Mali rebels pull out of camps

2006-05-24 14:01

Bamako - Tuareg dissidents in the West African state of Mali have pulled out of two northeastern military camps they occupied, taking stolen weapons with them as they left, a military source said on Wednesday.

The warriors, many of whom were integrated into the army under a 1990s peace deal, have asked for negotiations with the Bamako government on their current grievances, officials said.

Speaking by telephone from Kidal, the army source said the group had also seized rations when they departed in trucks, apparently fearing the arrival of government forces to dislodge them from the bases they seized on Tuesday.

Tuaregs are a traditionally nomad people who inhabit the Sahara desert straddling various states, and have frequently resisted attempts to persuade them to recognise international borders or settle down.

Military sources said the attackers were renegade members of a Tuareg group active in the early 1990s before being integrated into the Mali army under a peace deal.

Eyewitnesses said late on Tuesday dozens of Tuareg ex-rebels had pulled out from Kidal after looting armouries.

"They left in a pickup truck with a lot of weapons," said a local teacher who resides not far from one of the camps.

"There were a lot of them, and they headed out north."

Another witness said he had also seen the ex-insurgents leaving with guns including heavy machine guns.

Another military source told AFP a separate group of Tuaregs who attacked a government troop camp at Menaka had also pulled out, apparently trying to link up with the others.

Soldiers and civilians said that most of the roughly 400 government troops at Kidal fled during Tuesday's early morning incidents, when the Tuaregs raced to the assault on four-wheel-drive vehicles.

One government soldier was killed and two were wounded in the fighting at Kidal, military and hospital sources said.

Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure went on radio to pledge that the government would "manage the situation with responsibility but also with balance," noting that Malians faced tough economic and social challenges.

- AFP