Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

Syria Rebels' Al Nusra Links Excused, As Mali MNLA Judged, Targeted by UN

UNITED NATIONS, April 26 -- Where is Mali headed? On April 25 after the adoption of the French drafted resolution on Mali in the UN Security Council, Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Gerard Araud what will happen with Kidal and the MNLA, a Tuareg group.

  Araud replied that there can be only one Malian Army. Inner City Press asked Mali's foreign minister Coulibaly if the UN force would disarm the MNLA, and he said: ask the UN.

  (French UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told Inner City Press, when asked “who will disarm the MNLA, “I do not respond to you, Mister.” Video here.)

But it occurs -- the MNLA are being judged for having made the mistake of being aligned or mixed with Islamists. Now, it's said, they have lost legitimacy, and it fair for the UN to (be used by France and Bamako) disarm them.

  But how does this compare to the opposition in Syria, which without question became intertwined with the Islamists of the Al Nusra Front, which has acknowledged allegiance with Al Qaeda?

  In Syria, France and others make excuses for the Syrian opposition; the EU even removes sanctions so that oil can be sold from rebel held areas. (Russia says the money will go to Al Nusra, and no one has described any safeguards that this will not be the case.)

  Why excuse the Syrian opposition's intertwining with Islamists, but not the MNLA's? Why indeed. Watch this site.