More suicide bombs hit Mali
2013-02-22 14:27
Bamako - Five people, including two suicide bombers, died
Friday in car bombings in northern Mali, a day after fierce urban battles
between French-led forces and Islamists left up to 20 extremists dead,
officials said.
Two kamikaze vehicles targeting civilians and members of the
ethnic Tuareg rebel group the MNLA exploded near the town of Tessalit, killing
three and wounding several others, a security source said.
A spokesperson for the National Movement for the Liberation
of Azawad (MNLA) in Burkina Faso confirmed the report. Mohamed Ibrahim Ag
Asseleh said "the two kamikazes were killed and in our ranks there were
three dead and four seriously wounded".
The blasts came after al-Qaeda-linked rebels claimed a car
bomb attack on Thursday near a camp occupied by French and Chadian troops in
the city of Kidal, local officials said.
At least two civilians were reported wounded in that attack.
The vehicle, apparently driven by a suicide bomber, was targeting the camp but
exploded before it reached it, killing the driver, an official in Kidal
governor's office said.
France sent in its troops in January to help the Malian army
oust Islamist militants who last year captured the desert north of the country.
Thousands of soldiers from African countries have also deployed since then.
The French-led forces are increasingly facing
guerrilla-style tactics after initially meeting little resistance in their
drive to oust Islamists from the main northern centres of Gao, Kidal and
Timbuktu.
The Tuareg MNLA blamed Friday's car bomb attacks on the al-Qaeda-linked
Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao), one of Mali's main
Islamist groups.
More explosions
The Mujao made no comment on the latest attacks, but on
Thursday it told AFP that it was responsible for the car bomb in Kidal.
"More explosions will happen across our
territory," Mujao spokesperson Abu Walid Sahraoui warned.
He also said the group had sent fighters to Gao, 1 200km
from the capital Bamako, where battles erupted overnight on Wednesday after
about 40 Islamists infiltrated the city.
The Islamists briefly occupied the courthouse and the city
hall but French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Malian and French
forces backed by French helicopters repelled the attack on Thursday.
Le Drian said initally that five Islamists were killed in
the fierce street fighting, but on Friday the French defence ministry between
15 and 20 had died.
Sporadic gunfire was heard on Friday morning in Gao, an AFP
journalist there said.
Mujao spokesperson Sahraoui said the rebels were determined
to recapture the city: "Our troops have been ordered to attack. If the
enemy is stronger, we'll pull back only to return stronger, until we liberate
Gao."
Mali's Prime Minister Diango Cissoko said this week that
large-scale military operations in the north were winding down, but sporadic
fighting has continued.
A French legionnaire was killed on Tuesday in the
mountainous Ifoghas region. The French military said that their "Panthere
4" operation in the Ifoghas had already left 30 Islamists dead since the
start of the week.
UN stabilisation force
Ethnic Tuaregs in northern Mali, who have long sought
greater autonomy, initially backed the rebellion but later fell out with the
Islamists and regained control of Kidal before the arrival of French troops.
At least 1 800 Chadian troops were then deployed in the city
as part of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA), a
military force organised by west African countries which France hopes will
eventually become a UN stabilisation force.
Asked whether it was coordinating its efforts with the
Tuaregs of the MNLA, the French military said Thursday it was working with
"groups that have the same objective" as France.
In Nouakchott, the capital of neighbouring Mauritania,
dozens of Malian Arabs demonstrated Thursday to denounce abuses they said had
been committed by Malian troops against light-skinned Malians, particularly
Arabs, in the north.
Human Rights Watch has urged Bamako to act.
"The Malian government should urgently investigate and
prosecute soldiers responsible for torture, summary executions, and enforced
disappearances of suspected Islamist rebels and alleged collaborators," it
said.
