Islamist group plants flag in Mali's Timbuktu

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http://www.emirates247.com/news/world/i ... 2-1.451811

Islamist group plants flag in Mali's Timbuktu
Tuareg rebellion claims north's three largest towns
By

* AP

Published Monday, April 02, 2012

Malian men look at newspapers in Bamako on April 2. West African leaders will decide on Monday whether to impose sanctions on Mali after leaders of a military coup said they would return power to civilians in a bid to avert diplomatic and economic isolation. (Reuters)

A member of the military says Islamist rebels entered the ancient city of Timbuktu and planted a flag after Tuareg rebels seized the city.

The man said the rebel Ansar Dine group drove in in a 10-car convoy on Monday and planted their black flag.

The news is a worrying development for the north of Mali, where a Tuareg rebellion has now claimed the three largest northern towns including Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu. In Kidal and Gao, an Islamist faction had early on taken the lead, and shopkeepers reported they were told by the rebels to take down pictures of unveiled women.

On Sunday when Timbuktu fell, it appeared that a group of secular Tuareg rebels had the upper hand. The official said that residents are fleeing.

[Ogopogo]

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/06/the- ... r-of-mali/


The Islamist Takeover Of Mali

Posted by Frank Crimi Bio ↓ on Apr 6th, 2012 Comments ↓
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Islamist and al-Qaeda forces, along with former Gadhafi mercenaries, have wrested control over Mali’s entire northern territory with the recent seizure of a key Malian city, an unsettling outcome which marks just one of the ugly after-effects of Libya’s civil war.

The recent seizure of Timbuktu, located 600 miles north of Mali’s capital of Bamako, by rebel forces battling the Malian government represented the government’s last major stronghold seizure in the north. Having already lost the northern Mali cities of Kidal and Gao only days earlier, the capture of Timbuktu has marked the effective end of the Malian government’s control over its northern territory, a desert region larger than France.

More importantly, there are now fears that a rebellion that began in January as a separatist movement is being overtaken by Islamist and al-Qaeda factions. These factions are not interested in a creating a separate secular state but rather are intent on turning the entire country of Mali into a Sharia-run Islamic state.

Initially, the rebellion against the Malian government had been launched as a separatist movement by the nomadic Tuareg people to form an independent state in Mali’s northern Azawad region. The Tuareg were led by fighters who had once worked as mercenaries for Muammar Gadhafi before his death in October 2011. Once they returned home, these mercenaries launched a push for Tuareg independence under the banner of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

Fueling the Tuareg push for statehood was a huge stash of Libyan weaponry the Tuareg mercenaries had looted from the Gadhafi regime’s unguarded armories and ammunition depots. Yet despite its influx of weapons, the heavily armed MNLA had spent the first two months of the rebellion making little progress, taking a few dozen small towns but failing to capture any of the major population centers in the north.

That, however, all changed with an assist from the Mali military when on March 21 it staged a coup in the capital of Bamako that ousted the country’s democratically elected leader, Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure. That coup, led by Captain Amadou Sanogo, was undertaken because disgruntled Mali government soldiers were upset over ineffectual efforts by Toure to fight battles against the Tuareg, in particular Toure’s decision to send poorly trained conscripts to fight.

The coup also prompted the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to react by closing the borders of the landlocked desert nation and threaten to impose economic sanctions on the country if the military junta did not begin immediately handing back power. Those sanctions, among the strictest ever imposed by ECOWAS, included blocking food, fuel and medical imports into the country, rendering a potentially staggering impact on Mali’s already 15 million impoverished citizens. Yet, despite Amadou Sanogo’s promise to reinstate the Malian constitution and organize a transfer of power back to civilians through democratic elections, the junta has ignored demands for an immediate exit from power.

Not surprisingly, opposition forces took immediate advantage of the ensuing political chaos caused by the junta and quickly launched an offensive that saw its forces take the cities of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu. Those victories have now apparently been enough to satiate the MNLA’s appetite. According to MNLA spokesman, Hama Ag Mahmoud, the MNLA does not intend to advance further south on the capital of Bamako. Instead the separatist group would cement its control over newly-captured areas, an understandable position given that the territory it has seized is what it originally sought in order to create an independent state.

However, while the MNLA may be satisfied with its current military achievement, it’s far from clear if the rebellion’s Islamist factions are of the same mind. For example, the Islamist Tuareg group known as Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) — which has only around 300 fighters as opposed to the MNLA’s 3,000 insurgents — is believed to be playing a larger and more powerful role in the Malian conflict than the MNLA.

Those fears were recently echoed by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe who said, “It appears that an extreme Islamist-jihadist faction (Ansar Dine) is taking the upper hand among the different Tuareg factions.” For starters, it was the Ansar Dine, led by Salafist leader Iyad Ag Ghaly, which was the group which actually captured the city of Timbuktu, raising its black Islamist flag over the city and claiming it as its new base.

In addition to Timbuktu, it is reported that the Ansar Dine has already begun to flex it muscle by imposing new Islamic measures in recently captured cities of Kidal and Gao, measures which include the banning of Western-style clothes, music and alcohol.

The rise in influence by the Ansar Dine may be traced to its reportedly growing alliance with al-Qaeda-linked groups that inhabit the vast sub Saharan region: al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA). AQIM’s alliance with Ansar Dine was most recently on display when three of its top leaders — Abou Zeid, Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Yahya Abou Al-Hammam — met in Timbuktu with Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghaly and the city’s imams only days after the town’s capture.

For its part, MUJWA, which split from AQIM last year, has issued statements that it has been taking part with the Ansar Dine in the recent advances that have swept across northern Mali. AQIM — which operates in parts of Mali, Algeria, Niger, Chad and Mauritania — has long terrorized the Sahara. Specifically, it has subjected the region to terror attacks, kidnappings of Westerners, weapons and drug trafficking, and a burgeoning partnership with the Nigerian Islamic terror group Boko Haram.

Like the Tuareg, AQIM also took advantage of the downfall of the Gadhafi regime to rearm itself with looted weapons, including thousands of shoulder-fired heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles. That shopping spree is reportedly still ongoing with recent reports that Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a top fugitive leader in AQIM, has been in Libya searching for new weapons. Unfortunately, as one analyst said, there is “a direct connection” to the fall of Gadhafi and the weapons which continue to flow out of Libya to help the Tuaregs, Islamists and al-Qaeda establish power in the region.

While it still remains unclear how much power each of these groups will eventually amass, it’s certainly clear that the biggest loser stands to be the more than 200,000 Malian people who have been uprooted since the violence began, a number that only promises to grow larger.

[Ogopogo]

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2012/s12040044.htm

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Christian leader beheaded as Islamists terrorize Mali

By Charles Gardner
Special to ASSIST News Service

TIMBUKTU, MALI (ANS) -- A Christian leader has been beheaded and others are being threatened with similar treatment as Islamic militants run amok in Mali, West Africa.

Islamic troops in Timbuktu
Christians have fled the town of Timbuktu in the north of the country where harsh Sharia Law has already been imposed amid reports that churches in Gao, 200 miles to the east, have been completely destroyed.

The news comes in the wake of a military coup in the country, one of the effects of which is that sanctions applied from outside has cut off electricity supplies, further delaying reports of the latest upheavals along with desperate pleas for help.

Among those affected is British Bible college graduate Timothee (Tim) Yattara, who recently returned home to his home country in a bid to help spread the gospel in this remote – and now dangerous – part of Africa located on the edge of the Sahara.

Tim has fled with his family to Bamako, the country’s main city some 400 miles away in the south-west, but without the money to rent a house.

Tim Yattara
“We have escaped in the wake of horrible death threats as the Islamists have a list of all the Christians in Timbuktu whom they intend to execute by beheading. As proof of their intentions, one leader has already been killed in this way and some churches in Gao have been demolished. Most Christians have already fled for safety, but Sharia Law has been imposed all over the north.

“As refugees in Bamako, life is very difficult for me and my family as we are in desperate need of finance, just to pay for shelter and safety,” he said.

Already suffering famine through drought, Mali is being terrorized by Al Qaida and associated rebels said to be claiming the northern part of the territory as their homeland.

Only last week we were reporting that Timbuktu was surrounded by tents inhabited by impoverished people who have fled the countryside in the wake of the spreading famine, exacerbated by rising unemployment and massive inflation with many struggling to find food and work.

And with a government now overthrown by a coup, the security situation has been made even worse by rebels from Libya loyal to their former leader Col Gaddafi.

Anyone able to help should e-mail Tim at timfromtimbucktu@googlemail.com to whom you are able to send aid directly by Western Union.

Tim knows nothing is impossible with God, however. As reported on the site last week, he was miraculously raised from the dead through the prayers of his family when he was a little boy. (See: www.assistnews.net/Stories/2012/s12030149.htm)

[Ogopogo]

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-05-16-mali ... sharia-law

Malians riot as rebels impose Sharia law
16 May 2012 14:38 - Guardian Reporters

Amnesty International says Islamist groups and insurgents are 'running riot' after a military coup deposed the Bamako government in March.

Attempts by Malian insurgents to impose Sharia law in the north of the country have sparked protests against rebel control.

Witnesses say Ansar Dine – the Islamic sect that controls much of northern Mali, together with Tuareg separatists the MNLA and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – fired into the air injuring five people during protests in the northern city of Gao, including one by a stray bullet.

“We received five wounded, including one by a bullet. They are all civilians,” a source at the hospital in Gao told the South African Press Association.

The protests come amid reports that rebels were intensifying attempts to impose sharia law in northern Mali, smashing TV sets claiming they were being used to play video games or watch content considered un-Islamic.

Ansar Dine blocked an aid convoy with tonnes of food and medical supplies for the northern city of Timbuktu on Tuesday, objecting to the presence of women in a reception committee set up for the aid.

Desecrating mausoleums
Ansar Dine already stand accused of desecrating mausoleums dedicated to local saints in Timbuktu, prompting further fears for the 12th century Unesco world heritage site.

The convoy marked the first aid deployed to Timbuktu since a military coup on March 22 toppled the civilian government in the capital, Bamako, allowing rebels to seize control of urban centres in the vast desert north.

Protests against the rebels come as Amnesty International accused all armed groups in northern Mali of “running riot” and committing human rights violations including arbitrary detention, extrajudicial executions and rape.

“After two decades of relative stability and peace, Mali is now facing its worst crisis since independence in 1960,” said Amnesty’s West Africa researcher Gaetan Mootoo.

“The entire north of the country has been taken over by armed groups who are running riot.
More Coverage

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Tens of thousands of people have fled the region, creating a humanitarian crisis in Mali and in neighbouring countries.”

‘Persistent refusal’
The continuing stronghold of rebel groups in northern Mali has prompted a new wave of political antagonism in Bamako, after regional group Ecowas accused the junta of a “persistent refusal ... to concentrate their efforts on the recovery of the territorial integrity of the nation and their continued interference with the transition, in particular, the attempts to sideline the transitional government”.

The latest dispute between the junta and the international community centres around the approaching May 22 deadline when the 40-day term of office of interim president Dioncounda Traoré expires. The temporary period – which was intended to prepare for elections which will no longer take place in May – is mandated by the Constitution but it is unclear whether the law allows for Traoré to remain in power.

Military leader Captain Amadou Sanogo has refused to quell speculation that he has the presidency in his sights, prompting immediate criticism from the international community. Sanogo declared on Monday that Mali will hold a national convention to choose a leader to rule until elections can be organised.

“The Ecowas commission has observed with deep concern the worrying statements and actions emanating from members of the [junta] and their civilian associates in the last few days,” said a statement from Ecowas, warning that it would reimpose targeted sanctions.

“Failure on the part of the [coup leaders] and their civilian allies to clearly reaffirm their commitment to the transitional arrangement in the next few days ... will be met with the immediate reinstatement of the targeted sanctions,” the statement said. – © Guardian News and Media 2012

[Ogopogo]

http://www.france24.com/en/20120527-mal ... -dine-coup

Latest update: 27/05/2012
- Islamist militants - Mali - Tuareg

Mali rebel groups unite to create new Islamist state
Mali's secular Tuareg rebels and the Islamist militants Ansar Dine have agreed to join forces and create an independent Islamic state in the north of the country, the two factions announced in a joint statement on Saturday.
By News Wires (text)


AFP - Tuareg rebels and the Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine announced Saturday they are joining forces and creating a body to rule northern Mali as an independent Islamic state.

"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.

"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.

It also marks a major turning point for northern Mali which has slipped out of the government's control since a March coup.

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 Bouamama, an Ansar Dine spokesman in the northern Malian desert city of Timbuktu.

In January, the Tuareg rebels launched an offensive against the Malian army, which was heightened with the arrival on the scene of Ansar Dine, which wants Islamic Sharia law imposed throughout the land-locked west African nation.

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 Bamako Stadium, Malians denounce division

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 certainly creates a fresh headache for the transitional authorities in Bamako and the West African bloc ECOWAS.

Mali's interim leaders stress their wish to restore the country's territorial integrity, but seem unable to impose their will on the restive north.

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.

Mali's interim president Dioncounda Traore is in France for a private visit and medical treatment after the 70-year-old was assaulted by protesters back home.

He is expected to return to Bamako next week.

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.

[Ogopogo]

http://www.thenewage.co.za/53664-1020-5 ... ip_smokers

Jun 16 2012 7:43AM

Islamists in north Mali burn cigarettes, whip smokers
Islamists in north Mali burn cigarettes, whip smokers
Islamists from an Al-Qaeda offshoot in northern Mali have confiscated and burned cartons of cigarettes. Picture: Getty Images


Islamists from an Al-Qaeda offshoot in northern Mali have confiscated and burned cartons of cigarettes and whipped those caught smoking as they enforce strict Islamic law, witnesses said Friday.

"Things really got lively on Friday, Islamists from MUJAO (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) took cartons of cigarettes that were on sale and set them alight," said Moussa Guindo, who works for the town council in Bourem.

A youth from the north Mali town, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "I received 40 lashes because I was smoking and continued to smoke after I was told not to."

A civil servant in the town, also asking not to be named, said he was whipped even though he was not smoking.

"It was my friend who was smoking but they whipped both of us saying that the cigarette is Satan. Shopkeepers who still have cigarettes hide them and to smoke, you have to hide," he said.

Two other residents of the town said that members of MUJAO had stopped a truck transporting cigarettes between the towns of Gao and Bourem, and set the cartons alight.

"At the moment it is the Islamists who are laying down the law here. They don't want to see cigarettes and have told us that if foreign troops come to northern Mali they will slit all of our throats," said another witness Mohamed Tangara.

MUJAO along with Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have occupied northern Mali along with Tuareg rebels since a coup on March 22 plunged the country into chaos.

They want an Islamic state with strict sharia law and have already forbidden smoking, and forced women to wear veils, in other northern cities. -AFP

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http://allafrica.com/stories/201206220890.html

Mali: Students Flee Sharia in Northern Schools
22 June 2012

Comment

Mary Maguire/AED
Children in Mali working together on a project. (file photo)

Bamako — Strict Sharia, or Islamic religious laws, imposed by the Islamist rebels controlling vast swathes of northern Mali are driving thousands of students out of schools. Dress codes have been imposed, boys and girls are forced to learn separately, and subjects deemed to promote "infidelity" have been struck off the curriculum.

Outraged parents are transferring their children and some students are opting to miss examinations rather than learn under these conditions.

"We simply took our two children from the school," said Mariam Touré, who lives in Timbuktu, one of the northern towns seized by the Islamists and other insurgents. "We will send them to Bamako [the capital of Mali, in the south] to continue learning."

"I decided not to sit my second-term examinations under those conditions and my parents agreed with me. They transferred me to Sikasso [a town southeast of Bamako], where I'm now pursuing my studies," said Almoustapha Cissé.

Boubacar Sissoko, a schoolmaster in Timbuktu - a UNESCO World Heritage site - said the Islamists "terrorize the children" with the new laws. "They have introduced their own programme and new subjects like Islamic education, or collective prayers that they themselves conduct," he said. The arrival of the Islamists in the north in March and the unrest that followed have left only 107 students out of 429 at the school.

Mali's education ministry estimates that around 5,000 students have fled to schools in Bamako and other southern towns since Islamist fighters of Ansar Dine, an Islamist group that wants to apply Sharia law throughout Mali; the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a small Islamist group; and the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA), who want to create a separate secular state in the north, seized northern Mali when a military coup on 22 March ousted president Amadou Amani Touré in Bamako.

The combination of conflict, harsh drought, food insecurity, and now the imposition of Sharia law, has internally displaced 146,900 people, and more than 150,000 others to neighbouring Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Although schools have taken the brunt of the draconian Islamic laws, residents can also no longer watch television, men cannot shave their beard or use tobacco. On 20 June, a Timbuktu couple was flogged 100 times in public for having a child out of wedlock, sparking condemnation by shocked and angry residents.

"I was really shocked to see these poor youths undergo such punishment simply because of having a child. It made me cry. It's a shame," said Mariama, a schoolgirl.

"We are living in another world," said Attaher Maiga, a Timbuktu resident, pointing out that the Koran does not forbid football, tobacco or shaving one's beard.

But the Islamists defend their laws.

"Sharia has to be applied whether the people like it or not, we will enforce it. We are not asking anybody's opinion. We are not democrats. We are servants of Allah who demands Sharia," Sanda Ould Boumama, Ansar Dine's spokesman in Timbuktu, told IRIN.

Girls are forced to wear djellabas, or full-body robes. "On 7 May, Ansar Dine and its ally, Al Qaeda in Maghreb, reopened schools in Timbuktu and Gao, a town to the east, but students began a new system [of learning] unknown to them before the occupation of the region," Timbuktu Education Director, Abou Bacri Cissé, told IRIN.

"Not only did they impose a new education system, separating girls and boys in classrooms, they also separate the students in groups - boys learning in the morning, and girls in the afternoon," he said.

In classrooms in Gao, "Boys sit in front and girls at the back, like in mosques," Beydi Koné, a journalist in the town, told IRIN.

Amahane Touré, a teacher in Gao, said only 21 pupils remain in her eighth and ninth grade French class, among them three girls. Previously there were 69 pupils, including 19 girls.

"We are searched every day before going to classes for fear that we are teaching the subjects banned under their Sharia. They forbid us from teaching certain subjects like biology, philosophy, civic education, under the pretext that they promote infidelity," she said.

"I understand the plight of the parents who fled with their children, but as teachers we have the duty to teach those who remain, even if the conditions are tough, especially due to Sharia imposed by Ansar Dine," Touré said.

In the weeks after the military coup, heavily-armed MNLA rebels and Islamists gained an unprecedented hold over northern Mali. The MNLA declared independence soon afterwards, but the move was rejected by its Islamist allies as well as the international community, and caused divisions among the armed groups in the region.

The Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) is trying to resolve the crisis, which has also worsened the suffering of millions of Malians affected by a severe drought across the Sahel region. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that more than 3.5 million Malians are hungry.

Faced with the hardships, Mali's education ministry has been forced to postpone the June national primary and secondary school examinations for a month.

"Special sessions and make-up classes have been set up for the students displaced from the north," said Mahamane Baby, an advisor at the education ministry "This is to help them to overcome the stress and not lag behind.

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
Tagged: Education, Governance, Human Rights, Mali, Religion, West Africa

[Ogopogo]

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=53390

Furious Malians: Islamists’ diktats take us back to ‘Dark Ages’


Residents of Goundam near northern Malian city of Timbuktu protest against meting out of strict Islamic justice by jihadists.


Middle East Online

Out in streets to say no to Islamists

BAMAKO - Residents of Goundam near the northern Malian city of Timbuktu on Friday protested against the meting out of strict Islamic justice by jihadists controlling their region, witnesses said.

"It began yesterday (Thursday) when a man accused of adultery was whipped by the Islamists. He denied it and dozens of people protested," said a resident of the town by telephone.

"Today it was a woman who was not veiled who was brutalised. Her baby fell and the population came out to say no to the Islamists."

A nurse in the town's health centre said: "The baby which fell is hovering between life and death."

A municipal worker in the town, which is 90 kilometres (55 miles) from Timbuktu, said the population had surrounded the local mosque to "prevent the Islamists from carrying out their Friday prayers."

Several residents reported the Islamists had fired shots in the air in an attempt to disperse the crowd but did not dissuade the protesters. The Islamists then retreated to the residence of a local official.

Mali's north was occupied by ethnic Tuareg rebels and Al Qaeda-linked Islamists in the wake of a March 22 coup in the capital, Bamako.

The Islamist groups, including Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), have since chased out the secular Tuareg separatists and taken full control, enforcing strict sharia law and destroying ancient World Heritage sites they consider idolatrous.

In Bamako, interim authorities have proved powerless in the face of the occupation, and together with west African mediators are grappling for a solution to win back the territory larger than France.