Mali Tuaregs seize two Islamist leaders fleeing French strikes

map by Evan Centanni (www.polgeonow.com)

(Reuters) - Tuareg rebels in northern Mali said on Monday they had captured two senior Islamist insurgents fleeing French air strikes toward the Algerian border, and France pressed ahead with its bombing campaign against al Qaeda's Saharan desert camps.
Pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels said they had seized Mohamed Moussa Ag Mohamed, an Islamist leader who imposed harsh sharia law in the desert town of Timbuktu, and Oumeini Ould Baba Akhmed, believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of a French hostage by the al Qaeda splinter group MUJWA.

"We chased an Islamist convoy close to the frontier and arrested the two men the day before yesterday," Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, spokesman for the MNLA, told Reuters from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. "They have been questioned and sent to Kidal."

France has deployed 3,500 ground troops, and warplanes and armoured vehicles in its three-week-old Operation Serval (Wildcat) in Mali which has broken the Islamists' 10-month grip on northern towns, where they imposed sharia law.

Paris and its international partners want to prevent the Islamists from using Mali's vast desert north as a base to launch attacks on neighbouring African countries and the West.

The MNLA, which seized control of northern Mali last year only to be pushed aside by better-armed Islamist groups, regained control of its northern stronghold of Kidal last week when Islamist fighters fled French airstrikes into the nearby desert and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

The Tuareg group says it is willing to help the French-led mission by hunting down Islamists. It has offered to hold peace talks with the government in a bid to heal wounds between Mali's restive Saharan north and the black African-dominated south.

"Until there is a peace deal, we cannot hold national elections," Ag Assaleh said, referring to interim Malian President Dioncounda Traore's plan to hold polls on July 31.

Many in the southern capital Bamako - including army leaders who blame the MNLA for executing some of their troops at the Saharan town of Aguelhoc last year - strongly reject any talks.

French special forces took the airport in Kidal on Tuesday, reaching the most northern city previously held by the Islamist alliance. Though the MNLA says it controls Kidal, a Reuters reporter in the town saw a contingent of Chadian troops - part of a U.N.-backed African mission being deployed to help retake northern Mali - backing up French special forces there.

TARGETING REBEL BASES, DEPOTS

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said warplanes were continuing bombing raids on Islamists in Mali's far north to destroy their supply lines and flush them out of remote areas.

"The objective is to destroy their support bases, their depots because they have taken refuge in the north and north-east of the country and can only stay there in the long-term if they have the means to sustain themselves," Fabius said.

"The army is working to stop that," he told French radio.

Jets attacked rebel camps on Sunday targeting logistics bases and training camps used by the al Qaeda-linked rebels near Tessalit, close to the Algerian border.

French President Francois Hollande made a one-day trip to Mali on Saturday, promising to keep troops in the country until the job of restoring government control in the Sahel state was finished. He was welcomed as a saviour by cheering Malians.

The rebels' retreat to hideouts in the remote Adrar des Ifoghas mountains - where Paris believes they are holding seven French hostages - heralds a potentially more complicated new phase of France's intervention in its former colony.

"We are still in the same war, but we're entering a new battle," said Vincent Desportes, a French former general and now associate professor at Science-Po university in Paris.

"We will look to gradually wear out and destroy the terrorists that are sheltering in the Ifoghas. It's now a war of intelligence (services), strikes and probably action by special forces in the background."

Hollande said on Saturday that Paris would withdraw its troops from Mali once the landlocked West African nation had restored sovereignty over its territory and a U.N.-backed African military force could take over from the French soldiers.

Drawn mostly from Mali's West African neighbours, this force is expected to number more than 8,000. But its deployment has been badly hampered by shortages of kit and airlift capacity and questions about who will fund the estimated $1 billion cost.

Fabius said French soldiers may soon pull back from Timbuktu. Its residents had celebrated their liberation from the Islamists, who had handed down punishments including whipping and amputation for breaking sharia law.

The rebels also smashed sacred Sufi mausoleums and destroyed or stole some 2,000 ancient manuscripts at the South African-sponsored Baba Ahmed Institute, causing international outcry.

"A withdrawal could happen very quickly," Fabius said. "We're working towards it because we have no desire to stay there for the long-term.

from REUTERS
By Cheikh Diouara
KIDAL, Mali | Mon Feb 4, 2013 11:38am GMT
(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Daniel Flynn in Dakar and David Lewis in Timbuktu; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Jon Boyle)

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Mali: Terrorists and Uncertainty Flourish in North

There’s been no peace in northern Mali since Tuareg rebels took control of the area and declared independence earlier this year. Radical Muslim fighters came in their wake and introduced Islamic law. Meanwhile, terrorists from all over the world are reportedly coming to Mali. Yet no one really has a hold on the region.

Boubacar Traore lights a cigarette. The other exiles crouching under a baobab tree in Mopti laugh at him. “This is no longer allowed in northern Mali,” Traore explains. “Drinking beer is also haram, forbidden by the Muslim radicals, who have taken over my town, Hombori. And the women have to wear veils.”

In March Hombori fell into the hands of Tuareg rebels. They belong to the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), who began a revolt in the north at the year’s start. The Ansar Dine rebels quickly followed. They took measures to stop the plundering of MNLA fighters and – much to the local population’s alarm – introduced sharia law.

“Our only weapon is Islam”
Along the bank of the Niger River, Mopti used to be the crossroads between Mali’s north and south. Now it is on the frontline of a country divided into two. Fearing the Ansar Dine rebels, banks have closed, aid organizations have removed their computers and frightened residents have fled.

Unlike the Tauregs, the Ansar Dine do not want an independent republic in the north, a so-called Azawad state. They want the whole of Mali to become an Islamic state. And they want to expand into West Africa.

Ansar Dine Muslim extremists make no secret of their ideals. Traore shows a video on his mobile phone, which he took in Hombori before fleeing last month. An Ansar Dine leader known as Oumar speaks to the people. A rifle and an ammunition belt are slung over his shoulders.

“Our only weapon is Islam,” the bearded leader proclaims. “There are no limits, we are united by Allah. Fighters from Nigeria and other countries have joined us and we want to introduce sharia law in the whole of Mali. Introducing Islamic law will solve all our problems.”

Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb
At the rebellion’s onset, the Ansar Dine and the Tuaregs had joined forces. But reports from the north now indicate the Ansar Dine has taken control together with the Algerian group known as the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

“The Tuaregs cause panic, they rape women and steal from everyone,” shouts the Ansar Dine leader in Traore’s video. “We have arrested them and executed them when necessary. The MNLA has betrayed us. We don’t want the independent state of Azawad. We are fighting in the name of Allah.”

The AQIM has become rich in recent years by kidnapping Western tourists and taking over drug and weapon smuggling routes across the Sahara. The money is used to buy the support of tribal and clan leaders. Gaddafi’s fall in neighbouring Libya meant that weapons flooded into northern Mali. They were either bought or seized in battle, thus profiting the region’s numerous rebel groups, Muslim radicals and Tuaregs.

The Malian government army was too weak to retaliate when the rebels went on the offensive. After March’s coup d’état against President Touré, government soldiers deserted en masse as rebels attacked them in the north.

Cultural looting
Muslim radicals now control an extensive area. Their rigid form of Islam is being imposed on northern Mali. In the history-rich city of Timbuktu, they have destroyed images of Islamic icons. Ritual masks and ancestral statues in the Dogon region have been smashed to pieces.

“Mali has a long history and the various populations have always shared cultures and traditions,” says Samuel Sidibe, managing director of the Musée National du Mali. “The Malians follow a tolerant form of Islam. The radical form does not fit in with our culture.”

A divided Mali
Nobody knows how things will go in a divided Mali. In the capital, Bamako, military coup leader Amadou Sanogo refuses to relinquish power for a civilian interim government. Regional union ECOWAS threatens more military intervention and sanctions.

“Every day of instability and uncertainty in Bamako is to the advantage of the extremists in the north,” says a diplomat there. “More and more reports arrive of terrorists being flown into the north from all over the world. Europe has failed to acknowledge the danger of terrorism flourishing in Mali."

from Radio Netherland Worldwide
By Koert Lindijer, 17 May 2012

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Mali's rebels announce end to military operation: statement

BAMAKO, April 4 (Xinhua) -- The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) decided on Wednesday to put an end to its military operations as of Thursday.

The Tuareg group "decides unilaterally to proclaim an end to military operations as of Thursday, April 5 at midnight GMT", "following the complete liberation of the territory of Azawad and given the strong demand from international community, especially the Security Council and UN Peace, United States of America, France and the States of the Sub-Region," according to a statement on the movement's website.

The groups "calls on States of the subregion and the international community to ensure the people of Azawad, against all assaults of Mali," the statement said.

The announcement came after the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA on Sunday captured Mali's heritage town of Timbuktu after taking two other important towns of Kidal and Gao. Timbuktu fell into the hands of Tuareg rebels, marking a milestone in their repeated uprisings since the 1960s for an independent Azawad land comprising Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.

For the first time, the rebels have the three towns under control.

Tuareg rebels apparently took advantage of the coup on March 22, when the junta toppled President Amadou Toumani Toure, citing his failure to provide means for the military to curb the rebellion in the north.

With the fall of the northern towns, Mali's military junta is facing increasing pressure from two fronts: the military offensive by the rebels and the demand by the 15-member West African bloc ECOWAS to hand over power.

On Sunday, the junta reinstated the country's constitution of 1992 to pave the way for a transition leading to the presidential election, without clarifying who would head the transition and when to hold the polls.

Related articles

• Malian Rebels Seize Timbuktu (sgt-jim.blogspot.com)
• Mali rebels bombard Timbuktu (moroccotomorrow.org)
• Islamist group plants flag in Mali's Timbuktu (ctv.ca)
• Islamists, Al-Qaeda gain in Mali (moroccotomorrow.org)

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