Tuaregs seize 2 fleeing Islamist leaders
2013-02-04 17:47
Kidal - Tuareg rebels in northern Mali said on Monday they had captured two
senior Islamist insurgents fleeing French air strikes toward the Algerian
border, and France pressed ahead with its bombing campaign against al-Qaeda's
Saharan desert camps.
Pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels said they had seized Mohamed Moussa Ag
Mohamed, an Islamist leader who imposed harsh sharia law in the desert town of
Timbuktu, and Oumeini Ould Baba Akhmed, believed to be responsible for the
kidnapping of a French hostage by the al-Qaeda splinter group Mujwa.
"We chased an Islamist convoy close to the frontier and arrested the
two men the day before yesterday," Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, spokesperson for
the MNLA, told Reuters from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. "They have been
questioned and sent to Kidal."
France has deployed 3 500 ground troops, and warplanes and armoured vehicles
in its three-week-old Operation Serval (Wildcat) in Mali which has broken the
Islamists' 10-month grip on northern towns, where they imposed sharia law.
Paris and its international partners want to prevent the Islamists from
using Mali's vast desert north as a base to launch attacks on neighbouring
African countries and the West.
Peace talks
The MNLA, which seized control of northern Mali last year only to be pushed
aside by better-armed Islamist groups, regained control of its northern
stronghold of Kidal last week when Islamist fighters fled French airstrikes
into the nearby desert and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.
The Tuareg group says it is willing to help the French-led mission by
hunting down Islamists. It has offered to hold peace talks with the government
in a bid to heal wounds between Mali's restive Saharan north and the black
African-dominated south.
"Until there is a peace deal, we cannot hold national elections,"
Ag Assaleh said, referring to interim Malian President Dioncounda Traore's plan
to hold polls on 31 July.
Many in the southern capital Bamako - including army leaders who blame the
MNLA for executing some of their troops at the Saharan town of Aguelhoc last
year - strongly reject any talks.
French special forces took the airport in Kidal on Tuesday, reaching the
most northern city previously held by the Islamist alliance. Though the MNLA
says it controls Kidal, a Reuters reporter in the town saw a contingent of
Chadian troops - part of a UN-backed African mission being deployed to help
retake northern Mali - backing up French special forces there.
Targeting rebel bases
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said warplanes were continuing
bombing raids on Islamists in Mali's far north to destroy their supply lines
and flush them out of remote areas.
"The objective is to destroy their support bases, their depots because
they have taken refuge in the north and north-east of the country and can only
stay there in the long-term if they have the means to sustain themselves,"
Fabius said.
"The army is working to stop that," he told French radio.
Jets attacked rebel camps on Sunday targeting logistics bases and training
camps used by the al-Qaeda-linked rebels near Tessalit, close to the Algerian
border.
French President Francois Hollande made a one-day trip to Mali on Saturday,
promising to keep troops in the country until the job of restoring government
control in the Sahel state was finished. He was welcomed as a saviour by
cheering Malians.
The rebels' retreat to hideouts in the remote Adrar des Ifoghas mountains -
where Paris believes they are holding seven French hostages - heralds a
potentially more complicated new phase of France's intervention in its former
colony.
"We are still in the same war, but we're entering a new battle,"
said Vincent Desportes, a French former general and now associate professor at
Science-Po university in Paris.
"We will look to gradually wear out and destroy the terrorists that are
sheltering in the Ifoghas. It's now a war of intelligence [services], strikes
and probably action by special forces in the background."
Withdrawal plans
Hollande said on Saturday that Paris would withdraw its troops from Mali
once the landlocked West African nation had restored sovereignty over its
territory and a UN-backed African military force could take over from the
French soldiers.
Drawn mostly from Mali's West African neighbours, this force is expected to
number more than 8 000. But its deployment has been badly hampered by shortages
of kit and airlift capacity and questions about who will fund the estimated $1bn
cost.
Fabius said French soldiers may soon pull back from Timbuktu. Its residents
had celebrated their liberation from the Islamists, who had handed down
punishments including whipping and amputation for breaking sharia law.
The rebels also smashed sacred Sufi mausoleums and destroyed or stole some 2
000 ancient manuscripts at the South African-sponsored Baba Ahmed Institute, causing
international outcry.
"A withdrawal could happen very quickly," Fabius said. "We're
working towards it because we have no desire to stay there for the long-term.
