Fresh fighting in Malias UN conducts talks

DPA/Bamako Machine gun blasts erupted in the key northern Malian city of Kidal yesterday morning, even as the UN tried to broker a truce between the army and Tuareg rebels. The violence has persisted ever since rebels of the separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) attacked a government building over the weekend, angry that the administration had not kept its promise to negotiate with them the future of the region. The planned negotiations - between the government; MNLA; and other Tuareg groups which demand independence for northern Mali - were promised as part of a road map for peace signed in June 2013 in neighbouring Burkina Faso. But the start of the negotiations had been postponed numerous times. The violence started Saturday, when the MNLA stormed the office of the governor of Kidal shortly after a visit by Prime Minister Moussa Mara to the city. That led to the ongoing fighting, with dozens of combatants killed and scores taken captive in skirmishes between Malian soldiers and members of MNLA in Kidal. The defence ministry said yesterday that army reinforcements were en route from the capital, Bamako. MINUSMA, the UN mission to Mali, condemned the killings as “a barbaric act”. The death toll remained unclear yesterday. The Malian Army said eight of its soldiers and 28 MNLA fighters had been killed. Eight civilians, two residents and six local government officials - had also been killed, according to the UN. The MNLA said they killed 14 soldiers and captured four local government officials as well as 24 soldiers. The men were being held as “prisoners” because the government had failed to negotiate with the MNLA, the group’s spokesman, Moussa Ag Assarid, told DPA. “Among government’s commitments was the release of our prisoners. But instead of releasing them, they continue to arrest more and more Tuaregs, mostly civilian shepherds and others,” the MNLA spokesman said. The spark of the fighting - the prime minister’s visit to Kidal - was the first such visit by a leading government member to the key northern town since France’s military intervention last year. The impoverished West African country is recovering from a March 2012 military coup and an Islamist insurgency that prompted France to send troops to its former colony. France recently reduced its military presence in Mali from 4,500 to 2,300 soldiers, expecting Mali to move toward lasting peace and stability after democratic presidential and parliamentary elections in late 2013. Major General Jean Bosco Kazura, military head of MINUSMA, arrived Sunday afternoon in Kidal to lead the negotiations, the UN said. The US warned yesterday that northern Mali risked sliding back into war and called for the government and Tuareg separatists to return to talks after deadly weekend clashes in in a traditional rebel stronghold. The Malian army was preparing to launch an assault on the northern town of Kidal where separatist fighters killed at least eight soldiers and took around 30 civil servants hostage in an attack on the regional governor’s office on Saturday. “The Malian armed forces are at Kidal,” Prime Minister Moussa Mara said in a televised address late on Sunday. “We have convinced the head of state that it is highly desirable...that Kidal be totally under the control of the Malian state.” Mali’s international partners have been pushing for a final, negotiated settlement to a long cycle of Tuareg independence uprisings, since Al Qaeda-linked fighters hijacked a 2012 rebellion and seized the West African nation’s desert north. But the lines between independence fighters and Islamist groups remain blurred. Talks have stalled between the government and groups that split with their erstwhile al Qaeda allies before a French-led military intervention last year. Mali’s UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA said six government workers and two civilians were murdered inside the building during Saturday’s assault, which took place during a visit by the prime minister to the northern town of Kidal.