A group of militiamen in northern Mali announced Sept. 24 that they plan to break away from the country's main non-Islamist rebel movement, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, to form their own organization in order to focus on protecting their home territory. The group, which has dubbed itself the Front for the Liberation of the Azawad, takes its moniker and much of its leadership from an earlier incarnation of a militant group with the same name. The fractious ethnic landscape in northern Mali has kept any militant alliances from staying together for any significant period of time. Along with erstwhile Islamist allies Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, the secular National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad began the rebellion in late 2011 by calling for secession or autonomy for northern Mali's Azawad region. However, as the rebellion proceeded, a rift formed between the secular groups and Islamist factions. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad has found itself on the defensive against the Islamists and has dropped its calls for independence in order to make itself eligible as a potential partner to the Malian government or to international actors. The new Front for the Liberation of the Azawad is only the latest splintering of the rebel movement. Its break from the larger alliance is likely a result of the latter's displacement from Gao and Timbuktu and its general ineffectiveness in the face of aggression from Islamist militants. The ongoing separatist rebellion was sparked by the influx of Tuareg militiamen leaving Libya after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, which indirectly led to a military coup in Bamako in March. Since the formation of a new national unity government in August, other countries in the region and Western powers have considered providing military assistance to re-establish government control and prevent the area from falling into the hands of Islamist militants tied to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. If the Front for the Liberation of the Azawad proves successful in defending its ethnic base around Gao, it could play a useful (if limited) role in restoring order to part of the country.
