Mali government refuses further talks on north's future

(GNN) - Mali's government said on Wednesday it would not participate in further talks with rebels seeking autonomy for northern Mali, leaving the future of a U.N.-brokered peace process in question.

A collapse in peace talks could leave the question of north Mali's political status open indefinitely, a factor that may be exploited by Islamist militants active in the region.

Mediators have been working for months to facilitate talks between a group of Tuareg-led rebels from the north and the southern government in Bamako aimed at ending decades of northern uprisings.

Bamako signed a preliminary proposal in early March but the rebels rejected it this week, saying it did not grant enough autonomy for a region they call Azawad.

"There is no question for us to resume negotiations again, otherwise it will never end," government spokesman Choguel Kokala Maiga told reporters.

The government refusal to reopen discussions comes a day after the rebel coalition known as the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) agreed to another round of talks, without setting a date or location.

Mediators from the United Nations, the African Union, France, China, Russia and Algeria had flown to the rebel stronghold town of Kidal in an attempt to salvage the peace process.

The United Nations said in a statement that the CMA had submitted a document in the Tuesday meeting with a list of "observations it would like the mediators to consider in order to proceed with a signature."

It did not give details of the demands.

"Certain of these observations formulated by the CMA could be validly taken into account in the framework of the implementation of the agreement," the U.N. added.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Additional reporting by David Lewis; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

French troops edge closer to Libya border to cut off Islamists

#GNN PARIS: France is setting up a base in northern Niger as part of an operation aimed at stopping al Qaeda-linked militants from crisscrossing the Sahel-Sahara region between southern Libya and Mauritania, officials said.

Paris, which has led efforts to push back Islamists in the region since intervening in its former colony Mali last year, redeployed troops across West Africa earlier this year to form a counter-terrorism force.

Under the new plan, about 3,000 French troops are now operating out of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad -- countries straddling the vast arid Sahel band -- with the aim of stamping out Islamist fighters across the region. Another 1,000 soldiers are providing logistical support in Gabon and Senegal.

"A base is being set up in northern Niger with the throbbing headache of Libya in mind," a French diplomat said.

Neither France nor Niger has said where the base will be but military sources in Niger said it was likely to be around Madama, a remote desert outpost in the northeast, where Niger already has some troops based.

French officials have repeated for several months they are concerned by events in Libya, warning that the political void in the north is creating favourable conditions for Islamist groups to regroup in the barren south of the country.

Diplomatic sources estimate about 300 fighters linked to al Qaeda's North African arm AQIM, including a splinter group formed by veteran Islamist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, are operating in southern Libya, a key point on smuggling and trafficking routes across the region.

French and American drones are already operating out of Niger's capital Niamey.

Echoing the French push to get assets closer to Libya, U.S. officials said last month that the United States was preparing to possibly redeploy its drones to Agadez, some 750 km (460 miles) to the northeast.

Three years after they launched air strikes to help topple Muammar Gaddafi, Western powers including France have ruled out military intervention in Libya, fearing that it could further destabilise the situation given that countries across the region are backing different political and armed groups in Libya.

However, with France particularly exposed in the Sahel-Sahara region and its forces now engaged in a support role against Islamic State militants in Iraq, Paris is stepping up efforts to squeeze militants in the area.

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The murder of a French citizen last week in neighbouring Algeria by former AQIM militants who pledged allegiance to Islamic State also appears to have toughened Paris' resolve.

"The approach to (fighting terrorism) is global," Army spokesman Gilles Jaron said on Thursday. "We are on the frontline in the Sahel-Sahara region and supporting in Iraq."

The French operation, dubbed Barkhane after the name of a kind of sand dune formed by desert winds, has set up its headquarters in the Chadian capital N'Djamena, but also placed an outpost in northern Chad about 200 km from the Libyan border.

Jaron said the new Niger base was still being finalised, but would have capacity for as many as 200 soldiers with aerial support. "The aim is to bring together areas that interest us. The transit points which terrorists are likely to use," he said.

There have been some successes in recent weeks. Two diplomatic sources said Abou Aassim El-Mouhajir, a spokesman for Belmokhtar's "Those Who Sign in Blood" brigade, was captured by French troops in August.

French media said he had been taken in Niger. Niger intelligence sources said French troops had passed through Madama around the time of the operation.

Jaron said four suspected militants were also captured on Sept. 24 near Gao in northern Mali, where France has handed the bulk of security control to U.N. MINUSMA peacekeeping forces.

At the same time there has been an increase in attacks on foreign troops in Mali, including the death of 10 Chadian soldiers in September.

The U.N.'s peacekeeping chief, Herve Ladsous, said last week that with many French troops leaving the north of Mali, U.N. forces were being targeted and finding it difficult to respond due to a lack of helicopters and special forces.

"It's a problem that is being resolved. We want the MINUSMA to be up to scratch so we can focus on our number one job: getting rid of AQIM," said a French defence ministry source.

(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)(GA)(Additional reporting by David Lewis in Dakar and Abdoulaye Massalaki in Niamey; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Clashes in northern Mali kill at least 30 ahead of peace talks

(GNN) - More than 30 people were killed in desert clashes in northern Mali, the army and Tuareg rebels said, just days before the start of internationally-brokered peace talks.

Al Qaeda-linked Islamists took advantage of a Tuareg separatist uprising and occupied swathes of northern Mali in 2012 before being driven back last year by French troops.

The fighters scattered across the Sahara's mountains and sand dunes but have carried out a string of attacks on U.N. troops and Malian forces.

An army source said on Sunday that 37 people had been killed in clashes which began on Friday in the northern desert area between Gao and Kidal. The army blamed the violence on infighting between separatists.

Peace talks between Mali government officials and Tuareg rebels are due to start in Algeria on Wednesday, the first meeting since clashes in the Tuareg stronghold town of Kidal in May in which some 50 Malian soldiers were killed.

The army source said those killed in the most recent clashes were from the main Tuareg separatist group MNLA and a group of northern Malian Arabs called MAA.

However, MNLA spokesman Mohamed Ag Attaye said in a statement that 35 were killed from the Malian army and other "militias" and blamed government forces for starting the attack.

In past incidents, both sides have played down the casualties they sustained.

France dispatched troops to Mali last year to halt the advance by Islamists. The former colonial power currently has 1,700 troops in Mali and said on Sunday it was reorganizing its forces in Mali and surrounding countries into a single regional body.

"It's a regional operation to ensure the security of the area and prevent jihadist groups from emerging again," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Europe 1 radio.

The United Nations has also deployed a peacekeeping force in Mali which operates separately from French troops.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said on Friday he was "concerned by certain armed groups' violation of the ceasefire agreements signed with Bamako on May 23."

France, as well as Mali's northern neighbor Algeria and the West Africa regional bloc ECOWAS are pushing warring sides to hold talks that could end decades of Tuareg uprisings in Mali's desert north.

In addition to deep distrust between the armed groups and Bamako, tensions between the separatists is a challenge for mediators. On several occasions, disagreements have led to open conflict between them.

The 2012 uprising led to a military coup in the capital and the occupation of the northern half of the country by Islamist militants who had allied with the rebels.

Mali's separatist movements are demanding greater autonomy for northern Mali, which they term Azawad.

(Reuters)(AIP)(Reporting by Adama Diarra and Tiemoko Diallo; Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas in Paris; Writing by Emma Farge, editing by Rosalind Russell)