Qaeda affiliate and associated extremist groups seizing the northern part of Mali to use as a haven....

Radical Islamists have turned northern Mali into an enclave for Qaeda militants and for the imposition of harsh Shariah law, which has been used to terrorize the population, particularly women, with amputations, stonings, whippings and other abuses. The Qaeda North Africa affiliate is now considered one of the best armed and wealthiest of the Qaeda franchises across the world....

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