Thursday evening was Maoulid (Mawlid) the celebration of the Prophet's birth that is a carnival like holiday across West Africa. Sadly, construction barriers near Timbuktu's famous Djingareyber mosque caused crowds that resulted in a panic and stampede. Police say 15 people, including two children, were killed and that another 41 people were injured. "Every year for Maouloud people come to the grand mosque, but this year construction blocked some of the roads," said Imam Abdramane ben Effayouti. "People took to narrow alleys, there was jostling, and the tragedy occurred." Very sad.

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In a press appearance in Bamako Peter Camatte, the French-Malian NGO head who was held by the AQIM described his captors as "fanatics". His description of the Algerian Abdelhamid Abou Zeïd's group was "Fanatics, who thought no one but them were real Muslims". He said the group was %70-%80 youths, with whom he could communicate with only a few broken English, because most didn't speak any French. He said they sat in the desert, baking, in "unhygienic" conditions, with the only water "absolutely disgusting". These men didn't kidnap him, but he was "sold" to them by a Malian criminal gang. I'm going to go out on a limb (again): it's Algeria's problem with terrorists (who seem to have a lot of cash, via Western government's ransoms) meeting impoverished, armed Malian smugglers. So just which one is dumping the problem of their failed politics on the other?

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This Algerian paper has an interesting piece on the current "AQIM problem" in the Sahel, if only as an elucidation of a Algerian nationalist perspective. The US and other are continually hammering on about the Sahel becoming the next Afghanistan or Somalia, but more as an attempt to justify the intrusion of AFRICOM and the "War on Terror" into Africa (so far, true in my view). The states in the region have "refused to blindly embark on the American global war", but many have internal weaknesses (smuggling, regionalism). True, but now it gets fishy. Mali, he says, had the 'excuse' of the Tuareg insurgency not to govern the north. Now Algeria has solved that problem for them, and yet they still "do nothing". Mali has "betrayed" Algeria, releasing the AQIM under the "interferences" of the west, hints that the Mali govt. has a finger in the hostage business. But Mali is "fated to return, sooner or later, the path of cooperation." No mention that the AQIM come from Algeria, of course.

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Pierre Camatte, seized by a gang near his home in Menaka and shopped to the AQIM in the desert, has returned to Bamako. Will he ever be able to go back to his longtime home? The Malians released four AQIM prisoners in exchange, we can assume under French pressure. What else each side got from France or other western nations we will likely never know. Algeria and Mauritania have withdrawn their ambassadors to Mali in protest. Mali has its problems, but in this case, it just seems everyone else's festering problems, which would cost them too much to fix at home, come to northern Mali out of convenience. The very least Algeria, Mauritania, and the west can do for Mali is is to make it harder for their proxy warriors to end up in Gao. But that's wishful thinking, I'm sure. No word on the other hostages.

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