Mali Islamists split, leader seeks talks

Agencies/BamakoFrench warplanes destroyed two Islamist bases in northern Mali as a leading Al Qaeda-linked group in the region split yesterday, with the breakaway group saying it wanted talks to end a Paris-led offensive against the militants. The French bombing raids overnight targeted Ansongo, about 80km from the town of Gao and extremist bases in the nearby village of the Seyna Sonrai, a Malian military source said on condition of anonymity. “French military planes successfully attacked Islamist positions at Ansongo and nearby areas,” the source said. “The strikes were very successful and caused damage to the enemy.” A security source in Niger confirmed the raids, saying “two main bases of the Islamists were destroyed” as well as their fuel stocks and armoury. A faction of one of the armed Islamist groups occupying the north of the Mali has split off from its al Qaeda allies and says it is willing to hold talks with the government, the leader of the new group said on ysterday.Alghabass Ag Intallah, a senior member of the Tuareg-led Ansar Dine group which helped seize northern Mali last year from government forces, said he had created a new organisation, the Islamic Movement of Azawad (MIA), and was ready to seek a negotiated solution to Mali’s conflict.A French-led military operation is underway in Mali to drive back the Islamist fighters who launched a surprise push southward toward the capital Bamako two weeks ago. An African ground force is being deployed to support French and Malian troops.“We want to wage our war and not that of AQIM,” Ag Intallah said by telephone, referring to Al Qaeda’s North African wing which has been at the heart of the takeover of the vast desert north by Malian and foreign Islamist fighters.“There has to be a ceasefire so there can be talks,” he said, speaking from the town of Kidal, a Tuareg stronghold in northeast Mali seized by Ansar Dine last year. “The aim is to speak about the situation in the north.”He said the new group, which would be based in Kidal, had been in touch with mediators in Burkina Faso and Algerian authorities. He said rebel demands would be for a broad autonomy rather than independence for the north.Ansar Dine had formed a loose alliance with AQIM and a third group, Mujwa, to impose Shariah in the desert and mountain area the size of Texas.It was not immediately possible to confirm how many fighters would leave the ranks of Ansar Dine to join the new group.International negotiators have long sought to prize apart the Islamist alliance by offering talks to Ansar Dine and Tuareg separatists, on the condition that they broke with AQIM. Ag Intallah was a senior Ansar Dine negotiator in talks last year.But preliminary negotiations broke down last month after Ansar Dine called off a ceasefire, amid reports of splits between moderates seeking a political solution and radicals with deep links to Al Qaeda.Ag Intallah would not give a figure for his supporters, as he said a list was still being drawn up, but he said most Malians in the ranks of Ansar Dine had joined his faction. Estimates for the total number of Islamist fighters in Mali vary but do not exceed roughly 3,000.Ag Intallah said some members of the Tuareg separatist MNLA movement, which has fought AQIM in the north, had also joined his group.A spokesman for the MNLA was not immediately available for comment.Separately, more than 2,000 Chadian soldiers and 500 troops from Niger are being deployed at Ouallam in Niger, near the Mali border, to open a second front against the Islamists as part of a UN-mandated African force to boost, and eventually take over, the two-week-long French-led campaign. The battle-hardened Chadian soldiers are adept at desert warfare and are experienced in putting down rebellions at home and in neighbouring countries. The first of the 6,000 troops pledged by African nations to support France started heading north yesterday.The UN has authorised the deployment of a 3,300-strong force under the auspices of 15-nation West African bloc Ecowas. The involvement of non-member Chad could boost its numbers by another 2,000. Most of the estimated 1,000 African soldiers now in Mali are still in Bamako but a Malian defence source said a group of 160 troops from Burkina Faso had started making its way to central regions nearer the frontline. But there has been increasing alarm about reports of rights abuses by Malian soldiers on ethnic Tuaregs and Arabs. The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said at least 31 people were executed in the central town of Sevare, and some bodies dumped in wells, according to local researchers. Two Tuaregs were also executed by Malian soldiers in the central town of Niono, it said, calling for an immediate independent inquiry to “determine the scale of the abuses and to punish the perpetrators”. Human Rights Watch said its investigators had spoken to witnesses who saw the executions of two Tuareg men in the village of Siribala, near Niono. It also said witnesses had reported “credible information” of soldiers sexually abusing women in a village near Sevare, and called on the government to urgently investigate.