[ 2012-05-27 ]

Mali split deepens after northern rebels unite
BAMAKO (AFP) - A move by Mali's Tuareg and
Islamist rebels to merge and declare a new state
in the north left the west African country closer
to breakup Sunday, two months after a fateful coup
in the south.

As an Islamic state called Azawad took root in the
north, the interim president tasked with restoring
Mali's unity was in a Paris hotel, recovering from
an assault in his office on the eve of the
transition's official start.

"The Ansar Dine movement and the National Movement
for the Liberation of Azawad (Tuareg MNLA)
proclaim their dissolution in Azawad (northern
Mali)," the two groups said in an agreement sent
to AFP Saturday.

"The two movements have created the transitional
council of the Islamic state of Azawad," said the
groups, which have been controlling the area for
the past two months, in their "protocol
agreement".

"We are all in favour of the independence of
Azawad," they said, adding that "we all accept
Islam as the religion."

The accord between the secular Tuareg and the
Islamists comes after weeks of sometimes fraught
discussions between two movements which have long
been separated in their objectives and
ideologies.

In Gao, a major town in the north where leaders of
the two movements have been holding talks, the
sealing of the deal was greeted by the sound of
guns being fired into the air, local residents
said.

"Allah has triumphed," declared Sanda Ould
Boumama, an Ansar Dine spokesman in the northern
Malian desert city of Timbuktu.

Tuareg rebels, many of whom were mercenaries who
had fought for Moamer Kadhafi and returned heavily
armed to their homeland, rekindled their
decades-old struggle for autonomy with a massive
offensive in mid-January.

A coup by Captain Amadou Sanogo and a group of
low-ranking officers ousted the government in
Bamako on March 22, saying it was incompetent in
handling the Tuareg rebellion.

However the coup only opened the way for the
Tuaregs, Ansar Dine -- led by the charismatic Ag
Ghaly and backed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb (AQIM) -- and criminal groups to occupy
the vast north of the country, an area larger than
France.

In a message earlier in the week Abdelmalek
Droukdel, the head of Al-Qaeda's African offshoot,
advised combatants in northern Mali to impose
Sharia law "gradually" so as to achieve the
creation of an Islamic state.

The agreement between the Tuareg MNLA and Ansar
Dine leaves AQIM's position in "Azawad" unclear
but creates a fresh headache for the transitional
authorities in Bamako and the West African bloc
ECOWAS.

Transitional leaders have stressed their wish to
restore the country's territorial integrity but
seem unable to guarantee their own safety, let
alone mount a credible challenge against the
north's new masters.

Mali's interim president Dioncounda Traore was
still in France for a private visit and medical
treatment after the 70-year-old was assaulted by
protesters inside his office on May 22.

His entourage said the tests had revealed nothing
alarming and said Traore, staying in a hotel in
the French capital with his family, was expected
back in Mali in the coming week. They did not
provide a date.

Traore, already interim president from April 12,
was appointed to lead the long-term transition
after mediators from the 15-nation ECOWAS wrested
a deal from coup leader Sanogo.

According to that deal, Sanogo will step aside
with all the benefits of a former head of state,
but his supporters have been clamouring for him to
retake the reins of the country.

The prime minister of Mali's transitional
government, Cheick Modibo Diarra, arrived in
Abidjan Saturday for talks with ECOWAS head
Alassane Ouattara, the president of Ivory Coast.

Source - AFP

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