Mali war disrupts al Qaeda's European dope business

AFP:

France’s surprise intervention in northern Mali against Islamist fighters involved in lucrative drug-running has disrupted cocaine supply to Europe but smugglers are already finding new routes, analysts said.

The former colonial power sent its jets and troops exactly two months ago to eliminate Al-Qaeda-linked groups that had been controlling northern Mali for nine months and were threatening to move south towards the capital.

The jihadist network in Mali’s north has funded itself by taking foreign hostages but also by levying a tax on smugglers running drugs from Latin America to feed Europe’s ever-growing market.

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Typically, the drugs are shipped to the Gulf of Guinea or flown in directly from Venezuela, for example, into Mauritania or Mali, where they are stored and eventually taken overland to the Mediterranean’s southern shores.

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Planes from Venezuela bring the dope into West Africa and it is transported through North Africa by al Qaeda operatives.  They are the main smugglers.   France deserves credit for disrupting this operation.  The enemy's loss of the money is a damaging as the loss of territory in Mali.