U.S. Policy Toward Mali
Military, Humanitarian, and Foreign Assistance Issues
For the past year, Mali has been mired in overlapping security, political, and humanitarian crises. After Mali’s government was overthrown in a military coup in March 2012, insurgents, capitalizing on the ensuing power vacuum, seized much of the country’s vast and sparsely populated northern territory. As of early January 2013, three loosely connected Islamist extremist groups — including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization — reportedly controlled all major towns in the north, an area roughly the size of Texas. While the number of Islamist insurgent combatants appears to be small, they have become increasingly…
