The government of Libya has released two men convicted in 2007 of planning to overthrow the government and meeting with a foreign official, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced March 10. Jamal al-Haji and Faraj Humaid were arrested as part of a larger group in Tripoli in February 2007, in advance of a planned demonstration in the city's Martyrs Square commemorating the deaths of 11 people during a 2006 clash between protesters and police. The nine other men arrested as part of the so-called Boufayed Group were released by the end of 2008—including supposed ringleader Idris Boufayed, who suffers from lung cancer. HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson called the men's release "a particularly welcome step in light of the Libyan authorities' stated initiative of breaking with the past."

President Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali vowed a harsh crackdown on the Tuareg guerillas Jan. 20. "All the means, I repeat, all the operational means will be mobilized because we cannot put a price on the securing our country," said Toure, in a speech broadcast to mark the army's 48th anniversary celebrations. Two days later, the Malian government said its forces had routed Tuareg rebels from a base in the north of the country. "Following an offensive by the Malian army, the base of Ibrahim Ag Bahanga located in Boureissa was destroyed. The toll on the side of the armed groups [Tuaregs] was 31 dead... [O]n the side of the national army, no losses," the statement said.

In his unlikely New York Times op-ed of Jan. 22, "The One-State Solution," plugging his utopian scheme for a single country uniting Israel and Palestine as "Isratine," Muammar Qaddafi (this appears to be the Colonel's preferred spelling), the one-time bad boy of intransigent Arab nationalism, actually mimics Zionist revisionism on the 1948 Nakba. To wit:

In one of its first statements since President Barack Obama took office, the US State Department Jan. 23 called for "the immediate return to constitutional order" in Mauritania, and protested "[t]he junta's announced plans to organize unconstitutional elections" and "its attempts to silence" ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and his supporters. "We call on the military junta to permit President Abdallahi's full participation in the political process, to assure his freedom of movement and association, and to assure his personal safety," the statement said. (State Department press release, Jan. 23)

Tuareg guerillas killed at least at least nine soldiers in an attack on an army post in Mali's remote north Dec. 22. The government claimed 11 rebel fighters were also killed when when gunmen in more than 20 four-wheel-drive vehicles raided the post at Nampala. The attack came despite a five-month-old Algerian-mediated ceasefire between the government and the rebels. Early reports put government casualties at 14.

A Niger guerilla faction led by dissident Tuareg insurgent leader Rhissa Ag Boula announced Dec. 16 it had abducted Canadian UN special envoy Robert Fowler, who disappeared with an aide while driving some 30 miles northeast of the capital Niamey. The vehicle was found abandoned. In a posting on its website, Ag Boula's Front of Forces for Rectification (FFR), which split from the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) in May, said it was holding four people, including Fowler.

A Moroccan criminal court Nov. 13 convicted Moroccan citizen Said Boujandia of crimes related to terrorist acts. The Salé Criminal Court sentenced Boujandia to 10 years in prison. Boujandia admitted his association with with an organization which sought to aid the Afgahn Taliban, but denied committing any crime. Boujandia was held in US custody in Guantánamo Bay from 2001 until May 2008.

Around 30 MPs opposed to Mauritania's ruling junta boycotted the opening of the country's parliament Nov. 10. The boycott followed a statement from the head of the five-party Front for the Defense of Democracy (FNDD), Mohamed Ould Moloud, who called the session "pointless and without an aim" in "the absence of a legal government and legitimate president." Police deployed in front of the parliament building in Nouakchott, and carried out checks on the surrounding streets. (AFP, Nov. 10)