Malian army advances on key rebel-held town

Malian troops advanced on the flashpoint city of Kidal Tuesday to retake it from Tuareg separatists accused of "ethnic cleansing" after a wave of expulsions of black residents. The Malian government and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an armed rebel group from the country's Tuareg minority, have been in a tug-of-war for control of the regional capital. Malian troops have been deployed in four "battle groups" to encircle Kidal, army spokesman Souleymane Maiga told AFP. The move came after dozens of black inhabitants were expelled from the city over the weekend by the lighter-skinnned MNLA fighters in an act denounced as "ethnic cleansing" by the government, which says the presence of troops in the city is "non-negotiable". The MNLA has denied targeting black inhabitants but claims it has arrested dozens, including an army officer, in a hunt for "infiltrators" sent by the Malian authorities. The group reacted with defiance to the Malian deployment, which came as Burkina Faso's government held talks with Malian officials and Tuareg leaders in a bid to clear the way for elections planned for July. "If we are attacked (in Kidal), it will be the end of negotiations and we will fight until the end," MNLA vice president Mahamadou Djeri Maiga told AFP in the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou. The army would not specify the number of soldiers sent to the region but witnesses in Anefis, a stop-off point 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Kidal, described a large number of heavily armed soldiers. The advance comes with less than two months to go until a July 28 presidential election seen as essential to restoring democratic rule across the battle-scarred west African nation. The MNLA rose up to fight for independence for the north in January last year and overwhelmed government troops, leading frustrated mid-level officers to launch a coup which toppled elected president Amadou Toumani Toure. Together with Al-Qaeda-linked militants, they seized key northern cities, but were then chased out by their former Islamist allies. Former colonial ruler France sent troops in January to block an advance by the extremists on the capital Bamako, pushing them out of the main cities and into desert and mountain hideouts. The French army then let the MNLA back into Kidal, ignoring demands by the Malian military to be allowed into the city and raising fears in Bamako, 1,500 kilometres to the southwest, that Paris wants to let the Tuareg rebels keep Kidal as part of an eventual deal for self-rule. While French troops control the airport and work with the MNLA in Kidal, the separatists have rejected any suggestion that they should allow the Malian military or government into the city, which has been rocked by violence since the intervention. In the latest of a string of deadly attacks a suicide bomber blew himself up Tuesday at the house of an MNLA leader suspected by the Malian army of being an informant for the French military. "This is a terrorist who was being chased by MNLA men and headed into the house of one of our officers. He blew himself up at the front door," said the MNLA vice president. But the Malian army spokesman said the attacker had been waiting in the MNLA colonel's house "when he was caught by some youths and set off his bomb". France has come in for heavy criticism from the media and politicians in Mali, who accuse it of colluding in the occupation of Kidal by the MNLA. The army spokesman refused to comment on any agreement with Paris over the entry of the Malian army or its possible collaboration with French soldiers in Kidal. "It's a balancing game... and it runs at a political level. But what is sure is that we are on our territory and we will recapture (Kidal) as our capabilities allow," he said. French army spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said he had "no information" on Malian troop movements toward Kidal.