Free Republic

Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have claimed to have seized control of a military camp and posts in the town of Bourem after weeks of fighting against the national army and Wagner mercenaries, threatening to unravel a 2015 peace deal.

When rebel forces, led by Arab-speaking Muslims, seized control of the Central African Republic this March, it deepened fears that a co-ordinated Islamist insurgency could now be spreading through swathes of the continent. Four months on, the landlocked country is living through a reign of terror, largely directed against its Christian minority.“Churches have been routinely robbed and pillaged here, while Muslim mosques have been left untouched,” Mgr Cyriaque Gbate Doumalo, secretary-general of the Central African Republic’s Catholic bishops’ conference, told me in an interview. “Our public institutions aren’t functioning and our hospitals have been ransacked, leaving the sick and destitute...

At least 12 men had hands or feet cut off after MUJAO (Movement for Jihad and Unity), and its allies in AQIM (al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb), took control of Gao last April. The exact number is not known because some were amputated in the military base... The mayor's office, a few yards from the punishment ground, was turned into a sharia court... Suspects were confined to a small room where they were tied up and beaten, before being brought before Islamic judges, known as marabous, who sat every Monday and Thursday. Ali Altini and Mohammed Aklini were due to...

But though the MNLA has a secular nationalist bent, the rebellion in the north is helping Islamist extremists expand their foothold in the country. The MNLA has been in a loose partnership with Ansar Dine, an Islamist group led by Iyad ag Ghali, a Tuareg who led a major rebellion in the 1990s. Ag Ghali's career is a testament to the tangled web of alliances in the region: His most recent gig was in Libya, where, according to reports, Libya's transitional government encouraged him to lead a large-scale defection of Tuareg fighters from Muammar al-Qadaffi's security forces. Ag Ghali obliged,...

Islamist fighters in northern Mali cut the hands and feet off five suspected robbers in the northern city of Gao in what they said was the application of sharia or Islamic law, residents and a hospital official said on Monday ..MUJWA, which is allied to other al Qaeda-linked Islamist groups, has said it intends to impose sharia throughout Mali. It had already carried out corporal punishments in territory under its control, including public floggings of suspected adulterers. This is the first time it has carried out group amputations. "I witnessed them cut off the hand and foot of the five...

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) -- Islamist fighters with ties to al-Qaida have destroyed tombs classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in Mali's historic city of Timbuktu, a resident and U.N. officials said Saturday. Irina Bokova, who heads the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, cited in a statement Saturday reports the centuries-old Muslim mausoleums of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi, Moctar and Alpha Moya have been destroyed.

Ethno-religious violence in Islamic MaliBackground: Mali is 90% Muslim, the ethnic Manding are in the majority.[1] ... Mandinka by ethnicity. King Keita (1210-1260 A.D) introduced Islam in the Malian Empire, and by the turn of the 13th century, Mali was one of the first African states (South of the Sahara) to embrace Islam. King Keita was later succeeded by his grand nephew Mansa Musa (1312-1337). King Musa was a devout Mandingo Muslim, and it was under his rule that Mali became the first country in Africa to make Islam a state religion. He built several mosques as well as Islamic...

France warned on Wednesday the seizure of northern Mali by a Tuareg-led rebellion was playing into the hands of local al Qaeda units, urging neighbours including Algeria to do more to tackle the threat. For long one of the most stable democracies in West Africa, Mali has plunged into turmoil since a widely condemned March 22 coup that emboldened Tuareg rebels in their quest for a northern homeland. They have been joined by Islamists bent on imposing Islamic sharia law across the whole of the moderate Muslim state, the latest security worry for a region battling organised crime and home-grown...

DAKAR, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Tuareg rebels in Mali's northern desert vowed on Thursday to chase an al Qaeda-linked militant group off their territory and said they were seeking support from neighbouring Algeria to help do so. The Algerian militant movement, Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, is believed to be recruiting members around West Africa and training them in mobile camps in the Sahara. As it spread its operations from Algeria into northern Mali, the GSPC -- listed by Washington as a terrorist organisation -- has come into contact with Tuareg...