The Malian army has urged retreating rebels in the north to surrender as allied forces continue their advance on the ground. The call for surrender was made by the Director of Public Relations for the Malian army, Lieutenant-Colonel Souleymane Maiga, at a press conference held on Monday in Bamako.
Maiga revealed that the house of Iyad Ag Ghaly, the head of the rebel group Ansar Dine, had been destroyed in air raids on rebel targets. '' If these enemies of Mali are Muslims, then they should stop making people suffer because their mission is already lost,'' Maiga said. He urged the Malian nationals fighting alongside the enemy groups to hand in their weapons at the gendarmerie posts to be set up soon in the northern towns of Gao and Timbuktu.
He ruled out any possibility of tolerating the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), which is currently operating in Kidal, the last major town to be recaptured by the Malian army and its allies.
The MNLA declared independence of northern Mali in April 2012, before it was marginalized by other rebel groups including MUJAO, Al- Qaida's North African branch AQIM and Ansar Dine. The rebels occupied Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in the aftermath of a military coup on March 22, 2012.
"Any armed group, whether it is the MNLA or another, that does not recognize the authority of Mali, is an enemy group and will be fought, as it should be, in conformity with the conventions guiding armed conflicts," Maiga declared. He warned that nobody except the Malian army has the right to carry weapons in a vehicle or in any other manner within the national territory.