Nine killed in clashes between separatists and Islamists in Mali

[World News]

Nine people were killed in clashes in northern Mali this week between suspected Islamists and Tuareg separatist forces, separatist and military sources said on Friday. The clashes north of the city of Timbuktu involved separatists and suspected members of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), a group linked to al Qaeda, said a separatist spokesman and two military sources who declined to be identified. "The fighting is over," said Akay Ag Mohamed, a spokesman in the northern town of Kidal for the separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). We took seven prisoners and killed nine of the enemy." The landlocked former French colony of Mali was thrown into turmoil when Islamist fighters took advantage of a 2012 rebellion led by Tuaregs and seized control of the country's north.

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