“(Now) instead of having a few pockets you now have a huge zone. “The concern was always about an ungoverned space,” said Todd Moss, vice president at the Centre for Global Development and a former senior U.S. Militia who were expected to hold Timbuktu put up no resistance. The garrison town of Gao with its helicopter gunships folded in hours as soldiers fled. In Kidal, the top Tuareg army officer, surrounded by rebels, deserted with 500 heavily armed men. In three short days last week, a mix of rebel forces seized the three main regional centres of a territory the size of France, bringing the Tuareg closer than ever before to their decades-old dream of carving out a desert nation of their own. It can worsen yet if there is no quick resolution to the institutional impasse in Bamako,” the diplomat added.
“This was the worst case scenario and it has happened. “If the situation was delicate before the coup, it is now a total defeat,” said one senior diplomat following the situation. The rebel success has swept with it a collection of other gunmen, including Islamists, al Qaeda and others with criminal links, widening an area of lawless instability on the Sahara’s edge. DAKAR (Reuters) - Tuareg fighters are celebrating the seizure of key towns in Mali’s north as a historic victory in their half-century battle for a desert homeland.īut for the Sahel region and wider world, their lightning advance, made as the distant southern capital Bamako struggled with the aftermath of a coup, poses a security nightmare.
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