‘Dozens killed’ in northern Mali fighting

The tenuous truce between two of the rebel groups controlling northern Mali was shattered on Wednesday, as the al-Qaeda linked faction bent on creating an Islamic state fought its way into the buildings used by a secular rebel group.

The latter were forced to retreat and one of their leaders was airlifted abroad after being shot in the leg.
Hamadada Toure, a local resident, said that he had cowered inside his home when the clashes started when fighters belonging to the Islamic faction known as the Movement of Oneness and Jihad (MUJAO), parked a car loaded with weapons 50 meters from the headquarters of the secular rebel group, the National Movement for the Liberation of  Azawad (NMLA).

The two are among the armed groups that seized control of the northern half of Mali, an area the size of France, earlier this year.

“In all the buildings that the NMLA had controlled, their flag had been taken down and been replaced by the flag of the Islamists.”

The two groups fell out earlier this month because MUJAO and another Islamic faction want to impose Islamic law in northern Mali, while the NMLA wants to create a secular state. Last week, an unwed couple in Gao were publicly lashed.

Toure said that heavy shooting could be heard until 1400 local time on Wednesday.

When he emerged from his house, he found that the balance of power in the town had shifted.

“I saw five dead NMLA fighters whose bodies had been dumped on the ground near the governor’s building in Gao, the headquarters of the NMLA,” Toure said by telephone around 30 minutes after the fighting had stopped.

“In all the buildings that the NMLA had controlled, their flag had been taken down and been replaced by the flag of the Islamists.”

The switch in rebel control of the buildings of Gao was confirmed by a second resident, Mohamed Diamoye, a doctor at the local hospital who said three bodies had been brought to the morgue. They included that of a MUJAO fighter.

A member of the NMLA, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that one of the group’s leaders was accidentally shot during the clash. Bilal Ag Cherif, the NMLA’s secretary general, was airlifted to Ouagadougou, the capital of neighbouring Burkina Faso, in a helicopter.

Among the dead is Bouna Ag Atouyoub, a colonel in the NMLA, said the group’s Paris-based spokes-man Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, who was reached by telephone. — AFP.