Insight - Mending Mali poses political and ethnic puzzle

(Reuters) - When former colonial power France sent warplanes and troops to Mali on January 11 in a historic intervention, it did not just halt a menacing advance on the capital Bamako by Islamist rebels allied to al Qaeda.

It also snuffed out what diplomats and local politicians say was a political conspiracy in the capital to oust Mali's interim civilian rulers, an attempted replay of the March 2012 coup that had plunged the Sahel state into turmoil and made it a potential launch pad for attacks on Western interests.

The Bamako events, obscured by media focus on the military action, underline how 'winning the peace' in Mali will be as crucial as success on the Sahara battleground by the French-led and Western-backed war against the Islamist jihadists.

At the same time in January as columns of Islamist rebels were lunging south, backers of the 2012 putsch protested violently in Bamako, burning tyres, blocking key bridges over the Niger River and publicly demanding the resignation of transitional President Dioncounda Traore and his prime minister.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/uk-mali-reconstruction-insight-idUKBRE9250SQ20130306