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News, Politics, Government

Mali: 1 dead in ethnic clash in Kidal

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At least one person was killed in ethnic clashes in Mali’s northern city of Kidal, officials said on Friday, complicating efforts to restore order ahead of the planned presidential election next week.

The fight broke out late Thursday between a Tuareg, the lighter-skinned ethnic group which is dominant in Kidal and whose members tried to declare independence last year, and a member of the Songhai ethnicity, a dark-skinned, sub-Saharan ethnic group whose members support the Malian state, said Mossa Ansari, a medical worker at the local health center. Ansari said that several people were injured, though only one came to seek treatment at the health clinic.

“A Tuareg hit a Songhai. The Songhai went to go get his friends. This is how the fight started,” said Ansari. “One Songhai was killed and at least one Tuareg was wounded. The body was brought to the center, and the wounded man came to get treatment. We have been told that there are several more wounded.”

French forces stationed in Kidal shot into the air to disperse the two groups, said an elected official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Kidal is the last city in Mali that remains largely outside government control. It was seized last year by Tuareg separatists who declared independence, and briefly raised the flag of their new nation — which they call Azawad — over the city. They were driven out by Islamic extremists who were in turn pushed out by a French-led military intervention this January.

Although the French succeeded in flushing out the Islamic radicals, who are linked to al-Qaida, they allowed the Tuaregs’ National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad to return to Kidal. For weeks leading up to a June accord, the NMLA blocked the return of Mali’s government officials to Kidal. It was only last week that the governor of Kidal was able to return to resume his function, after more than a year’s absence. Malian troops have also returned to the city, accompanied by United Nations peacekeepers, though the Tuareg rebels remain armed and at-large on the outskirts of the provincial capital.

Kidal’s participation in the upcoming July 28 presidential election is seen as crucial to ensuring the legitimacy of Mali’s next president, but so far only one of the 28 candidates in the race have deemed Kidal safe enough for a campaign stop.

The fight between the separatists …read more

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News, Politics, Government

Mali secular rebels appoint administrator in Kidal

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A secular rebel group seeking independence in northern Mali said late Wednesday it has appointed a civil administrator for the region of Kidal, signaling it is retaking control of the government there as French forces battle radical Islamic fighters.

The National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, or NMLA, has been reasserting its presence in Kidal since the French-led intervention forced many of the extremists into the surrounding desert.

Mohamed Aly Ag Al Bessati was chosen Tuesday for the position, according to NMLA representative Moussa Ag Assarid.

“Today our priority is to protect people and property,” he said. “These people need an administration to better lead activities and regain daily life.”

The secular rebels have said they are willing to work with the French forces but not Malian troops, whom they accuse of committing reprisals against the lighter-skinned Tuaregs and Arabs.

“We can’t entrust our destiny to any army that executes our families,” Assarid said.

By comparison, Malian soldiers have bolstered the French presence in the northern cities of Gao and Timbuktu that also had been overrun by the radical Islamic fighters.

The Tuareg separatists who make up the NMLA have long sought independence from Mali, and their rebellion last year triggered a March coup in the distant capital.

In the aftermath, the Tuaregs and Islamic extremists had both made rapid advances across northern Mali and the poorly armed Malian soldiers fled.

For several months, the Islamic extremists controlling northern Mali coexisted with the secular Tuareg rebels who want their own state.

The black flag of the extremists fluttered alongside the multi-colored one of the secular rebels, each occupying different areas of the towns.

In late May 2012, the two sides attempted to sign a deal, agreeing to create an independent Islamic state called Azawad.

The agreement between the bon vivant Tuareg rebels and the Taliban-inspired extremists seemed doomed from the start. It fell apart days later. By June, the Islamic extremists had chased the secular rebels out of northern Mali‘s main cities.

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News, Politics, Government

French, Malian soldiers drive extremists out of city of Timbuktu

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As French and Malian soldiers held control of the fabled desert city of Timbuktu following the retreat of Islamist extremists, Tuareg fighters claimed Tuesday that they seized the strategic city of Kidal and other northern towns.

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad — the Tuareg group’s name for northern Mali — appears to have taken advantage of a French-led bombing and ground campaign to dislodge Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters from the towns in northern Mali.

Phone lines were down in Kidal, making it difficult to independently confirm the group’s claim.

The Tuareg movement said on its website that it was ready to work with French troops and fight terror organizations.

However, it said it would refuse to allow Malian soldiers in Kidal, and the other towns under its control in northeastern Mali, following allegations that the troops killed civilians suspected of having links to the Islamists.

It said it “decided to retake these localities with all urgency to assure the security of the belongings, and more particularly of people, because of the grave danger their lives faced with the return of the Malian army, marching in the footsteps of the French army.”

While the group known as NMLA was an important player in the early days of the Malian conflict last April, it had been ousted from power in northern Mali by the Al Qaeda-linked extremists known as Ansar Dine.

Kidal is the last of the three provincial capitals across the north that had been under the grip of the Islamists since last April. French and Malian forces retook Gao over the weekend, and announced Monday that the Malians had entered the fabled city of Timbuktu.

“The Malian military is in control of Timbuktu,” Modibo Traore told The Associated Press on Tuesday morning.

The French military operation began more than two weeks ago and has so far met little resistance though experts warn it will be harder to hold on to the towns than it was to recapture them from the Islamists.

Photos released by the French military showed throngs of jubilant residents greeting the arrival of troops in the town, where Islamists whipped women for going outside without veils and amputated the hand of a suspected thief.

There also was celebration among the thousands of Timbuktu residents who fled the city rather than live under strict and pitiless Islamic rule and the dire poverty that worsened after the tourist industry was destroyed.

“In the heart of people from northern Mali, it’s a relief — freedom finally,” said Cheick Sormoye, a Timbuktu resident who fled to Bamako, the capital.

However, the mayor of Timbuktu said Islamists set fire to an institute housing irreplaceable manuscripts before they fled the town.

Timbuktu has been home to some 20,000 irreplaceable manuscripts, some dating to the 12th century. It was not immediately known how many were destroyed in the blaze that was set in recent days in an act of vengeance by the Islamists before they withdrew.

Michael Covitt, chairman of the Malian Manuscript Foundation, called the arson a “desecration to humanity.”

“These manuscripts are irreplaceable. They have the wisdom of the ages and it’s the most important find since the Dead Sea Scrolls,” he said.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News