Tag Archive for algeria

On Western analysts and the Mali Conflict, April 2012

An excerpt from a letter written in 2012. “Two histories are now being written, each a litany of crimes and humiliations suffered, neither accepted as even having occurred by the other. …if privileged western analysts — however innocently — repeat propaganda of one side as ‘the background’ to this conflict, they help determine the outcome.”

Death and Career in the “Dark” Sahara: The Sad Fate of Jeremy Keenan

Lonely at the top

People who don’t know much about northern Mali would be very poorly served by reading Keenan’s increasingly odd writing. Keenan used to be a scholar of some note. But his increasingly unhinged supposition that their hidden hands are behind all that is bad in the west-central Saharan region is simply unsupportable. Why it remains unchallenged is the mystery.

Niger: Another kidnap in the north

The French press is reporting that a French tourist and an Algerian guide were kidnapped by armed men today in northern Niger, near the well at In-Abangaret. Also spelled Inabangaret, it’s a stopping place on the Azzouagh plain’s Tahoua/Assamakka/Tama…