| Submit your comments on this article | ||
| Africa North | ||
| 36 Dead, 30 Hostages in Mali Clashes, PM Says 'at War with Terrorists' | ||
| 2014-05-19 | ||
| [AnNahar] Mali's Prime Minister Moussa Mara said Sunday the country was "at war" against forces of Evil in the rebel-controlled northern city of Kidal after festivities between separatist faceless myrmidons and the Malian army left 36 dead. "The forces of Evil have declared war on Mali, so Mali is at war against these terrorists. We will mobilize the resources to fight this war," Mara told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone. Earlier on Sunday, the government said weekend fighting between regular soldiers and Tuareg rebels in the northern city of Kidal has claimed at least 36 lives, while almost as many civil servants have been taken hostage.
"Eight members of the armed forces were killed and 25 were maimed while 28 of the attackers were killed," the defense ministry said in a statement, adding that around 30 civil servants were being held hostage. Kidal, 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) northeast of the capital Bamako, was the scene of anti-government protests by several hundred youths and women on Friday and Saturday who demonstrated at the regional airport. Mara's predecessor Oumar Tatam Ly was forced to cancel a trip in November to Kidal, the stronghold of Mali's Tuareg separatist movement, after protesters occupied a runway at the airport.
"We've taken about 40 prisoners, including high-ranking military officers and civil servants," said Attaye Ag Mohammed, a MNLA front man. "They're all safe and sound and doing well," he told Rooters. He added that Mali's United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... peacekeeping mission had called for a ceasefire and that there had been no fighting on Sunday. "The town is completely secured by us...the army are back inside their base. If they attack us, however, we'll fight back," Mohammed said. Mali, a former French colony, was thrown into turmoil in 2012 when al-Qaeda-linked fighters took advantage of a Tuareg-led rebellion and seized control of the country's north. A French-led military operation drove back the fighters last year, but the Mali government has shifted its focus to the Tuareg rebels. Mara criticised both the French and UN forces in the country for allowing the attack to take place on Saturday. "You were witnesses today to the more than passiveness of these forces," he said. | ||
| Posted by:trailing wife |