Mali coup: Islamists kidnap Algerian diplomats

April 5th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

“Everything necessary will be done to ensure the safe and sound return of our
nationals,” the ministry said.

Amnesty International warned Thursday that Mali’s north faces a humanitarian
catastrophe after rebels looted food and medicine supplies across an arid
region already facing food shortages.

The dire situation stems from a March 22 coup led by Captain Amadou Sanogo and
a small group of low-ranking soldiers who ousted President Amadou Toumani
Toure just weeks before he was due to step down.

In what some have dubbed “an accidental coup”, the troops justified their
takeover by arguing Toure’s regime had failed to tackle the Tuareg uprising.
But rebels exploited the power vacuum and swept Mali’s north.

The junta, which at times told the Malian army not to resist the blitzkrieg,
on Thursday called on northern Mali residents to resist the “invaders”
themselves.

In the capital Bamako on Thursday, regional mediator Burkina Faso’s Foreign
Minister Djibrill Bassole said an announcement in “the right direction”
could be expected soon from coup leader Captain Sanogo, adding he had “the
right attitude.”

Though the envoy was optimistic sanctions could be lifted “very soon”, west
African military chiefs discussed the possible deployment of a 2,000-strong
force into a section of Mali the size of France now in Tuareg separatist and
Islamist hands.

Observers say the West is obliged to intervene after its role in ousting
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi forced hundreds of well-armed Tuareg
fighters to flee home to Mali, overwhelming its army and giving other
outlaws a means to serve their own interests.

Paris had been warned of the fallout, but is hoping Mali’s neighbours will
find a solution to restore democracy and halt the Islamist juggernaut
endangering the whole of the fragile Sahel region.

“There won’t be a military solution for the Tuaregs. It’s a political solution
that we need,” Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

As the Tuareg trumpeted the success of a decades-old struggle to “liberate”
their homeland, their fundamentalist comrades-turned-rivals began imposing
sharia law in northern Mali.

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) said as a result of
their successful conquest of an area they call the Azawad, they are halting
all military operations from midnight Thursday.

But the desert nomads are not alone in the north and many say it is Iyad Ag
Ghaly’s Ansar Dine – which has begun imposing sharia law – who are the new
masters of the desert.

“From what we know, the MNLA is in charge of nothing at the moment … it is
Iyad who is the strongest and he is with AQIM,” a Malian military source
told AFP, referring to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

But on their website, the group said it was “holding its position in the face
of all these mafia networks and distances itself from Ansar Dine and others
who rise up on the path to the liberation of Azawad”.

Three of AQIM’s top leaders, all of them Algerians, were spotted in Timbuktu
in talks with Ag Ghaly earlier this week.

Ansar Dine, “Defenders of Faith” in Arabic, has ordered women to wear
headscarves and threatened to cut off the hands of thieves in the ancient
city, once the jewel in Mali’s burgeoning tourism industry.

Several women have reportedly been raped in the chaos and three Westerners
were evacuated from Timbuktu after it fell Sunday, sources close to the
rescue said Thursday.