Mali military listless amid spirited militias

MOPTI, Mali -- Hundreds of young men are stuffed into makeshift training camps near this provincial capital, arising at 4 a.m. for physical exercises and simulated hand-to-hand combat in preparation for the day when they can free their north Mali homeland from the radical Islamists whose harsh rule has driven tens of thousands of frightened, desperate civilians to flee the country.

The eager recruits have almost no weapons, little military instruction, and not much more than the hard ground to sleep on. They are definitely not in the army. A trainer in a scavenged uniform yells out, "Present, arms!" but there are no arms to present.

Yet the young men -- and a few women -- in these haphazard citizen militias, poised at the edge of the de facto front line with the Islamists, have something the regular Malian army here appears to lack: a fierce will to undo the jihadist conquest of northern Mali that has alarmed governments across the world, spurred threats of a regional intervention force and imposed a repressive regimen of public beatings, whippings and even stonings on the local people.

Ever since the Malian army overthrew the president in March, ending decades of democratic rule, the country has lost control over its vast desert north. An array of fighters bent on enforcing a hard-edged brand of Islam -- including members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb -- have seized the once tourist-friendly town of Timbuktu and other strategic sites, terrorizing or driving out any other claimants to power, destroying historic shrines and freely meting out punishment in the streets.

The Malian army has been in seeming disarray, preoccupied with suppressing revolt within its own ranks and dissent within the citizenry in the south of the country. Soldiers who oppose the military junta have been tortured, journalists have been abducted and the military command seems more focused on punishing its rivals around the nation's capital than on challenging the powerful Islamists up north.

Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/mali-military-listless-amid-spirited-militias-647808/

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