The ASG is happy to announce its next session on Tuesday, January 23rd in the Richmond Room of Ottawa City Hall, 110 Laurier West (on the second floor) from 5:30PM to 7:30PM. The presentation will be in English and French.
The increasing strength of jihadist groups in the years after 2000, the Tuareg rebellion begun in Mali in 2012 and the growing tensions between and within communities in recent years are key factors behind the growing importance of the security situation in the Sahel-Sahara region to the international political agenda. With this starting point, the presentation will try to describe the dynamic relationships between the different armed groups in the most recent Malian conflict, in order to explain the challenges they pose for the stabilization of the region. It will endeavour to put in perspective the objectives, strategies, relative strengths and self-images of the different groups present, in particular within the broader Tuareg community, in order to suggest possible future directions for Mali and for the broader region.
Adib Bencherif is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Ottawa. His dissertation focuses on a comparative study between the representations and memories of the Tuareg elites in Mali and Niger. He is a Research Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Africa and Middle East (CIRAM) of Laval University and the Centre Francopaix, Raoul-Dandurand Chair of UQAM. He is also consultant and teacher in political risk analysis (specifically on methodology and Sahel-Saharan security issues). You can follow him at his department profile and on Twitter (@AB_analyst). Mr. Bencherif recently spent 8 months in the Sahel with different Tuareg groups in the context of his researches, as well as two months in France and Algeria to consult security experts and other Tuaregs.
