Fighting in Gao, Car Bomb in Kidal, Mali Conflict Continues

Heavy fighting has broken out in the centre of Gao, the largest town in northern Mali. A car bomb in the northern Mali town of Kidal has killed one person and injured another, according to a journalist at the scene.

Malian troops were fighting Islamists in Gao on Thursday.

The clashes left the main courthouse in flames.

Troops from Niger were the first to respond after heavy weapons fire was heard at at least two entries to the town overnight.

By midday Thursday the Malian army was battling what one military source said was a group of around 40 insurgents.

The source said at least three rebels had already been killed in the fighting.

Rebel fighters tried to carry out suicide attacks in the city, in one case successfully, on 8-10 February.

One person was killed and another injured by the Kidal bomb, according to a journalist in the town speaking to the Reuters news agency.

Other witnesses told the AFP agency that two civilians had been injured.

The blast was within a kilometre of the camp where French and Malian soldiers have been stationed since they arrived in the town on 29 January, following its takeover by dissident Islamists and Tuareg separatists from Al Qaida-linked armed groups.

A French soldier was killed on Tuesday in fighting in the Ifoghas mountains, north of Kidal, where the hardline Islamists have taken refuge. About 20 rebels were also killed, according to the French military.

from RFi
Article published the Thursday 21 February 2013
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Fighting had first erupted overnight in Gao, where a military official and witnesses reported heavy gunfire around two main entrances to the main city in the north of the country.

"Our forces are currently confronting the jihadists near the Gao townhouse. They have infiltrated the city and we are currently retaliating," Amadou Diarra, a Malian army captain, told AFP in Bamako.

Troops from Niger were the first to respond to the Islamist presence in Gao overnight but by midday Thursday it was the Malian army battling what one military source said was a group of around 40 insurgents.

The source said at least three rebels had already been killed in the fighting, which involved heavy artillery fire and left the streets of Gao -- the most populous city in northern Mali -- largely deserted.

French forces wrested Gao back from the Al Qaeda-linked rebels who had controlled the city since April 2012 within two weeks of Paris' intervention in the former colony.

But Islamist rebels who redeployed on the outskirts of Gao have switched to guerrilla tactics and the city saw Mali's first ever suicide attacks two weeks ago, followed by street fighting. 

Posted in: al Qaeda, Bamako, Gao, Islamism, Kidal, Mali