The hidden war in Africa

Via the (UK) Economist: "Policing the ungoverned spaces - The Americans are intensifying their hunt for al-Qaeda in the Sahara and beyond"

Mr Ag Metky's mission is a tiny part of what the Americans call the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership. Under this initiative small teams of American special forces train the local soldiers of Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, and work with the armies of Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, to control what they call the “undergoverned” spaces of the Sahara: vast swathes of desert where people have been in various states of rebellion for years and which more recently have been visited by radical Islamist clerics and new terrorist groups.

The battle may have more to do with oil security (Angola, Nigeria) than preventing the next Darfur.