Ten soldiers and 17 "attackers" were killed and 31 others wounded when suspected Tuareg rebels launched one of the bloodiest attacks in the extreme northeastern part of Mali, the Malian defense ministry has announced.
The attack by the "armed bandits" resulted in one of the heaviest casualty figures since the armed clashes broke out in the remote and isolated region several years ago, a regional army commander said Thursday, according to reports reaching here.
"On the night of May 21, the military post at Abeibara was attacked by a group of unknown gunmen. The resulting fighting led to the death of 10 soldiers while attackers lost 17 of their members," said the defense ministry in a statement.
Abeibara lies approximately 150 km north of Kidal, the capital of the neighboring region of Algeria.
"The military and security forces will continue their mission of defending the territorial integrity and security of persons and property throughout the national territory," according to the statement.
"We attacked army positions at Abeibara," a source close to the Tuareg rebels told an AFP reporter, adding that "both sides had suffered several deaths and we have abducted soldiers."
The attack, according to rebel sources, was a "mission to avenge the death of Commander Sheikh Barka," a member of the May 23 Democratic Alliance for Change (ADC) and a former Tuareg rebelleader, whose body was found near Kidal on April 11.
The rebels, who include the Ibrahim Ag Bahanga-led Tuareg faction, the most active in the region, have always implicated the country's security forces in his death of the commander and vowed to avenge his death.
Commander Barka, as he is fondly known to his former comrade in arms, had agreed to abandon his movement and join the Malian army after the signing of the Algiers peace accords that formally ended the Tuareg rebellion in July 2006.
Attacks, kidnappings and armed clashes have recently increased in northern Mali, including those initiated by Ag Bahanga-led group, which had taken up arms against the government in March before signing a memorandum of cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire with Bamako in Tripoli on April 3.
However, the 33 Malian soldiers, who were kidnapped by Ag Bahanga and his men following a fierce battle in late March, are still waiting to be released owing to lack of validation by the two sides of a plan for implementing the Tripoli protocol.
In the wake of the new development and perhaps fearing that the Tuareg insurgency could spread further, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has reassured Malian authorities that Algiersis keen to resume its mediation in the search for a solution to the raging conflict.
The Algerian mediation effort was suspended in April after the Malian press accused the country "of bending too much to the whims of the rebels," according to diplomatic sources.
It is in Algeria, one of the major mediators in the conflict between Bamako and Tuareg rebels, that some of the most promising accords between the two sides were signed and Mali is actively calling on Algeria to revive the stalled talks.
Source:Xinhua
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