Tuareg-led rebels in Mali officially proclaimed on Friday, April 6, the independence of the northern territory they call Azawad, a statement on the rebel MNLA website said.
According to Reuters, the statement was made by the MNLA secretary-general Billal Ag Acherif and datelined in the Mali town of Gao, which along with the two other regional centers was captured in a swift rebel advance in the past week.
"The Executive Committee of the MNLA calls on the entire international community to immediately recognize, in a spirit of justice and peace, the independent state of Azawad," Acherif said on the rebel www.mnlamov.net home page.
Capitalizing on chaos in the southern capital Bamako after a March 22 coup, nomadic rebels have taken control of a largely desert zone that is larger than France and covers the entire northern part of Mali, including historic population centers such as the ancient trading post of Timbuktu.
They have been aided by Islamists who have loose ties to local al Qaeda agents and whose aim, rather than secession, is to impose Islamic sharia law across the whole of the moderate Muslim state.
There has been little sign of international support for the full independence of the Azawad territory, which has been a goal of the Tuareg people for half a century since Mali won its own independence from former colonial power France.
