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| Africa North |
| Tuareg rebels reject deal with Islamists over sharia |
| 2012-06-02 |
| [Daily Nation (Kenya)] Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have rejected a deal with beturbanned fascisti to form a breakaway state there because of their insistence on implementing sharia law, the Tuaregs said. The Islamist Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) have refused to back off from their demand for an Islamic state, which some members of the rebel National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA) had already said was unacceptable. "The MNLA's politicianship, faced with Ansar Dine's intransigence on applying sharia law in Azawad, and to remain faithful to its resolutely secular position, rejects the deal dated May 26, 2012 made with this group and declares everything pertaining to it null and void," said a statement. The document, dated Thursday and signed by senior MNLA member Hamma Ag Mahmoud in Azawad's capital Gao, was the first official confirmation of the rebels' rejection of the accord. From Timbuktu, an ally of Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghaly confirmed the breakdown in the deal, but also suggested that different factions of the MNLA were sending out different messages. "We told the MNLA on Thursday that for us, the discussions are over. There is no going back," said Walil Ag Cherif. He added however that representatives of the MNLA in La Belle France were not saying the same thing as those based in Gao in northern Mali. And Cherif's comments appeared to be supported by those of a Mauritanian specialist on the gangs in northern Mali, who said the rejection of the merger by the Tuareg desert nomads was a sign of a split within the MNLA. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 To once again paraph Antonio Bandaras - "AH YES, THE SECULAR-COMMIE-SOCIALIST-VS-ISLAMO/ THEOSOCIALIST, ... BFFS, ... SHOW". Mali's neighbors still are all nervousy + twitchy, though. * TOPIX > CALLS RISE FOR US INTERVENTION IN MALI. * SAME > US TO SEND SPECIAL FORCES TO UGANDA [ + Kenya], as ostensib due to strategic MALI threat. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-06-02 00:33 |