Anxiety grips Mali after soldiers and rebels clash

Mali, Tuesday

Anxiety has gripped Mali amid contrasting positions by the government and rebels in the north following clashes that have left scores dead.

The flare-up is seemingly shaping up a secessionist battle. Rebel leaders of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) said they were ready for a major offensive inland following a series of attacks that have targeted mainly small towns in northern Mali.

But the Malian Government said the northern situation was under control and security patrols at the weekend had led to the death of more than 20 soldiers, with troops being on high alert for any fresh attacks.

Tuareg rebels have in the last two weeks attacked six towns in the north in a fresh rebellion since the last one ended in 2009.

They are seeking an independent state in Azawad to the north of land-locked Mali, a region which includes Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao.

But the government has accused them of being proxies for the terrorist group Al-Qaeda and committing atrocities in the area. The rebels have, however, denied the accusations.

Mali President Amadou Toumani Touré said that the government was channelling supplies to troops in the north and had left the military to decide how to defend their positions.

“At the beginning of the crisis, I allowed the Defence and Finance ministers to pay soldiers three months allowances before they go to the battlefield in the north,” he said in a public meeting with the families of some of those affected by the fighting and who have accused him of not doing enough.

But the MNLA said it had surrounded the strategic town of Kidal. “We’re surrounding the town, but we haven’t cut it off completely,” Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, the Paris-based spokesman for the rebel group, was quoted by news agency AP as saying.

“Our strategy has been to attack smaller towns with major military bases first so that later we don’t have to worry about attacks coming from many directions.”

There was reported gunfire in the town on Friday and Saturday as the army sought to counter the insurgents.

The growing crisis in the north has also led to reprisal attacks in Bamako against Tuaregs while some 1,500 Malians were reported to have fled into neighbouring Burkina Faso.

Agriculture minister Agatam ag Alhassane, a Tuareg whose brother was a former rebel, is said to have sought permission to move his family out of Mali following the attacks