Mali Islamists 'oust' Tuaregs from Timbuktu
2012-06-29 14:32
Bamako - Tuareg rebels left the north-western Mali town of Timbuktu and its outskirts Thursday on the orders of armed Islamist group Ansar Dine, witnesses told AFP.
Residents contacted from the capital Bamako said no fighters from the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) could be seen in the last positions they had occupied around Timbuktu and at the airport.
"Ansar Dine gave them two hours to leave" and they did so, according to the owner of a hotel that had been closed by the Islamists. The order was given before midday Thursday.
No official from Ansar Dine or the MNLA could immediately be contacted.
Islamists patrolled the streets of Gao and arrested civilians on Thursday after dislodging Tuareg rebels from their positions in the northern Mali town in a day of deadly combat.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) had carried out patrols all through the night and arrested at least four civilians who were carrying arms, residents of the town reported.
Two chiefs of armed Islamist groups were seen in the city Thursday, said a local politician - Mokhtar Belmokhtar of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Iyad Ag Ghaly, head of Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith).
The Tuareg fighters, who spearheaded the late March takeover of northern Mali by various rebel groups, lost their regional headquarters and part of a military camp near the airport in Wednesday's clashes.
Several sources reported a column of vehicles packed with Islamist fighters for Ansar Dine had left for Gao from the town of Kidal, which is under their command.
Key cities
The fighting in Gao took a heavy toll. Witnesses counted at least 21 bodies around the town.
Two dead still lay in front of the governorate, the former headquarters of the MNLA.
MNLA secretary general Bilal Ag Acherif was wounded and evacuated from Gao to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
"He was mostly hit with shrapnel," a hospital source said.
Witnesses said two former colonels who defected to the rebellion were killed, and many Tuaregs were transferred to Algeria with injuries.
"In total 41 people with bullet wounds were treated in the town hospital which has been supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross since April," the ICRC said in a statement.
The key cities in the north were seized by Tuareg and Islamist rebels after a 22 March coup in Bamako, but the Islamists quickly took the upper hand and began implementing strict Islamic law in Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao.
The Tuareg have demanded a secular independent state, but have increasingly been pushed aside by the Islamists.
