Mali Islamists, Separatists Join Forces

An armed Islamist group occupying parts of northern Mali says it has joined forces with one of the country's main separatist movements.
Alghabasse Ag Intalla, head of the Islamic Movement for Azawad, told VOA correspondent Idriss Fall that the Islamist group has signed an agreement with the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, or MNLA.

Intalla says the two groups will hold a congress in May to officially unify the movements.

The Islamic Movement of Azawad was formed recently by self-described "moderates" within the Ansar Dine rebel group.

Officials from the movement have said they are seeking autonomy for northern Mali, not independence.

Intalla, who was the former negotiator of Ansar Dine, says that although his group is currently fighting Islamists in the region, they will not help Malian forces in Kidal unless a political solution is found on the Tuareg situation.

Ansar Dine rebels joined with ethnic Tuaregs to seize control of northern Mali following the March 2012 coup.  Ansar Dine and other Islamist groups then took full control of the region, where they have moved to impose strict Islamic law.

In other developments, a Chadian soldier was killed Tuesday in fighting in the Ifoghas mountains in the country's north.  Nearly 30 Chadian soldiers have been killed in the operation so far.

from VOA News
March 13, 2013

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Seven Killed in Northern Mali Suicide Bombing

A suicide bombing has killed at least seven people in the northern Mali town of Kidal, near the scene of heavy fighting between French troops and Islamist militants.
The MNLA, a Tuareg separatist group now working with the French, says a bomber in a four-by-four vehicle blew himself up at one of its checkpoints late Tuesday. The MNLA says the attack killed seven of its fighters and wounded several others.

Other sources confirmed the attack but put the death toll at six.

Kidal is on the edge of the Ifoghas mountains, where Islamist militants retreated after a French-led offensive drove them out of northern Malian cities last month.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Drian reported heavy fighting in the mountains on Tuesday. He said France and its allies are targeting an area where "the most radical terrorist groups" have gone.

French troops entered Mali in January to push back militants moving toward the capital and have since been joined by African troops in backing the Malian army.

Le Drian said the operation has regained control of almost all of northern Mali but that the hardest portion of the fighting remains.

France has said it plans to begin withdrawing its ground forces and hand over military operations to the Malian army and a West African force.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

from VOA News
February 27, 2013

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New Mali Rebel Group Seeks Negotiations

map by Evan Centanni (www.polgeonow.com)

A portion of Mali's Ansar Dine rebel group has broken away to form its own movement, and is expressing a willingness to seek a negotiated solution to the country's crisis.

In a statement issued Thursday, the newly formed Islamic Movement for Azawad also said it is ready to fight extremism.

​​Ansar Dine rebels joined with ethnic Tuaregs to seize control of northern Mali following a March coup.  Ansar Dine and other Islamist groups then took full control of the region, where they want to impose strict Islamic law.

In late December, Ansar Dine agreed to a cease-fire with the government, but suspended it earlier this month saying the government was not sincere about peace negotiations.

Islamist fighters began pushing south into government-controlled areas, prompting airstrikes from French forces acting at the request of Mali's government to halt the advance.  French and Malian troops have retaken some rebel-held areas, while a growing African intervention force continues to arrive in Mali to help fully regain control of the north.

​​U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Senate panel Wednesday that instability in Mali has created an "expanding safe haven for terrorists" who are looking to extend their reach. She said the United States and its allies have been working with Mali's neighbors to upgrade security, but that most do not have the capacity to do so.

Clinton said eliminating rebels from northern Mali is a daunting challenge.

"This is going to be a very serious ongoing threat because if you look at the size of northern Mali, if you look at the topography, it is not only desert, it is caves - sounds reminiscent.  We are in for a struggle but it is a necessary struggle.  We can not permit northern Mali to become a safe haven," she said.

Also Wednesday, a coalition of rights groups said it has reports that Malian soldiers have carried out executions and committed other human rights violations since French forces entered the country this month.

The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said elements of the Malian army carried out executions in the towns of Sevare, Mopti and Nioro on January 10. It is calling for the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the allegations.

from VOA News
January 24, 2013

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Islamists Take Northern Mali Town from Secular Rebels

Residents in northern Mali say Islamic rebels have taken the town of Menaca from secular Tuareg rebels. 

 

Witnesses in Menaca, as well as the town's mayor (Baay Ag Muhammed) who is in exile in the capital, Bamako, tell VOA that rebels from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, are in control of the town. 

 

MUJAO and another Islamic group, Ansar Dine, seized control of much of northern Mali earlier this year in the confusion that followed a military coup in Bamako.  Both Islamic groups are believed to have close links to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

 

Secular Tuareg rebels were once aligned with the Islamic groups, but the alliance broke down over a dispute about implementing Sharia in the region.  The Islamic militants have held public executions, amputations and floggings in an effort to enforce their strict version of Islamic

law.

 

Last month, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution clearing the way for the deployment of foreign troops to Mali.

 

The Economic Community of West Africa States has offered to send a force of about 3,000 soldiers to stabilize Mali, rebuild the country's shattered army and help drive the militants from the north.

 

The United Nations says fighting in northern Mali has displaced nearly 400,000 people this year.  And it warns that more than 4.5 million people in the region face shrinking food supplies.

from VOA News

November 19, 2012

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Mali rebels say drop separatist goal

BAMAKO, July 15 (Reuters) - Tuareg-led Mali rebels who seized the north of the West African country in April declared on Sunday they had dropped claims for a separate state after the rebellion was hijacked by al Qaeda-linked Islamists now holding sway in the north.

"We are seeking cultural, political and economic independence but not secession," Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, a senior member of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), told Reuters by telephone.

Azawad is the name which the MNLA gives to the northern territory of Mali in which it declared an independence that has been ignored by a world more concerned with the threat of Mali become a launchpad for jihadi activities.

A second MNLA official, Hama Ag Mahmoud, told Reuters in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott: "Independence has been our line since the start of the conflict but we are taking on board the view of the international community to resolve this crisis."

Islamist groups including the local Ansar Dine have imposed strict sharia, Islamic law, across the north and destroyed UNESCO-listed shrines to local saints in the ancient town of Timbuktu, arguing that such worship is un-Islamic.

Contacted by telephone in Timbuktu, Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Boumana said he was not aware of any change in the MNLA position but added: "What I can tell you is that it is us who control the three regions of the north."

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako; Mark John in Dakar; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Alison Williams)

from REUTERS
Sun Jul 15, 2012 1:05pm GMT

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Malian rebels quit accord signed with al Qaeda affiliate

By LWJ Staff - June 3, 2012 - LWJ


Less than a week after Tuareg rebels belonging to the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) merged with the al Qaeda-supported Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) Islamist group and signed an accord to create the Islamic Republic of Azawad in northern Mali, leaders from the MNLA have publicly revoked their support for the accord.

Ansar Dine fighters fly al Qaeda's banner in Northern Mali in late April 2012. (Source: PanAfrican News Wire)

"The political wing, the executive wing of the MNLA, faced with the intransigence of Ansar Dine on applying sharia in Azawad and in line with its resolutely secular stance, denounce the accord with this organization and declare all its dispositions null and void," read a written message attributed to senior MNLA political leader Hama Ag Mahmoud on June 1. Other senior political MNLA officials, including Magdi Ag Bohada, have also disavowed the accord.

Discord between the MNLA and Ansar Dine occurred almost immediately after both parties signed the agreement on May 26 that established an independent Tuareg state in northern Mali reinforced by the imposition of sharia.

Senior MNLA members have long been uneasy with Ansar Dine's harsh interpretation of Islam and desire for a strict version of sharia law. "We want sharia similar to that in Mauritania or even Egypt. This point must be clarified," Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, an MNLA official in the northern city of Gao, told Reuters three days after the accord was signed. The MNLA has also strongly disagreed with Ansar Dine about what types of punishments should be implemented against those accused of committing a crime, specifically the amputation of hands.

Despite the public statements by MNLA leaders renouncing their support for the accord, armed Ansar Dine militiamen continue to patrol the streets of northern Mali's population centers, including Gao, Kial, and Timbuktu, enforcing sharia no matter how unpopular the new restrictions have become among residents who have long observed moderate Islamic values and customs.

Local Tuaregs have protested against Ansar Dine's attempt to enforce a strict dress code, the prohibition of alcohol and smoking of cigarettes in public, and the closure of cinemas. According to The New York Times, Ansar Dine militiamen have defaced the shrine of a 15th-century Sufi saint, music has been banned from the radio, and the black flags of Ansar Dine, which mirror those of al Qaeda, have been draped around the urban environs of northern Mali. These and other unpopular restrictions have forced many residents to flee northern Mail since the MNLA and Ansar Dine consolidated power in the region around a month ago.

The United Nations estimates that more than 160,000 Malians have fled to the neighboring countries of Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and more than 140,000 residents have been displaced in Mali itself since the Malian government collapsed in late March.

The current political crisis between the MNLA and Ansar Dine has prompted senior members of Ansar Dine, including its leader and former MNLA spokesman Iyad Ag Ghali, to travel back to Gao from an undisclosed location in an attempt to salvage the May 26 accord. Some members of Ansar Dine believe the voice of dissent among the MNLA is restricted to the movement's political wing, and view the crisis as a minor, if not irrelevant, development.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/06/malian_rebels_quit_a.php#ixzz1woZLEIYV

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Al Qaeda affiliate and Turaeg rebels merge, create breakaway state in Mali

By LWJ Staff - May 28, 2012 - LWJ

The secular rebel group of Saharan Tuareg tribesmen known as the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) has agreed to merge with the al Qaeda-supported Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) Islamist rebel group. The new entity has declared the creation of an autonomous state in northern Mali, the Islamic Republic of Azawad.

Joe Burgess/The New York Times

After the signing of the accord on May 26, "Colonel" Bouna Ag Attayoub, an MNLA commander in Timbuktu, told the BBC that "[t]he Islamic Republic of Azawad is now an independent sovereign state." The declaration of the breakaway state and the merger of the secular Tuareg rebel movement with the al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine have deepened the ongoing political and security crisis facing Mali since a coup shook the central government on March 22.

"The Koran will be a source of the laws of the state," said Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, an MNLA spokesman, according to The Telegraph. "But we will apply the things we want and leave aside those we don't. It will not be a strict application of the law." The signing of the accord, which took place in the northern area of Gao and was accompanied by celebratory gunfire, followed last week's brazen seizure of a key Malian military armory by suspected Ansar Dine gunmen in the same area of Gao.

Regional security sources confirmed the attack and seizure of the arms depot, adding that Islamists linked with al Qaeda in Mali are now "more armed than the combined armies of Mali and Burkina Faso," AFP reported. Burkina Faso borders Mali to the east. Islamist rebels are now in the process of implementing sharia law in various urban areas of northern Mali, including Timbuktu.

Mali's northern regions of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu have been under the de facto jurisdiction of Tuareg rebels and Ansar Dine since April 1. The Islamist group Ansar Dine had first opposed the MNLA's previous declaration of an independent state in April, preferring to maintain its stance to enforce sharia throughout all of Mali. Similarly, the MNLA had for some time resisted the Islamist views of Ansar Dine and preferred to remain secular. The recently announced merger of MNLA with Ansar Dine and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Azawad have apparently laid to rest the mutual distrust between the groups, at least for now.

Meanwhile, officials in Mali's transitional administration have strongly rejected the merger and partition of the north, and Mali's Communications Minister Hamadoun Toure demanded that "other countries should help Mali tackle al Qaeda in the region," according to the BBC.

The MNLA has fought to make Mali's northern Azawad region, roughly the size of France, into a separate state since Mali's independence from colonial rule in 1960. The Ansar Dine movement is affiliated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM), and is determined to implement sharia law across all of Mali.

In mid-April, three senior Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leaders were spotted in northern Mali after the government lost control of the region. Abu Zeid, Mukhtar Belmukhtar, and Yahya Abu al Hammam reportedly met with Tuareg leader Iyad Ag Ghaly in Timbuktu. Hammam is said to have been named the leader of Islamist forces in Timbuktu.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/05/turaeg_rebels_and_al.php#ixzz1wGNhfQQG

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Swiss woman taken by gunmen in Mali's Timbuktu

(Reuters) - A Swiss woman who had stayed in the northern Malian town of Timbuktu after it was captured by Tuareg and Islamist rebels was taken from her house by unidentified gunmen on Sunday, a witness and several sources in the town said.

Yehia Tandina, one of the town's residents, said the woman, whom she identified only as Beatrice, was seized by armed men in turbans on Sunday afternoon. A neighbor of the Swiss woman who asked not to be named confirmed the incident.

A spokesman for the Swiss foreign ministry in the Swiss capital Berne said the ministry was looking into the report.

A mix of Tuareg separatist and Islamist rebels captured Timbuktu on April 1 in the final leg of their lightning advance southwards through Mali's desert north as government forces retreated in the chaotic aftermath of a coup in the capital.

The woman taken was described by several sources as a missionary who had lived in the town for a number of years and spoke several local languages.

"She is very well known in the town. She would walk around the town trying to convert people (to Christianity)," a resident of the town told Reuters, asking not to be named.
The sources said she was seized in the Abaradjou neighborhood.

Timbuktu, known for centuries as a key trading town in the Sahara and a seat of Islamic learning, had become a top tourist destination in Mali. But insecurity in recent years - including the abduction of several foreigners there by al Qaeda last year - had reduced visitors to a trickle.

In the days leading to the capture, most resident Westerners had left the town due to fears of being kidnapped and passed on to al Qaeda cells. Tuareg MNLA rebels smuggled two British citizens and a Frenchman out of the town following the rebel assault.

AQIM, al Qaeda's North African wing, which operates in the zone and has links to the Islamist rebels, is already holding 13 Westerners and has earned millions of dollars from ransom payments from previous kidnappings in recent years.

The declaration of a Tuareg rebel homeland in northern Mali has raised fears among Western security experts that the remote, inhospitable zone could become a secure haven for al Qaeda and a "rogue state" in West Africa.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday it was essential to prevent a "terrorist or Islamic state" emerging in northern Mali.

(Reporting by David Lewis and Adama Diarra; Additional reporting by Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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Mali: Urgent Action Needed to Protect Civilians

The Tuareg and Islamist armed groups who have taken the northern cities of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu must protect the civilian population in areas under their control, Amnesty International said today.

In Gao, the organisation received reports of armed men firing into the air and looting public and private buildings, including the hospital.

One witness living there told Amnesty International today: "Armed people are entering the houses and looting. They are firing in the air and we are all terrified. We are left with no defence."

A woman was forced to give birth in the street in Gao as the hospital was being looted by armed men. One patient died as medical care was withdrawn.

"The armed groups who seized these towns in the last three days must ensure human rights abuses do not occur and where they do, they must take action and remove anyone implicated from their ranks," said Gaëtan Mootoo, Amnesty International's researcher on West Africa.

"The looting must be halted to ensure that the civilian population can safely go about their lives."

"In Gao especially, there is an atmosphere of terror and confusion. People must be reassured that if they stay they will not be harmed."

In Timbuktu a young man was reportedly killed on Sunday by a stray bullet while walking in the street.

As chaos spirals more and more people are fleeing their homes.

A resident of Kidal told Amnesty International this morning: "I'm trying to leave the city with my family but there is a waiting list at the bus station. I hope I can have a ticket for Wednesday."

The Azawad National Liberation Movement (Mouvement national de liberation de l'Azawad, (MNLA), a Tuareg armed opposition group, launched a military uprising in the north of the country late January 2012.

Meanwhile Islamic group, Ansar Dine, which says it aims to implement the Sharia law in Mali, has also been fighting against the national army.

Since the beginning of the uprising, more than 200,000 people have fled the north of Mali with an estimated 100,000 crossing to the neighbouring countries of Mauritania, Niger, Algeria and Burkina Faso.

"There is a real risk of a humanitarian crisis as aid agencies are encountering many problems gaining access to those in need," said Gaëtan Mootoo. "This situation is aggravated by the fact that the whole Sahel region is facing a widespread food and nutrition crisis."

The situation in Bamako continues to be volatile ten days on from the military coup that toppled Mali's President Amadou Toumani Touré.

The leader of Mali's new ruling junta promised on Sunday to reinstate the constitution, hours ahead of a deadline set by the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) either to start handing back power or face sanctions.


an Amnesty International Press Release
from allAFRICA

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Administrator in northern Mali killed by Tuareg rebels

BAMAKO, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The administrator of Bourem, a region in Gao in northern Mali, was killed by Tuareg rebels, local residents reported on Sunday.

The residents said the administrator, Mohamed Sidibe, attempted to flee with his family on Saturday, after learning that the rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) were going to attack Gao.

A resident of Bourem said the MNLA fighters took away the vehicle of the administrator and his body was returned on Sunday. His wife was also reportedly killed.

Residents in another northern region of Sevare went on panic after learning that the Tuareg rebels were preparing to attack their town.

The Malian soldiers and civilians who fled from Gao, Niafunke and Timbuktu are taking refuge in Sevare.

Tuareg rebels seized Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu respectively on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

For the first time since they took arms the 1960s, the rebels have taken the northern towns in pursuit of independence of an Azawad land comprising Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.

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

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Malian Rebels Seize Timbuktu

Witnesses in northern Mali told VOA that Tuareg rebels had reached Timbuktu and reported fighting and looting in the historic town.

Timbuktu was the last key city in the north that had not been taken by the rebels. Tuareg fighters seized the city of Gao from the Malian army late Saturday and the provincial capital, Kidal last week.

On Saturday, military junta leaders met with Burkina Faso's president, Blaise Compaore, in Ouagadougou to discuss ways to settle the Mali crisis.

The Mali representatives said President Compaore rejected their request for help battling the rebels in Mali and called for coup leaders to restore the constitution.
Renegade soldiers seized power from democratically elected President Amadou Toure on March 22, after accusing him of failing to provide the army with enough resources to tamp the Tuareg rebellion.

Heavily armed Tuareg rebels arrived in northern Mali after the fall of neighboring Libya, and they launched an insurgency in mid-January.

Tuareg separatists have been seeking autonomy for decades.

Meanwhile, Mali's coup leader says he has reinstated the country's constitution, a day before harsh economic sanctions were to be imposed if constitutional order was not restored.

During a news conference near the capital, Bamoko on Sunday, Captain Amadou Sanogo read a brief statement saying he had restored the state's previous constitution, which was adopted in 1992.

He also said state institutions had been restored and he vowed to organize the return of power to civilians. However, the coup leader did not provide a timeline for new elections.

The Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS ), which oversees a common currency in the region, threatened to impose crippling financial sanctions by Monday if power was not handed back to civilians.

from WOTN

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