However, one of their main partners in this strategy, the Tuareg-led Islamist group Ansar Dine, which they hoped to talk into leaving the coalition with terrorist groups AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) and MUJAO (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) it had entered into, has betrayed them by taking part in the offensive against the Malian government.
BBC: Siege awakens ghosts of Algeria's 'dirty war'