The fall of Kidal, the last major town in the north of Mali that was in the hands of Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters, is being celebrated as a victory. It is almost certainly not. The plan now is for the Malian army, backed with forces from the African Union, to consolidate its hold on all the towns that have been reoccupied in the brief campaign spearheaded by French troops. Indeed Paris is talking of its soldiers returning home, sooner rather than later. This is probably wishful thinking because even the French admit that now comes the hard part, tracking down and confronting the insurgents in the vast tracts of desert and mountains to which they have retreated. Indeed it could be argued that the French campaign has been a failure in military terms because there seems to have been little effort to cut off the insurgents' retreat, thus allowing them to live to fight another day. It ought to have been clear from the outset that however well-armed the militants may be, especially with weapons plundered from the arsenals of the late Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, they were not going to stay and fight it out toe-to-toe with better-equipped and trained French forces. Their retreat to their desert hideouts was inevitable and will very probably have been long-planned. From now on the initiative will largely rest with them. They can choose the moment to mount terror attacks or ambush forces sent out to look for them. Those Malian towns that have been celebrating their liberation by government forces will surely soon be experiencing the horror of suicide bombers and car bombs and hit-and-run attacks on outlying farms and security posts. There is a strong similarity between the October 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and what is now happening in Mali. Like the Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, the Taliban were no match on the battlefield for the might of US technology. So they abandoned the towns and took to the mountains, from where, every year, their campaign against the Karzai government in the cities and NATO forces and the Afghan police and army has become ever more successful. The mistakes of Afghanistan must not be repeated in Mali. For a start the Malian government in Bamako should not be deluded into believing that there can be a purely military solution to the insurgency. The rebel Tuaregs, who initiated the uprising in the first place, have to be persuaded to the negotiating table and their demands for greater autonomy be considered carefully in order to reach a lasting deal. Nor should the northern clans who have rallied to the poisonous banner of Al-Qaeda be left out of the negotiations as were the Taliban in 2002 when the international community was helping Afghans plan a new future for their country. Everyone involved in this confrontation must be invited to peace negotiations. There will of course be no guarantee that the Al-Qaeda-linked clans will come, let alone negotiate their grievances. However, only talks, not bloodshed, will produce a lasting settlement.The door to peace talks must never be closed. Meanwhile, the international community must not only pledge significant development aid to Mali and all its people, but must also actually deliver on those promises. It was the colossal failure of many countries to honor their generous development commitments to Afghanistan that so undermined efforts to bring about a fundamental transformation in that country.
