Mali Divided by Separatist Fighting (February 2012)

Country Name: Mali (English, French, Bambara)
Official Name: Republic of Mali (English), République du Mali (French)
News Category: Divided Countries
Summary: Several towns in the African country of Mali have fallen out of government control this month, taken over by a separatist group known as the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). The rebels are led by members of the Tuareg ethnic group, traditionally nomadic inhabitants of the Sahara Desert, who dwell in Mali's northern regions and have a long history of conflict with the national government.

Towns captured by the MNLA rebel group in Mali. Modified from Wikimedia map by Orionist, incorporating images by Carport and NordNordWest (source). License: CC BY-SA.

(Note: For updates to this map, follow the Mali label on Political Geography Now.)

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One of the many African states formed based on arbitrary borders from the European colonial era, Mali is divided into two visibly distinct regions which are both geographically and ethnically distinct. The southern area, which hosts the majority of the population, has a tropical climate and is dominated by the Bambara and other West African peoples, while the northern region is located in the Sahara Desert, historically the domain of the Tuareg nomads. Over the last century, there have been at least four separate rebellions led by Tuareg people, many of whom feel their homeland should never have been included in Mali in the first place. Now, the recently formed National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) has begun one more uprising against Mali, with better chances of success than ever before.

Proposed flag of Azawad (image by Orionist; source)

Country Profile: Mali (Wikipedia)

The war began on January 16th of this year, when MNLA forces launched an attack on the town of Ménaka, the next day taking control of that location as well as the towns of Aguelhok and Tessalit, both of which lie in the area bordering the rebels' bases in the mountains of the Kidal region. On January 18th, the Malian army apparently recaptured all three towns, but the MNLA was not deterred. After another unsuccessful takeover of Aguelhok on January 24th, the revolutionaries finally captured and held onto the towns of Andéramboukane and Léré on the 26th, penetrating unusually far into the south of the country. On February 1st, rebels again captured Ménaka after government forces withdrew from the town, and one week later the MNLA secured the border town of Tinzaouaten, driving their opponents from the Malian military across the border into Algeria. The city of Kidal also saw fighting in February, and the conflict continued throughout the month, though no further territorial gains by the MNLA have been reported in the last three weeks.

Running Summary of News on the Uprising:  "2012 insurgency in the Azawad" (Wikipedia)

Positions of Mali (dark green) and Libya (light green) in
Africa. Modified from this Wikimedia map (public domain).

The MNLA, although composed largely of Tuareg people, has also made a major effort to include Arabs, Songhai, and other peoples of "Azawad" (Northern Mali), where it hopes to establish an independent country. However, not all northerners support the revolt; Tuareg, Arabs, and members of other groups are fighting on both sides of the conflict. The MNLA is much better armed than previous revolutionary groups, partly because many exiled Tuareg rebel leaders have recently returned to Mali from nearby Libya - many of these veteran revolutionaries were employed and armed by the Libyan government, and eventually ended up fighting on both sides of that country's 2011 civil war (a part of the Arab Spring revolutions). However, this new uprising also has the advantage of being the best organized yet, and of commanding a vastly more effective public relations network than ever before. The Malian government has also accused the rebels of being in league with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a local affiliate of the worldwide terrorist organization; however, evidence for this is scant, and many from the MNLA in fact consider AQIM to be among their greatest enemies.

Further Reading: "The Causes of the Uprising in Northern Mali" - Think Africa Press (excellent in-depth background and analysis by a Northern Mali expert)

Sources
2012-1-26. "Tuareg rebels attack fifth town in Mali". Al Jazeera.
2012-1-31. "Tuareg rebels take Mali town after army pullout". AFP.
2012-2-2. Stewart, Scott. "Mali Besieged by Fighters Fleeing Libya". Stratfor Global Intelligence.
2012-2-6. Morgan, Andy. "The Causes of the Uprising in Northern Mali". Think Africa Press.
2012-2-9. Diallo, Tiemoko & Adama Diarra. "Malian rebels seize key border town, civilians flee". Reuters.

Syrian Uprising Rebel Control Map: February 2012

There are newer versions of this map available. To see them, view all Syria updates.

Country Name: Syria (English), Sūriyya/Sūryā (Arabic)
Official Name: Syrian Arab Republic (English), al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah (Arabic)
News Category: Divided Countries
Full Story: See Syria Divided by Armed Conflict

Known areas of armed activity for the rebel "Free Syrian Army" - many rural areas may be under full rebel
control. Unarmed protests, which are much more widespread than armed rebel activity, are not shown here. Map
is my own work, starting from this blank map by German Wikipedia user NordNordWest. License: CC BY-SA

[Corrections: This map has been corrected to show FSA control of Rastan, a city which they have held since the beginning of February, and to show the return of Zabadani to government control, a turn of events which occurred in mid-February.]

(Note: For further updates to this map, follow the Syria label on Political Geography Now.)

Syria Conflict Update
Since this site first reported on the situation in Syria, the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) has continued to gain ground against the government of President Bashar Al-Assad. As February began, Assad's forces were wrapping up their campaign to reclaim the Damascus suburbs with a final victory in Douma; however, since then the uprising has continued to spread. In the north, FSA fighters solidified their control of Idlib city, and later took the nearby town of Saraqib. Meanwhile, as the government shelled disobedient neighborhoods in the central city of Homs, the rebels achieved a major victory in neighboring Qusayr, yesterday securing full control of the town. In the south, parts of the city of Daraa have also reportedly fallen to the FSA.

Two other changes to this map are corrections reflecting what was already the situation at the beginning of the month: (1) parts of the central city of Hama have reportedly been under FSA control since January, while (2) the rebels have reportedly been active in the eastern region of Deir ez-Zor since at least the end of last year. You can see the corrected version of the first map, along with the original report and background information, at the Syria Divided by Armed Conflict article.

Useful Link: Wikipedia - Timeline of the 2011-2012 Syrian Uprising

Syria Divided by Armed Conflict (Feb. 2012)

There are newer versions of this map available. To see them, view all Syria updates.

Country Name: Syria (English), Sūriyya/Sūryā (Arabic)
Official Name: Syrian Arab Republic (English), al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah (Arabic)
News Category: Divided Countries, Intergovernmental Organizations
Summary: Ten months in Syria's popular uprising, parts of the country have fallen out of government hands and into the control of the "Free Syrian Army," a group made up mostly of defectors from the national military. Meanwhile, Syria has been been suspended from the Arab League due its government's failure to stop using violence against unarmed protesters.

Known areas of armed activity for the rebel "Free Syrian Army" - many rural areas may be under full rebel
control. Unarmed protests, much more widespread than armed rebel activity, are not shown here. Map is my
own work, starting from this blank map by German Wikipedia user NordNordWest. License: CC BY-SA (Corrected
Feb. 26, 2012 for partial Hama control and eastern region activity; again on Mar. 9, 2012 for Rastan control.)

Full Story
The "Arab Spring" has brought incredible upheaval to the the Middle East and North Africa - first the Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships fell to peaceful protesters; then Libya became embroiled in a civil war, while Yemen too began to fragment under opposing forces. Now, Syria has become the third country in the region to be divided between warring armies, as the 10-month-old uprising has given way to formidable armed resistance from a growing network of military defectors calling themselves the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA).

Wikipedia: Arab Spring

Even before the armed resistance began in earnest last September, the Syrian government and its president, Bashar al-Assad, were making headlines with their brutal crackdowns on peaceful protesters, along with tank-led sieges of disobedient cities. After six months of government violence, the FSA rebels burst onto the stage with a successful, if temporary, takeover of the anti-government city of Rastan (See News Bits: October 2011). They were eventually driven out of Rastan, and moved their headquarters across the border into Turkey, using the next three months to slowly consolidate control over the northwestern province of Idlib, while also gaining ground in the city of Homs and the provinces of Hama and Daraa. [Update: The FSA took control a of Rastan a second time just as this post was being written.]

Map of the Arab Spring. Protests, and in some cases full scale revolutions, have reached across the entire Arab
World. Map is from this Wikipedia page (public domain; original graphic).

All the while, the rebels were hitting targets closer and closer to the capital city of Damascus, until finally in January they successfully seized the nearby city of Zabadani. Fighting around the capital escalated quickly, with the FSA spreading its control across most of the suburbs of Damascus by January 27. Over the next few days, Assad's government launched a largely successful offensive to take back the areas surrounding the capital, though the rebels still claim control of Douma, Damascus's most populous suburb. The cities of Homs and Idlib are also reported to be largely under FSA control, along with much of rural Idlib province. And the territorial division in Syria may be even more extensive than we know - journalists have been forbidden to enter the country, making it difficult to follow developments on the ground.

Wikipedia: 2011–2012 Syrian uprising

The Arab League, with Syria in lighter green at top right.
Map by Danalm000, from Wikimedia (license: CC BY-SA)

Arab League Involvement
The League of Arab States (better known as the Arab League), an international organization of which Syria is a founding member, has taken a close interest in the events unfolding within the country. In November, the body voted to suspend Syria's membership unless President Assad brought an end to the violence against civilian protesters. Assad failed to follow through with any concrete action, and the country was suspended from the League. In January, the organization sent a delegation of observers into Syria to examine the situation; they were allowed inside the country, but eventually were forced to leave due to escalating violence between government forces and the FSA. As the region's main representative body, the Arab League will likely be a major player in any future decisions by the international community to intervene in Syria's civil war.

Wikipedia: League of Arab States

Hungary Shortens Official Name

Country Name: Hungary (English), Magyarország (Hungarian)
News Category: Name Changes
Summary: Hungary's full official name changed from "Republic of Hungary" to just "Hungary" when a new constitution came into effect in the Central European country at the beginning of this year.

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Map of Hungary from the CIA World Factbook (public domain)

A member of the Soviet-influenced Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, Hungary was one of the many European countries that underwent major reforms after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Its name was changed from "People's Republic of Hungary" to "Republic of Hungary", and the old communist constitution was heavily amended to welcome in democracy.

WTO Admits New Members

Organization: World Trade Organization
Countries in Question: Vanuatu, Russia, Montenegro, Samoa
News Categories: Intergovernmental Organizations
Summary: The World Trade Organization, the intergovernmental organization supervising international trade between the majority of the world's countries, admitted one new member last October, and three more last week. Especially notable was the admission last Friday of Russia, which was by far the largest economy not to have joined previously.

Full Story
While some intergovernmental organizations, such as the U.N. or regional unions, were created for general purposes of cooperation between states, others serve more specific purposes. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of these, acting as a venue for countries to agree on rules for international trade. Among its members, economic agreements are subject to rules aimed at liberalizing international trade, and trade-related disputes are also arbitrated through the organization. Formed in 1995 as a replacement for weaker trade treaties of the past, by 2008 the WTO represented approximately 80% of the world's independent countries.

World Trade Organization members in green. Countries joining this year in brighter green, with small countries circled. Modified from this Wikimedia map (license: CC BY-SA).

This October, the WTO grew for the first time in three years, with the acceptance of the Pacific island country of Vanuatu's as a member. Just last week, three more countries joined: Russia, Montenegro, and Samoa. Samoa is another small Pacific island country, and Montenegro was only formed a few years ago from the final breakup of former Yugoslavia. Russia, however, has gained much attention for being the last of the world's major economic powers to join the organization. Although it first applied for admission to the group 18 years ago, before the modern WTO was even formed, until recently Russia was slow to proceed with membership negotiations. For the last few years, it was blocked from entry by Georgia, a WTO member protesting its invasion by Russia during the 2008 war between the two countries, but that hurdle was finally crossed after a Swiss-brokered agreement between Russia and Georgia earlier this year. Although the four new countries have been accepted by the organization, their governments will still have to ratify the agreements in order for them to become full participating members.