If I may, I'd like to start by addressing your comparison of Mali and Afghanistan to say that Mali has the potential of becoming Afghanistan, but it's not there yet. That's why it's very important, in my opinion, to not just look at the headlines. Mali has a functional government. It has multiple groups, including armed groups in the north whom we call Islamist or terrorist, who actually want a political deal and want the country to get back on its feet.
It does have problems in implementing its peace agreement, and these problems are actually part of the reason that groups such as al Qaeda are trying to manipulate the people who are dissatisfied and offer them more.
What do they offer them? They offer basic services that the government of Mali doesn't yet have the capacity to extend to all of its population, not just in the north, but particularly in the north. They offer a sense of security, because there are no police, and border raids are common. Then in return what they want is allegiance, and then you have the kinds of concerns that you've raised.
In other words, we still have, I think, a very decent chance in Mali of turning the tide. Mali has had three peace agreements before. They have not been fully implemented, in part because no one had the national interest or vision, I will say, to stay long enough to see that they were implemented. Various international partners fake it, to put it bluntly.
To your question, to the best of my knowledge the groups that are currently operating in Mali can use IEDs, but they don't have very sophisticated equipment. In other words, they do not pose the same kind of threat that al Qaeda does in Afghanistan or as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.
There are many small groups emerging and trying to use allegiance to al Qaeda or to the Islamic state as a way of securing resources. What's interesting about those groups, particularly in the centre of Mali, is that we may disagree with the way in which they do it, but the resources are being used to establish governance and to basically provide some sort of justice and services to people. In other words, it's a market in which, when the government cannot deliver, others are emerging to deliver, and these others are being instrumentalized.
My best answer to you as someone who knows Mali is that it is imperative that we help the Malian government become responsible in its governance and become more capable, because that is the only way in which we can stop Mali from becoming another Afghanistan.