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April 4th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Sanogo told journalists that Thursday’s meeting would determine “what
will be best for the country in a consensual, democratic fashion.”
Since the coup, ostensibly over the government’s failure to stamp out a
northern rebellion, the junta has lost more than half the country’s
territory – an area the size of France – in a matter of days to the rebel
juggernaut.
Islamists seized control of the ancient trading hub Timbuktu over the weekend
alongside Tuareg rebels and have since chased out their allies and declared
to residents and religious leaders that they were imposing sharia law.
This sparked alarm abroad ahead of the emergency UN Security Council meeting,
with former colonial power France expressing concern over the Islamist
threat in a country considered a democratic success until the coup.
The Tuareg rebels want an independent state while Ansar Dine, under notorious
Commander Iyad Ag Ghaly, wants to impose Islamic law and has linked up with
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Three of the four leaders of al-Qaeda’s north Africa branch, Abou Zeid,
Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Yahya Abou Al-Hammam, were in Timbuktu on Tuesday,
security and religious sources in the city said.
Residents reported women in the normally secular city that hosted a major
music festival in January were on Tuesday wearing headscarves.
A day after being slapped with sanctions by its neighbours, Mali’s embattled
military rulers came under travel bans and an asset freeze from the African
Union for failing to restore constitutional order, before the US imposed its
own travel ban, which will also apply to immediate family members of the
coup leaders.
The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) already cut
off the landlocked country which depends heavily on imported fuel, also
freezing access to its bank account in Dakar.
In Bamako, long lines formed at petrol stations as panic set in over the
impact of the sanctions.
“We hear there is an embargo, we are afraid of shortages so we are
taking precautions,” said a youth who wanted to fill half a dozen empty
bottles.
The junta on Tuesday sent a delegation to Nigeria, where ECOWAS officials
could offer an amnesty in exchange for relinquishing power, a foreign
ministry source in Abuja said. However, it appeared a deal was not reached.
Coup leader Sanogo said in Bamako the junta wanted to prosecute ousted
President Toure for “high treason and financial wrongdoing.”
As the junta struggled with the intensifying crisis, armed Islamists in the
north handed out food and supplies that they seized from humanitarian
organisations to residents of Timbuktu, sources said.
Officials from the regional food security office linked to the agriculture
ministry and local Red Cross confirmed that the goods being distributed were
forcibly taken from their stocks.
The fighting in northern Mali began in mid-January by the Azawad National
Liberation Movement (MNLA), which wants independence for its homeland in the
northern triangle of the bow-tie shaped nation.
A powerful player in northern Mali, Ag Ghaly and his fighters have placed
their black jihadist flag around Timbuktu, which was a leading trading and
intellectual capital up until the 16th century.
The UN cultural agency UNESCO called on the Malian authorities and the warring
factions to respect the desert country’s heritage and the “outstanding
architectural wonders” in Timbuktu.
More than 200,000 people have been forced from their homes by the fighting and
aid groups have warned that the combination of civil war and drought could
lead to one of the continent’s worst humanitarian emergencies.
Source: agencies
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