@epaulnetPaul Erickson
Telegraph.co.uk: #Libya conflict thrusts #Niger into unwelcome spotlighttelegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews… #Africa Look away! Nothing to see here...
On street KK49 of Africa's most impoverished capital, one of Libya's most wanted stands in a blue pin-striped shirt surrounded by a clutch of state security guards provided by a nervous government.
At home an ignominious end beckons for many of Col Muammar Gaddafi's henchman but in neighbouring Niger one of the most feared is quietly taking a sunset stroll on hot September evening.
Mansour Dao was until a few weeks ago widely loathed as the head of Col Muammar Gaddafi personal security retinue. Now he is residing in Niamey, the capital of neighbouring Niger, free to come and go as he pleases - his presence just one of a host of challenges facing Libya's neighbours.
While The Sunday Telegraph was able to see Mr Dao, it was impossible to talk to the middle-aged functionary with a Byrlcreem quiff. The security cordon keeps him unmolested as just another relatively cossetted resident of the diplomatic district that includes KK49.
As a former political prisoner, Marou Amadou, the country's youthful justice minister, is no stranger to the stains of politics. But as he sits on a leatherette couch in his office just a mile from Mr Dao, the stress of the "affaire Libya" is clearly telling.
"When I am tired my English doesn't come, please forgive me for speaking in French," he said.
"Libya has put the stability of our country in danger and the international pressure on us is great. We wish to act according to our international obligations but there are many issues at stake that the world does not recognise as a result of the fallout from what has happened in Libya."
The flight of a trio of top flight generals, including Mr Dao, and Col Muammar Gaddafi's third son, Saadi into Niger through an undefended border has pitched the vast, fragile country into an unwelcome spotlight.
But as diplomatic pressure for the arrest and return of the group grows, Niger is struggling with a host of dangers emanating from Libya. Terrorists groups have rearmed in the chaos of the conflict and fled south. Separatist fighters who served as Gaddafi's mercenaries have returned disgruntled and hostile.
A desert patrol by the Niger army stumbled into a fierce firefight with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) fighters armed to the teeth with weapons plundered from Libyan arsenals on Thursday. One soldier and three Islamic fighters were killed in the clashes.
On top of this the country ranked the world's poorest by the UN Development Index must absorb 200,000 migrant workers displaced from Libya since the uprising against the Gaddafi regime.
Less than two years ago, Mr Amadou languished in the foreboding Koutoukalé high security prison after the military junta running Niger ordered his detention for "managing an undeclared organisation".
He was then praised as brave activist campaigning for democracy in a vast desert state that struggled with a history of coups and famines since independence from France in 1962.
Democratic elections installed Mr Amadou as a high flyer in a reformist government just in March. Clémence Hérault-Delanoe, a French lawyer, serves in a sweltering room down the corridor from his office as his human right's advisor.
Now he finds himself treading a narrow path to explain why Niger has defied international pressure – or at least that of its Western backers – by refusing to arrest and return Saadi and leading henchmen to face justice in Free Libya.
Libya's interim authorities accuse Mr Dao of being the leading butcher in Col Gaddafi's purges of his domestic opponents.
In particular, he accused of commanding the 1996 massacre of 1,200 prisoners, most Islamic political detainees, at Tripoli's Abu Saleem prison. After a failed revolt the prisoners were locked in the building to be systematically shot and blow up by soldiers under Mr Dao.
Niger is defensive about the latitude it has allowed the small gang of loyalist who have pitched up in the country. Saadi is under government guard at Villa Verte, a sprawling compound overlooking the Niger River, next to the presidential palace. Two other generals and 32 others are housed at an equally salubrious residence further along Avenue de la Republic, the main boulevard in Niamey.
But Mr Dao has been allowed to move to his own property in KK49. There he lives in semi-open comfort. He can travel to local market and visit Nigerien friends.
Despite the unmade road the area is the Holland Park of Niamey, a city were children openly defecate on the rubbish by the sides of the roads.
"We cannot ignore humanitarian law and return these people who have arrived in out country to Libya where they face the threat of death," said Mr Amadou.
"We offer them protection but we are willing to allow the International Court to question them if there are charges against them."
A deadly game of cat and mouse in the open stretches of the Sahara desert between Libya and Niger has erupted since the Tripoli regime shattered. Poor and failing states have looked on with horror as AQIM has rearmed by smuggling guns, explosives and missiles from the looted arsenals throw open as rebels overthrew the regime.
The scale of threat to the region from Libyan arms forced America to issue a warning to oil firms that AQIM were actively planning to use newly acquired shoulder fired surface to air missiles to target flights servicing the desert.
The US embassy in Algiers said it firm intelligence that Gaddafi's stock of weapons were part of an emerging plot against the industry, which produces much of the region's wealth.
US security services have concluded AQIM was preparing to carry out such attacks after acquiring a larrge number" of Sam 5 and Sam 7 missiles it planned to use to attack planes carrying staff from foreign firms, "particularly British and American."In a small city, the effects of the remote ambush on Thursday night were felt within hours.
Niger and other threatened Sahara states warn they are unequal to the explosion of terrorist activity predicted by local and Western officials.
"Niger would but can't fight this, Mali can't and won't, Mauritania will but can't and Algeria can but won't take on AQIM outside its borders," one Western diplomat said during a security conference in Algeria earlier this month. "It's a perfect storm."
Gen Carter Ham, the US general who heads Africa Command, last week warned that the vulnerability of the Sahara states and al-Qaeda's windfall of weapons would be felt from Somalia to Nigeria.
"If left unaddressed, then you could have a network that ranges from East Africa through the centre and into the [Sahara] and Mahgreb, and I think that would be very, very worrying," he said.
Niger, a poor place of which the world has cared little, has become the unwitting victim of a conflict that has opened the floodgates to chaos across Saharan Africa.
