Al Qaeda alliance

Several days later, the rebels released Spanish aid worker Alicia Gamez, but two of her colleagues and an Italian couple are still being held hostage. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega has denied press reports that Spain paid a ransom for Gamez and said her release was a tribute to the work of Spain's diplomats and intelligence services.

In a statement, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said the two remaining Spanish hostages would be released once its "legitimate demands" had been met. The statement did not spell out the demands, but Spanish press reports said they involved a ransom of $5 million (€3.7 million) and the release of an unspecified number of jihadists held in Mauritanian prisons. Mauritanian Prime Minister Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdhaf has ruled out negotiations or a release of Islamists held by his country.

While most hostages taken by AQIM have been released since the group was formed in 2003, concern for the safety of the two Spaniards and the Italians, 65-year old Sergio Cicala, 65 and his 39-year old wife Philomene Kaboure, kidnapped in Mauretania on December 18, is fueled by the killing last year of a British hostage.

The rebels released a picture in late February showing Cicala with a beard kneeling in front of a group of armed and masked men. "My liberty and my wife's depend on the concessions that the government is ready to make," Cicala said in Italian in an audio message accompanying the picture.

Room to maneuver

Privately, Mauritanian officials say that while they will not give in to AQIM's demands through an exchange of prisoners, there may be room to maneuver. Mauritanian President Ould Abdelaziz initiated in January a dialogue with leaders of the 60 AQIM operatives imprisoned in the country's high security Lahsar prison. The dialogue is being conducted by eight Muslim religious leaders who are seeking repentance from the prisoners, which would allow the president to pardon them.

The AQIM inmates are represented by Kadim Ould Saman, a 31-year-old charged with attempting to kidnap the German consul in Nouakchott, attacking the Israeli Embassy and targeting tourists and Mauritanian soldiers, who wore a shirt to the first meeting that he had made himself and that bore AQIM's initials in Arabic. The talks have so far made little progress, but Mauritanian officials have not written them off. "It's tough but I believe that ultimately these talks will succeed," one official said.

In his first meeting with the imams, Saman described the shirt he was wearing as "my only symbol and flag," according to the officials. Several days after the meeting, Saman issued a statement saying he would only agree to further meetings if the imams were willing to address his agenda.

"We have three questions that they (the imams) refuse to answer. If the government does not impose (Islamic) Shari ‘a law, is it a Muslim government or not? Is jihad an obligation for Muslims? How can we live as Muslims if our government is not Islamic? This dialogue is a façade, a theater created by the government, religious leaders and the secret services," the statement said.

In subsequent meetings, Saman rejected the imams' demand that he respect the Mauritanian flag, government and president, who hails from the same tribe as Saman does. "My government is an Islamic government and my cousins are my Islamist brothers," Saman is reported to have retorted.

Diplomatic rift

The release of Camatte and Gamez has sparked a diplomatic row with Algeria and Mauretania withdrawing their ambassadors from Mali. It has also highlighted fissures in the alliance the United States and Europe are trying to forge between North African and Sahel countries threatened by AQIM, and put the spotlight on Mali, a vibrant democracy with a market economy, whose vast desert in the north is emerging as a key AQIM operations base in the region. At the core of the diplomatic row is Mali's apparent willingness to engage with the jihadist militants.

Like in Yemen, al Qaeda's affiliate in Mali is gaining popularity among tribes by distributing antibiotics to sick children, buying goats for twice the going rate and ensuring that its operatives become part of the local tribal community through marriage to local women. And similar to past experiences in Algeria and Yemen, officials of the Mali government at times protect AQIM, and invariably play a key role in negotiating the release of foreigners kidnapped by the militants.

In a statement, the Algerian foreign ministry described the release of the four militants, including two Algerians whose extradition it had requested as an "unfriendly" act, which constituted "a dangerous development for security and stability" in the region.

Mauritania said the release was "a flagrant contradiction of judicial cooperation accords and security coordination agreements." Mali has denied the militants were released to free hostages, saying a court had ordered their release because they had served their prison terms.

The diplomatic row exploded just as the United States was preparing to deliver millions of dollars worth of military hardware to the Malian military to bolster it in its fight against AQIM. US ambassador to Mali Gillian Milovanovic said the delivery was designed to ensure the military was capable of securing Mali's borders.

President Toure has pledged a "total war" against the Islamists, but has not matched his words with deeds in recent months. Five Niger soldiers were killed earlier this month in an ambush by rebels on the border between Niger and Mali.

"Mali is very much at risk of losing its image of neutrality. Years of hard work and good governance could go up in smoke unless the current regime implements a true, cohesive counterterrorism policy," Olivier Guitta, a security analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told Deutsche Welle.

Numerous westerners kidnapped for ransom in Niger and Mauretania have been transported to Mali's inhospitable north populated in part by Arab tribes and held there until their release. The area is also home to Tuareg rebels demanding greater cultural and economic rights, who cooperate with AQIM in the kidnappings and helping the Revolutionary Army of Colombia (FARC) smuggle Latin American drugs via West Africa to Europe.

A unifed front?

The discrepancies over counterterrorism strategy in western and northern Africa are emerging as the region appears to be turning on the presence of foreign troops on its territory. France is closing its military bases in Senegal and withdrawing its 1,200 troops based in the capital Dakar.

At the same time, Chad has asked the United Nations Security Council not to extend the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in the east of the country established to secure humanitarian aid to some 500,000 refugees from Darfur and the Central African Republic. And none of the counties in the Sahel have been willing to host the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM).

In a bid to find common ground, seven Sahel countries, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania and Niger met for the first time recently at the invitation of Algeria to hammer out agreement on joint strategy to counter AQIM, whose leadership is believed to be based in southern Algeria.

The difficulty in achieving agreement was however highlighted by the conspicuous absence at the conference of Algerian arch rival Morocco, which expressed regret at having been excluded. US and European diplomats said the conference indicated that Algeria, the country in the region with the most experience in fighting Islamist rebels, intends to play a key role in regional counterterrorism.

"The biggest challenge for regional counterterrorism strategies appears to be the lack of coordination between governments. Whatever strategy they adopt, it would be more effective if they adopted it together," Alex Thurston, a PhD student in religion at Northwestern University and author of The Sahel Blog, told Deutsche Welle.

Author: James M. Dorsey
Editor: Rob Mudge