SUMMARY
Ansar Dine (also Ansar al-Dine) was a mainly Tuareg Islamist rebel group that emerged in northern Mali in late 2011. Two parallel processes led up to its formation, one tied to the recent history of the Tuareg population in the region, and one to the spread of militant Islamism to northern Mali.
The Tuareg people are nomadic pastoralists, scattered across the Saharan parts of Mali, Niger, and Algeria. In Mali, the Tuaregs comprise less than ten percent of the total population, but make up the bulk of the population in the sparsely populated northern regions of the country, called Azawad by the group. Traditionally, the north in general, and the Tuaregs in particular, have been both economically and politically neglected. This neglect has been compounded by severe drought and a brutal, southern, military presence.
In the 1970s, large numbers of young Tuaregs migrated to Libya due to severe droughts. Many received military training, as Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi incorporated some into his regular military forces and others into a Libyan-sponsored ‘Islamic Legion’. The latter was subsequently dispatched to Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan, where numerous Tuaregs acquired considerable combat experience. When, in the late 1980s, economic conditions deteriorated, it was only those Tuaregs who had been able to obtain Libyan citizenship that were able to stay. Those returning subsequently launched a separatist rebellion in Mali (see [Mali: Azawad (/#/conflict/372)). With the signing of the 1992 National Pact some more hardline fighters, disillusioned with the turn of events in Mali, returned to Libya and became senior officers in the Libyan army. As the Arab Spring swept across North Africa in early 2011 and the Gadaffi regime began to crumble, well-armed and battle-hardened Tuaregs returned to Mali, and entered an already volatile situation. Northern Mali, on the eve of the 2012 Tuareg rebellion, was characterized by a lack of economic development, limited presence of administrative structures and a general resentment with the central government; many of the same grievances that had bred earlier Tuareg uprisings. The president at the time, Amadou Toumani Touré ruled the north through a network of alliances with rival and opportunist elites. In this context, many of the returning fighters chose not to disarm. Instead a bulk of them formed the separatist rebel group CMA (originally MNLA), with the ultimate aim of creating a separate state in northern Mali. It was at this point that Ansar Dine entered the fray.
While Ansar Dine resembled CMA in terms of ethnic composition, the group’s outlook and goals were far from its counterparts. The founder, Iyad Ag Ghali, had been a leading person in the Tuareg uprisings of the 1990s, which had aims similar to those of CMA. Since then, he had converted to strict Islam, however, and developed close ties to the Algerian, turn transnational, Islamist group AQIM, which had been active in northern Mali since at least 2007. When the Tuareg fighters returned from Libya and MNLA was formed, Ag Ghali attempted to gain a leading role. However, he was rebuffed precisely because of his links to AQIM. Other problem areas were past conflicts with parts of the Tuareg community and diverging ideas of what the ultimate aim of the new group should be, with Ag Ghali opposing the idea of a separate state, instead arguing for the imposition of sharia throughout Mali. Having failed to gain a leading role in MNLA, Ag Ghali set about forming Ansar Dine in December 2011. In doing so, he built the group around veteran rebels from the same tribe, and in many cases the same sub-clan. In early 2012, his ranks were swollen by some 40 AQIM fighters, brought by his cousin, an AQIM commander.
Ansar Dine’s relationships with other armed actors in northern Mali have shifted during the tumultuous years since its inception. At the outset, the group cooperated militarily with CMA. While solely tactical, the cooperation was successful in that the two groups succeeded in driving the Malian armed forces from northern Mali by April 2012. However, Ansar Dine was simultaneously communicating with two fellow Islamist groups in the region, AQIM and MUJAO and gradually shifted its allegiances to them. During April and May 2012 it became clear that the Islamists had created a joint alliance against MNLA and the latter was pushed out of all main towns. Despite some overtures from the group, where negotiations have been initiated with MNLA so as to bridge the divide between the two Tuareg organizations, Ansar Dine has remained in the Islamist camp. Initially the three Islamist groups together controlled the vast north of the country, but with the French invasion in early 2013, Ansar Dine had to withdraw to bases in the countryside, from which it carries out attacks on both the UN forces deployed in Mali and the army.
On 2 March 2017, Ansar Dine merged with AQIM's Sahara wing and FLM, creating JNIM.
Ansar Dine has been involved in the state-based and non-state categories of UCDP organized violence.
