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Description
Well, I wanted to wait a bit longer before posting this, given I generally don't like riffing off very recent events, but given the inspiration for this doesn't look likely to disappear any time soon, I thought I might as well post it. It's background material for a webcomic which is a sequel to another webcomic I probably won't get around to for a decade or to, so don't expect to see too much more on this any time soon. I was considering incorporating what happens immediately after this map, but after a similar scenario was posted on Alternatehistory.com by user islander I thought it might be a case of less is more. Suffice it to say the story ends with a War of the Worlds quote. The map itself is inspired by Wikipedia's attempts to map the evolving clusterfuck in Iraq and Syria.

An alt-Northern Mali conflict gets infinitely worse when the Touaregs hire ADARI (Armée pour la Defense et l'Augmentation de Republic Islamique) to overhaul their command structure. ADARI, known in the English-language media as ADAIR, is an Islamist mercenary group known for use of advanced weaponry such as altered-reality HUDs, RFID tracking of individual soldiers and microwave/sonic crowd control devices. ADAIR wastes little time in hijacking the rebellion and converting it into a brutal theocratic/technocratic state.

Although their tech edge is progressively diluted in the ever-expanding conflict, ADAIR take over a swathe of West Africa, including effectively exiling the governments of Mali and Niger, declaring a new state called the Kalifayt Islamiyya or Islamic Caliphate (which appellation is, as OTL's ISIS, generally rejected by the world media). Their leader, Abu Ottoman, claims to be a direct descendent of Mehmed VI, a claim slightly spoiled by a strong Birmingham accent.

This map is set in December 2014, shortly after the shock fall of Oran to a group of largely untrained foreign fighters flying ADAIR's flag. At this point ADAIR is fighting a twelve-front war, and is continuing to take territory - though largely at this point by joining with like-minded groups in Nigeria, northern Chad and the Libyan desert (which groups quickly find that Ottoman has no use for alternative leadership structures). The USA, unlike OTL, has fallen into complete isolation, with the right preoccupied with the crisis in Mexico and the left unwilling to countenance yet another foreign invasion. In Timbuktu, ADAIR's official capital, however, reality is about to assert itself.

Description
Well, I wanted to wait a bit longer before posting this, given I generally don't like riffing off very recent events, but given the inspiration for this doesn't look likely to disappear any time soon, I thought I might as well post it. It's background material for a webcomic which is a sequel to another webcomic I probably won't get around to for a decade or to, so don't expect to see too much more on this any time soon. I was considering incorporating what happens immediately after this map, but after a similar scenario was posted on Alternatehistory.com by user islander I thought it might be a case of less is more. Suffice it to say the story ends with a War of the Worlds quote. The map itself is inspired by Wikipedia's attempts to map the evolving clusterfuck in Iraq and Syria.

An alt-Northern Mali conflict gets infinitely worse when the Touaregs hire ADARI (Armée pour la Defense et l'Augmentation de Republic Islamique) to overhaul their command structure. ADARI, known in the English-language media as ADAIR, is an Islamist mercenary group known for use of advanced weaponry such as altered-reality HUDs, RFID tracking of individual soldiers and microwave/sonic crowd control devices. ADAIR wastes little time in hijacking the rebellion and converting it into a brutal theocratic/technocratic state.

Although their tech edge is progressively diluted in the ever-expanding conflict, ADAIR take over a swathe of West Africa, including effectively exiling the governments of Mali and Niger, declaring a new state called the Kalifayt Islamiyya or Islamic Caliphate (which appellation is, as OTL's ISIS, generally rejected by the world media). Their leader, Abu Ottoman, claims to be a direct descendent of Mehmed VI, a claim slightly spoiled by a strong Birmingham accent.

This map is set in December 2014, shortly after the shock fall of Oran to a group of largely untrained foreign fighters flying ADAIR's flag. At this point ADAIR is fighting a twelve-front war, and is continuing to take territory - though largely at this point by joining with like-minded groups in Nigeria, northern Chad and the Libyan desert (which groups quickly find that Ottoman has no use for alternative leadership structures). The USA, unlike OTL, has fallen into complete isolation, with the right preoccupied with the crisis in Mexico and the left unwilling to countenance yet another foreign invasion. In Timbuktu, ADAIR's official capital, however, reality is about to assert itself.