The current war in Mali is the result of the coup of March 2012 and the offensive of the Tuareg and the Islamists in December 2012. In January 2013, a multinational force (operation Serval) intervened, a UN mandate to restore the sovereignty of the territories Saharan northern Mali.
The genesis of this conflict has really deep roots, and to understand their profile geo-political and ethno-cultural it is necessary to retrace the precipitating events that occurred many years ago.
With the independence of Mali in 1960, started the riots in the Saharan territories of the north, against the centralized control from Bamako, the Malian capital. Some Tuareg movements demanded the independence of Azawad.
In 1962, a revolt broke out between the Tuareg and the fighting began again in ’88, the year he was born the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad.
In ’90 until ’95, tensions rose to the result of the second Tuareg rebellion.
At the end of 2006 there was another revolt, the third, born in the region of Kidal.
Year 2009, hostilities ended thanks to the Algerian mediation between the central government and Tuareg rebels, but taking advantage of the end of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi after the Libyan civil war, in 2011, hostilities resumed. This was the fourth rebellion, which ensued the proclamation of the independence of Azawad.
Since fighting resumed in December 2012 are the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, supported by Islamists of Ansar Dine related to AL-Qaeda, against the armed forces of Mali. The rebels have begun to invade the south of Mali, capturing a central city, Konna, a place of serious clashes and destruction, as a result of bombing by the French, the entire commercial port of the city.
Following the resolution of 20 December 2012 the UN Security Council, France and the states of ECOWAS have decided to intervene to restore the sovereignty of Bamako.
On January 10, the French president Hollande kicked off the Operation Serval, an operation of military and logistical aid to the forces of the Malian government.
On January 14, the French army has decided to get into the action by land. The 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment of the French Foreign Legion is well deployed in Mali.
To date, the Malian conflict is still ongoing and remains a war, difficult to document because of the logistics of the clashes and therefore the geographical location, the clashes in fact, occur in sporadic random attacks on the vast Malian territory.
