Mali troops fire weapons at town hall
2013-02-22 21:25
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Mali
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Gao - Malian soldiers on Friday fired rocket-propelled
grenades at the town hall in Gao, where armed Islamist forces had been holed up
the previous day during heavy fighting, an AFP journalist reported.
It was not immediately possible to determine whether
Islamists were still active inside the building in the northern town.
A Malian soldier
earlier said "many" bodies of dead fighters wore explosives belts,
both in the town hall and the nearby court house.
He added that mines had been laid in the area.
According to the French army, between 15 and 20 Islamists
were killed and two French soldiers "very slightly wounded" in
fighting in central Gao on Thursday.
"Four Malian soldiers are said to have been
wounded," a French military source said.
Overnight on Thursday and on Friday morning, shooting
broke out in several parts of Gao, which lies in northern desert territory 1 200km
from the capital Bamako.
In the city centre, notably at the main market, Islamist
snipers were positioned on rooftops, an AFP journalist saw.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao),
which occupied Gao for nine months before it was recaptured by French and
Malian troops in a French-led offensive on 26 January, said it had sent
fighters into Gao to "free it from the evil-doers".
The Islamist movement said that the battle had "only
just begun" to seize back control of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, the three
main northern towns which fell to jihadist insurgents last year.
