Desert city back in army control after rebel attack

Mali’s northern desert capital Kidal was back in government hands on Wednesday, a day after Tuareg rebels demanding a better economic deal for the region blitzed a string of barracks. The rebels, who attacked two bases in Kidal and one in Menaka further south, made off with vehicles, arms and munitions. Army troops were reported to be moving north to reinforce security in the traumatised desert city tucked in Mali’s northeast corner between Algeria and Niger. “The situation is under control but the city has ground to a standstill,” Yaya Dolo, chief aide for the governor of Kidal, told IRIN by telephone. In the capital, the Defence Ministry said late on Wednesday that “the attack against camps Number 1 and 2 in the city of Kidal, made possible by defections and accomplices inside, has ended.” “Currently, all of the town of Kidal is entirely under the control of the armed forces,” said the statement, signed by the ministry’s secretary-general, General Abdou Karim Diop. The turban-clad rebels, some believed to be army deserters seeking improved conditions for their people, attacked early on Tuesday morning, riding into town in trucks mounted with machine-guns. Residents reported heavy shooting through the morning which continued sporadically later in the day. Defence ministry spokesman Nouhoum Togo said “it is impossible to detail casualties for the moment.” But terrified residents said they were still afraid to come out. “People are haunted by fear,” said Assori Aicha Belco Maiga, who heads an association to promote women’s education. “Thank God no civilians appear to have been killed. It was (Tuareg) Hassane Fagaga and a band of former rebels who had been integrated into the army.” In a statement to Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Bamako, a rebel spokesman calling himself “Ahmed”, claimed responsibility for the lightning raids on behalf of Lieutenant-Colonel Fagaga, a onetime rebel leader who was integrated into the army as part of a peace deal but who deserted earlier this year. “We do not want war,” the rebel spokesman told AFP. “We want to enter into negotiations with the government … Our region is poor and we want to see it developed quickly,” he said. “We also have problems regarding our integration into the Malian army.” Mali’s vast northern deserts were the scene of a secessionist rebellion in 1990 by Tuaregs, who account for around six percent of the country’s almost 14 million people. Hundreds of people were killed in the fighting and 150,000 fled the country. And despite a peace deal the following year, there was sporadic trouble in the region until the mid-1990s. On Tuesday, President Amadou Toumani Toure issued a plea to avoid reprisals against the country’sTuaregs. “Those who today attacked the military base in Kidal must not be mistaken with our other Tamashek and other compatriots who live with us with our same problems, who have chosen Mali, who have chosen loyalty, and who have the same rights as us.” The 1991 pact to end the Tuareg rebellion included the integration of former rebels into the army and civilian sectors as well as better education and health care facilities, especially in the northeast and east.