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An Unholy Alliance
posted on June 6, 2012Three months after a coup toppled the country’s democratically elected government, Mali may be on the verge of peace, but a peace at a high cost. The Economist reports that in the country’s north, a secular coalition of Toureg rebels has joined with a local Islamic fundamentalist group, known as “Ansar Eddine,” to govern the newly formed Republic of Azawad. Yet, according to The Economist, Malians “still have reason to be scared. Ansar Eddine has become almost indistinguishable from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This is the closest to government that al-Qaeda, under any guise, has ever come.”