Mali: Mali deploys troops to Kidal occupied by tuareg rebels of Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA)
Malian troops were preparing Tuesday to re-take a key regional capital occupied by Tuareg separatist rebels who have refused to allow the entry of the country’s army or government ahead of nationwide elections.
Troops have been mobilised in four “battle groups” to enter the northern city of Kidal and “close in around” the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an armed group formed by separatists from the country’s Tuareg minority, army spokesman Souleymane Maiga told AFP.
The move came after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the house of an MNLA commander in Kidal, the scene of a number of attacks since it was occupied by Islamist militants and then the MNLA after a miliary coup last year.
“They (the Malian military) are en route to Kidal and they just arrived in Anefis in large numbers and heavily armed,” a resident of Anefis, 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Kidal, told AFP.