Mali Tuareg leaders 'call off'pact with Ansar Dine

Senior members of Tuareg-led Malian rebel group MNLA have ditched a week-old pact with Islamists to turn the desert north of the West African country into an Islamic state, saying it was against their secular principles. The separatist MNLA, which wants an independent state it calls Azawad, seized the north of Mali in early April with the backing of local Islamist group Ansar Dine. "The political wing, the executive wing of the MNLA, faced with the intransigence of Ansar Dine on applying sharia in Azawad and in line with its resolutely secular stance, denounce the accord with this organisation and declare all its dispositions null and void," said a statement issued by Hama Ag Mahmoud, a senior MNLA figure. The emailed statement said it was issued in the name of the MNLA as a whole but it was not immediately possible to verify whether this was now the official stance of the rebel group. The dea was also denounced in a separate statement by Magdi Ag Bohada, another senior member of its political wing. The MNLA and Ansar Dine had reached an often tense accommodation carving up control of key regional centres such as Gao, Kidal and the ancient trading city of Timbuktu. Mali's body politic remains in confusion more than two months after a March 22 coup. Caretaker civilian president Dioncounda Traore was physically attacked by protesters in his palace last month and is recovering in France. He has not said when he is due to return.