BAMAKO : Mali’s Prime Minister Moussa Mara has said that the country was ‘at war’ with terrorists in the northern city of Kidal after clashes between separatist militants and the Malian army left 36 dead.
Eight soldiers and 28 insurgents were killed in fighting on Saturday outside the regional governor’s offices during a visit by Mara to the desert town, the government said, adding that around 30 civil servants were being held hostage. ‘The terrorists have declared war on Mali, so Mali is at war against these terrorists. We will mobilise the resources to fight this war,’ Mara told AFP by telephone.
The government has blamed the clashes on Tuareg separatists but Mara told AFP that Islamist groups had taken advantage of the crisis to infiltrate Kidal on Saturday night ‘to participate in the chaos alongside other terrorist groups’.
Kidal, 1,500 kilometres (900 miles) northeast of the capital Bamako, was the scene of anti-government protests by several hundred people on Friday and Saturday.
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. ‘When someone attacks the republic, he is a terrorist, whatever his origin, or allegiance to a territory. We will take a war without mercy to these terrorists,’ said Mara, who is on his first tour of the north since his appointment in April.
He visited the desert caravan town of Timbuktu on Friday, Kidal on Saturday and was due to spend two days in Gao, northern Mali’s largest city, but cut the final leg short to return to Bamako a day early for urgent talks with President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The president is expected to discuss the Kidal crisis on Monday in a televised address to the nation.
Security for the tour has been provided by the United Nations’ MINUSMA peacekeeping force and soldiers from Operation Serval, the French-led military mission against Islamist militants in northern Mali. It was not immediately clear if the French troops had been involved in events in Kidal over the weekend. But MINUSMA said two of its troops had serious gunshot wounds and 21 of its police had been injured.
‘We urge restraint and refraining from violence which may endanger the civilian population,’ the force said in a statement. ‘We encourage dialogue as soon as possible to ensure the safety of Kidal. For a lasting solution to the problems of the North, there is no alternative to a peaceful solution.’
Malian Defence Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga announced reinforcements in Kidal, identifying the rebels as members of the Tuareg separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad who were ‘supported by members of terrorist groups’. ‘During the clashes, the Malian armed forces have recorded eight dead and 25 injured, and 28 killed and 62 wounded were counted on the side of the aggressors,’ he said. ‘Our forces have taken control of all government buildings except, for the moment, the governor’s offices, where the MNLA and terrorists are holding 30 officials hostage,’ he said.
Maiga said the army would ‘strengthen their positions quite quickly in Kidal and its surroundings to secure people and property’, adding that troop numbers would be doubled, if necessary. The MNLA evacuated the governor’s offices in November last year after a nine-month occupation. The move was in line with the terms of a June peace deal, which paved the way for presidential elections seen as a key step to restoring stability in Mali. But the process deeply divided the MNLA, whose ultimate goal is the independence of Azawad, the minority Tuareg name for their homeland in northern Mali.