Mali Coup Leader Seeks Help As MNLA Seize Towns

Malian soldiers overthrew the government on March 21, 2012. The TV station was seized with very little resistance shown by pro-Toure forces., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Mali coup leader seeks help as rebels seize towns

7:47pm EDT
By David Lewis and Adama Diarra

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali's junta leader appealed for outside help to secure the West African country on Friday as separatist Tuareg rebels took the strategic northern town of Kidal and advanced towards new targets further south.

Arms spilling out of Libya from last year's conflict have bolstered a northern rebellion in Mali. President Amadou Toumani Toure was facing rising unpopularity over his failure to halt the rebellion before he was toppled in last week's coup.

But the coup, if anything, has emboldened the rebels, while the coup leaders have been internationally condemned - including by neighbours which on Thursday gave them 72 hours to surrender power or see Mali's borders and bank funding shut off.

"Our army needs the help of Mali's friends to save the civilian population and Mali's territorial integrity," coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo told reporters at the barracks outside the capital Bamako serving as the president's office.

The rebels, who began fighting for an independent north in January, have seized on the confusion to prepare offensives on the three regional centers in Mali's north. Among their number are Ansar Edine, an Islamist group with loose personal ties to local al Qaeda militants and which promotes sharia law.

Claiming its most significant victory so far, the rebel MNLA group said on its website it had taken Kidal, a town of 25,000 people, after 48 hours of fighting.

"The MNLA will continue its advance on the two other regional capitals of Azawad," it said of the northern desert territory it sees as its rightful homeland.

A junta statement confirmed the fall of Kidal. "To preserve the life of the people of Kidal, the military command decided not to prolong the battle," it said.

The rebels included MNLA, Ansar Edine and local al Qaeda fighters, the statement said.

Later the MNLA said it had seized the town of Ansongo in the neighboring Gao region while a local national guard source said the rebels had pushed through into the nearby town of Bourem, abandoned by regular army troops some days ago.

"They came into town shooting in the air and leaving the Azawad flag all over the place before leaving without harming the locals," the source said.

"PEACE FIRST, ELECTIONS LATER"

The advances put the rebels little more than 50 km (30 miles) away from the 90,000-population town of Gao, local capital of the mainly desert region bearing the same name.

"There is no point in being optimistic anymore - I am going to join my family in Bamako," local teacher Ali Samba said by SMS text message, referring to the capital, 1,000 km to the south.

Yet others were only just arriving in Gao, having fled the violence in Kidal in buses and trucks. "They held us up and took a moped," said a young Tuareg called Mohamed Ag El Moctar of a rebel attack on the truck in which he was travelling.

Around 4,000 locals in Gao joined a march organized by civil society and local militias in support of the junta and their battle against the northern separatists. Some held banners that read "Peace first, elections later" - a direct rejection of international calls for the junta to step down.

Mali's neighbours on Thursday demanded the leaders begin handing back power to civilians by Monday or face a crippling closure of trade borders, diplomatic isolation and a freeze in funding from the regional central bank.

Such measures could further damage the interests of foreign miners in Africa's third biggest gold producer. Uncertainty has already pushed their shares lower on Western stock exchanges.

While not responding directly to the ultimatum, Sanogo said the junta "understood the situation" of the 15-member West African ECOWAS bloc, but pleaded for them to look again at land-locked Mali's plight and possible solutions.

"We are inviting ECOWAS to deepen its analysis of the situation in Mali and how Mali got here," said Sanogo, who has previously described the entire political class around Toure as corrupt and incompetent.

Fragile neighbours such as Niger and Ivory Coast are concerned that a successful coup in Mali may encourage copy-cat moves on their territory. ECOWAS has threatened to use military force as a last resort to reverse the coup.

(Additional reporting by Cheick Dioura in Gao; Writing by Bate Felix and Mark John; Editing by Michael Roddy)