This article provides a contextualized overview of Tuareg separatism and the violence that has attended it in Mali. The article sketches key episodes and developments in the conflict between the Malian state and Tuareg separatist nationalists, and outlines Tuareg political goals and internal dynamics. The article examines the impact on Tuareg separatism of the presence of international Jihadi-Salafist movements in the region and the resulting intrusion of the so-called "War on Terror'' (Overseas Contingency Operations) during the past decade

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The article deals with the notion of friendship in the Tuareg resistance movement. Among Tuareg migrants, friendship terms were mainly used as a political means aiming to strengthen the unity of an imagined, but still utopian Tuareg nation. This changed dramatically in the course of the so called Tuareg rebellion that broke out after thousand of migrants had come back to Mali and Niger from Algerian and Libyan exile in the beginning of the 1990s. Friendship ties which had cut across interethnic and intraethnic boundaries were replaced by ethnic and even tribal identities during the fights. In the context of violent conflicts, like the Tuareg rebellion, friendship bonds which cut across identities of the respective warring parties seem to be rather difficult to maintain. It is argued that friendship is not only a relational term, but a political term as well. In much the same way as kinship, consanguinity, or descent, it may be used to legitimise political relation-building, alliances or hostile relationships.

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