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Mali signed a ceasefire deal with Tuareg separatist rebels on Tuesday, paving the way for government troops to return to the northern, rebel-held town of Kidal before a presidential election next month.
At the heart of a region plagued by poverty and Islamic militancy, Mali won a 3.25 billion euros ($4.35 billion) Western aid package last month aimed at shoring up democracy and helping it recover from a coup and an al-Qaeda insurgency.
South Sudan says at least 3,000 troops from neighboring Sudan have entered its territory, as tensions rise between the countries.
Southern army spokesman Philip Aguer says the troops entered the town of Kuake in Upper Nile state on Saturday. He says the alleged incursion violates a 2012 cooperation agreement that led to both countries pulling their forces from disputed border areas.
On Saturday, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir ordered a shutdown of a pipeline that carries South Sudanese oil through the country for export. Bashir said the move is in response to South Sudan’s funding of rebels fighting his government.
Hundreds were fleeing the clashes on Saturday, the first since several former warlords staked rival claims on the lucrative port and fertile hinterlands in May.
Gunmen from the Ras Kamboni armed group of Ahmed Madobe, recently self-appointed “president” of the southern Jubaland region, battled against forces loyal to Iftin Hassan Basto, another leader claiming to be president.
“Fighting started when soldiers from Ras Kamboni attacked and tried to arrest me,” Basto said.
Ten militants were killed and two soldiers wounded as fighting broke out on Wednesday with the Malian army advancing on the rebel-held northern city of Kidal, military officials told AFP.
“We counted 10 dead and have captured 28 prisoners,” said Malian army spokesman Souleymane Maiga after troops engaged the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, which has occupied Kidal since January.
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.
The Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) rebels said Friday they downed a military helicopter near Abu Kershola where a Sudanese army top commander was on a visit to inspect the recently reclaimed area, but the army denied the rebel claims.
SRF spokesperson Abu El-Gassim Al-Haj said in a statement released today that the military plane had been downed in an attack carried by the SRF artillery forces army positions, adding that all the crew members were killed.
Gibril Adam, spokesman for the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) told Reuters its fighters had attacked a government convoy carrying Sudan’s army chief of staff, Ismat Abdelrahman, just outside Abu Kershola.
Sudan’s government launched a large-scale military campaign in areas controlled by the Darfur armed movements and rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in the Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states. This comes amid reports that the authorities are anticipating surprises from the rebels in the northern and central parts of Sudan.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said that his country “strongly and firmly continues its actions until the armed forces — which will get all the support and backup to liberate every inch that is contaminated by the rebels — achieve victory.”