The Angers Tuareg reappears by the sides of a liberation movement of Northern Mali

Credit Angers city

A Malian, former Angers inhabitant up to January 2012, whom it was believed he joined islamists fighting African and French armies in the Northern Mali, is, in fact the spokesperson in Europe of the liberation national movement of Azawad (Mnla), according to the interview he granted to Le Figaro. The Mnla is an armed and "secularist" Tuareg group which aims to get the independance of Azawad, a region which covers the Northern part of Mali. Moussa Ag Assarid, who had settled in Angers as writer and storyteller, vanished at the beginning of last year.

Credit Wikipedia

His sudden departure caused a huge emotion in the Malian community of Angers which  believed he was in fact an Islamist. And it is possible that Mr Ag Assarid is still in France, but not in Angers. The surprise and the disppointment of the Malian community of that city was due to the fact that the Mnla was at the origin of the uprising of 2012 in the Northern Mali. But its members were, later, toppled by jihadists coming from abroad, but also from the Tuareg population. Moreover, Azawad has its own islamist movement.

If Mr Ag Assarid is not critical about the French army intervention in Mali which was threatened by an islamist coup d'Etat, he nervertheless condemned the fact France brought back in Norhern Mali the Malian army he accuses of exactions. In Mali, recent reports notice a resentment between Black and Tuaregs Malians.