Mali: Heavy gunfire erupts in Bamako
2013-02-08 16:10
Bamako - Heavy gunfire erupted in the west of Mali's capital
Bamako on Friday, as government forces exchanged fire with mutinous
paratroopers, military sources and witnesses said.
Government forces sealed off the area around the paratroopers'
base, as reinforcements arrived to quell the mutiny which was protesting
disciplinary measures against some of the unit's members. Smoke was seen rising
from the camp.
Since a military coup in March last year that plunged Mali
into chaos and led to the occupation of the north by Tuareg and Islamist
rebels, paratroopers loyal to former President Amadou Toumani Toure had been
largely sidelined and some arrested.
"The Chief of Staff had taken a disciplinary measure
against some of the paratroopers, and some of them were not happy with the
decision so they woke up this morning and started shooting," a Malian
defense ministry official told Reuters.
The shooting in the southern capital Bamako occurred while
French and Chadian troops hunted Islamist rebels hundreds of kilometres
to the north in the second phase of a French-led military operation against al-Qaeda-allied insurgents.
North of Gao, a Saharan town recently recaptured from the
Islamists, a suicide bomber on a motobike blew himself up on Friday, injuring
one Malian soldier, a Mali military officer said.
National political settlement
It was the first reported suicide bombing since the
French-led military intervention launched on 11 January drove the Islamist
rebels from their desert strongholds of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in northern
Mali.
"A kamikaze on a motorbike just blew himself up at the
Bourem checkpoint at 06:30. One lightly wounded soldier from Gao," the
officer told Reuters by text message.
In Bamako, groups of the paratroopers, who wear red berets,
had been staging protests to demand that commanders send them to the front to
join the offensive against the Islamists.
The French-led military operation involving 4 000 French
troops backed by warplanes successfully pushed the Islamist rebels out of the
main towns of northern Mali, but driving them from their mountain bases could
prove a tougher task.
France and its western allies are pushing for a national
political settlement and democratic elections to stabilise the situation in the
West Africa state, where interim civilian leaders have faced interference from
March coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo and other junta officers.
In May, Sanogo's troops said they put down a counter-coup
attempt led by paratroopers which led to several days of fighting in the
riverside capital in which at least 27 people were killed.
