BAMAKO: Islamist groups are using their hold over key urban areas of Mali to recruit, arm and train growing numbers of fighters and could pose a threat to Europe within two years, government and security sources believe.

The Al Qaeda-linked rebels have pushed out secular Tuareg separatists, leaving them in exclusive control of the north.

“If Islamists continue to control vast areas of Mali where they can do what they like, then this will pose a direct threat to Europe,” a senior western diplomat in the capital, Bamako, said.

“You cannot forget how close this region is to Europe. They are currently recruiting people in northern Mali, offering them money, training and weapons. If this continues, it is a matter of time before it affects Europe directly,” she added. Northern Mali has been under insurgent control since the government was toppled in a military coup in March. Tuareg rebels — who are demanding an independent state of “Azawad” in the Sahara — initially joined forces with groups backed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) including Ansar Dine, Mujao and Nigerian terrorist organisation Boko Haram.

But the alliance broke down recently with fighting breaking out between different factions. On Thursday, Islamists consolidated their control of the region, driving Tuareg rebels from their last stronghold in the town of Ansogo, leaving the entire northern section of Mali, including Gao — the main base of the Malian army — in Islamist hands.

Islamists have surrounded Gao with landmines, making it almost impossible to enter. But I have obtained film footage depicting foreign Islamists patrolling Gao, dragging the dead bodies of senior Tuareg insurgents through the town behind pick-up trucks and conducting public whippings of three young people for “offences” under sharia law, including smoking and having sex outside marriage.

“Islamists supported by AQIM are now really getting complete control of the region, and huge access to weapons and arms coming from Libya,” said Valentina Soria, counter-terrorism and security analyst at thinktank the Royal United Services Institute.

“This can well develop into a more direct security threat for Europe — either by enabling AQIM to either plan and carry out attacks directly in Europe or the US, or to provide a safe haven for people connected to terrorist organisations to get some training and access to weapons,” she said.

“The Sahel is closer to Europe than Afghanistan or Pakistan and easier for people from Europe to get in and out, so it provides all sorts of advantages from a logistics point of view for people who want to link up with AQIM and likeminded groups,” she added.

Further details have emerged of the myriad of islamist groups operating in Mali. “Mujao” — a West African offshoot of AQIM — is increasingly controlling territory in the country, having ousted the MNLA and eclipsed other Islamist group Ansar Dine.

“Ansar Dine does not really exist,” said one Malian analyst who comes from Gao and is one of the few based outside the city to move in and out since its capture. “The leaders of Ansar Dine are a front for Al Qaeda, who took advantage of the MNLA rebellion.”

The footage I have seen also shows Malian natives of Gao co-operating with Mujao. “Yes there are Afghans, yes there are Algerians, but 70 per cent of the Islamists are Malians,” said the analyst. “And there are people who left Bamako who went to Gao to join the Islamists. This is a much more complicated situation than we in Mali like to admit.”

While some Malians are joining the Islamic insurgency, others are arming themselves to return the country to secular, civilian rule. In Bamako, several hundred young people aged 18 and over have joined the military wing of Action des Jeunes pour Sauver le Nord (AJSN), a voluntary army that claims it has weapons and will imminently deploy to the north.

“We are ready to die to save our country. We are warriors — it's in our history — and it is simply a question of patriotism that we are prepared to sacrifice ourselves personally to reclaim the north,” said Mohamadou Diouara, 26, founder of AJSN. The willingness of young Malians to fight also represents a growing hostility towards the deployment of foreign troops on Malian soil.

“Mali needs have logistical support and equipment from outside, but not outsiders coming into the country to fight,” said Diouara. “We are thinking of the impact an outside intervention would have on the future of the country? A young generation will have an inferiority complex that even when they were ready to put their lives on the line, foreigners had to come in and defend us.”

Regional bloc ECOWAS insists the deployment of an intervention force of between 3,000 and 5,000 west African troops in Mali is “imminent”. But a senior government source in Mali stated that the government was also against the presence of foreign troops on Malian soil.

Questions also remain as to how an international mission would be funded, while the authorities also admit that even in the case of a successful military deployment, they will not be able to completely drive AQIM out of the largely unpoliced, borderless and sparsely populated Sahara, where they control a lucrative trade in drugs, people and weapons trafficking to Europe.

“AQIM has been in that area since 2002, they will continue to operate in the area,” said Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS director for external relations. “Realistically the most important thing we can do is to make sure that they don't continue to control territory - driving them out altogether is not feasible.”

The increasing complexity of the security crisis in Mali comes as the country continues to operate without an effective government, creating what experts describe as a power vacuum.

The president, Dioncounda Traore, has been in Paris seeking medical treatment since he was attacked by a group of youths who broke into the presidential palace in May. Other key government figures, including the prime minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra, and the foreign minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga are abroad seeking consensus about how to transition the country back to civilian rule, after they were given a deadline of July 31 by ECOWAS.

Experts are critical of the pressure exerted on Mali's government by the international community, stating that regional bodies have failed to provide guidance yet also not been forthcoming with military assistance.

“What is frustrating is that apart from official statements denouncing what is happening on the ground from the EU and the US and other governments, nothing is actually being done,” said Soria.

By arrangement with the Guardian