Nor has it won Malian support by tolerating according to some reports the presence in southern Algeria of the Ansar Eddine founder and Tuareg noble Iyad ag Ghaly...
Political supremo Ag Acherif is an Ifoghas and the nephew of Iyad ag Ghali the veteran rebel whose exclusion from the MNLA leadership – partly on account of past hostility towards the Idnan – spurred Ag Ghali to join forces with Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and wreck the MNLA rebellion...
Vol 54 No 10 |
- BURKINA FASO
Compaoré’s next controversial engagement was with Iyad ag Ghali leader of the Tuareg jihadist group Ansar Eddine...
Despite the killing in late February of Abdel Hamid Abou Zeid a prominent commander from Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) other key Islamist leaders are still at large including Iyad ag Ghali the founder of Ansar Eddine (AC Vol 54 No 3 Alghabass ag Intallah changes sides)...
The plan was for a twofold strike: Sanogo’s troops would knock out the Bamako government as jihadists from Iyad ag Ghaly’s Ansar Eddine forces began their southwards march on 10 January...
Ag Intallah has established himself as a key player in the remaking of the north by distancing himself from Iyad ag Ghali’s jihadists in Ansar Eddine...
To the fury of Ansar Eddine boss Iyad ag Ghali Ag Intallah joined Algerian-brokered talks with the government...
Ansar Eddine led by the Malian Tuareg Iyad ag Ghali had recently pulled out of talks with the government and the secular Mouvement national de libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) brokered by Burkina Faso...
So far talks brokered by Burkina’s President Blaise Compaoré suggest that the mainly Malian Tuareg rebel groups – the nationalist Mouvement national pour la libération de l’Azawad and the Islamist Ansar Eddine led by veteran Tuareg politician Iyad ag Ghali – may be willing to seek a political settlement with Bamako...
