From Asia Times Online
...........''Mali is crucial to AFRICOM and to the Pentagon's
overall MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa)
outlook. Months before 9/11 I had the privilege to
crisscross Mali on the road - and by the (Niger)
river - and hang out, especially in Mopti and
Timbuktu, with the awesome Tuaregs, who gave me a
crash course in Northwest Africa. I saw Wahhabi
and Pakistani preachers all over the place. I saw
the Tuaregs progressively squeezed out. I saw an
Afghanistan in the making. And it was not very
hard to follow the money sipping tea in the
Sahara. Mali borders Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina
Faso, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Guinea. The
spectacular Inner Niger delta is in central Mali -
just south of the Sahara. Mali overflows with
gold, uranium, bauxite, iron, manganese, tin and
copper. And - Pipelineistan beckons! - there's
plenty of unexplored oil in northern Mali.''
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