MALI TALLIES ITS LOSSES FOLLOWING LATEST BATTLE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAMAKO 000299

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/26/2018
TAGS: ASEC PINS PINR ML
SUBJECT: MALI TALLIES ITS LOSSES FOLLOWING LATEST BATTLE
WITH BAHANGA

REF: A. BAMAKO 00295

B. 07 BAMAKO 01036

C. BAMAKO 00290

D. 07 BAMAKO 01017

E. 07 BAMAKO 01015

Classified By: Political Officer Aaron Sampson, Embassy Bamako, for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1.(C) Summary: Tuareg bandit Ibrahim ag Bahanga has
captured as many as 45 Malian soldiers following three days
of clashes outside of the northern Malian town of Tinzawaten.
Ten Malian soldiers may have been killed and an unknown
number are presumed missing. Bahanga's casualties appear
much lighter, with 5 reported killed and 3 wounded. On March
24 Minister of Foreign Affairs Moctar Ouane appeared before
the diplomatic corps in Bamako to provide the Malian
government's version of events. Ouane accused Bahanga of
violating the informal truce that ended the last round of
fighting in September 2007 (Ref B). He also accused Bahanga
of violating the Geneva Convention by "attacking" a convoy of
wounded soldiers that was traveling to Kidal under the
protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) on March 21 - a statement disputed by the ICRC and
individuals who accompanied the convoy. Ouane reiterated
Mali's support for Austrian efforts to secure the release of
two Austrian nationals held by AQIM in northern Mali (Ref C)
but noted that Mali had yet to confirm that the hostages were
indeed on Malian soil. Although the Malian army attempted to
evacuate Tinzawaten during the fighting, a handful of
government soldiers who were stranded in Tinzawaten remain in
the garrison. As the sand settles and more details come into
focus, questions about the Malian military's decision-making
and chain of command are beginning to emerge. End Summary.


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Three Days of Fighting, One Rescue and 45 Hostages
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2.(C) Details of the most recent clashes between the Malian
military and Ibrahim ag Bahanga remain hazy as reports from
the international media, Tuareg sources, Malian military
contacts and the Malian government are proving more
contradictory than complementary. Reports in the
international media, for instance, of civilian casualties
from a land mine incident on March 20 appear incorrect. Our
information stems from contacts with Alliance for Democracy
and Change spokesman Ahmada ag Bibi; Alladi ag Alla, the
leader of 1963 Tuareg rebellion who has been in direct
contact with Bahanga for the past week; and Assilakane ag
Interawt, the head of the Malian Red Cross in Kidal.

3.(C) Fighting began during the night of March 19-20 when a
convoy of 22 Malian military vehicles heading from Tinzawaten
to Bourghessa ran into a group of Bahanga's men led by a
Tuareg named (FNU) Baye. Although the Malian military
described this attack as an ambush, ag Alla and others
apparently warned the Malians that Bahanga was positioned
along the road ahead (Ref A). Baye's group was quickly
reinforced by a second group led by Bahanga. A third group,
led by Hassan ag Fagaga, appeared soon after. The Malians
lost as many as 8 vehicles, 2 trucks and 4 BRDMs during the
fighting, which left an estimated 10 Malian soldiers dead and
40 wounded. A number of soldiers were also reported missing
after they presumably fled into the desert. Five fighters on
Bahanga's side were reported killed and three wounded.

4.(U) Hostilities continued into the day of March 21 when
the Kidal-based Assilakane ag Interawt of the Malian Red
Cross and an ICRC team drove into the battle zone. Ag
Interawt and the ICRC left Tinzawaten on the morning of March
21 after having delivered 20 tons of rice and other
humanitarian supplies on March 19-20 to approximately 500
families totalling roughly 2,800 internally displaced people
who fled Tinzawaten in August 2007 after Bahanga's first
attack on the Malian army. This group of displaced perons
has spent the last seven months camped in a wadi near the
Algerian frontier, 6KM from Tinzawaten. The Malian Red Cross
has distributed food to them several times since the
beginning of 2008.

5.(C) Confronted with dozens of wounded Malian soldiers, ag
Interawt, the ICRC team and others began organizing the
evacuation of approximately 35 to 40 soldiers to Kidal.
Foreign Minister Ouane told the diplomatic corps that the

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convoy was organized by the ICRC and that Bahanga attacked it
in violation of the Geneva convention. The ICRC Director in
Dakar, Juan Coderque, however, said the ICRC did not organize
the evacuation effort and that the convoy was "certainly not
attacked" by Bahanga but rather "intercepted" as it was
leaving the battlefield for Kidal. This corresponds with
accounts provided separately by ag Alla and ag Interawt, who
also said Bahanga "intercepted" the convoy.

6.(C) After what Coderque described as several hours of
discussions and negotiations, Bahanga allowed the convoy to
proceed with only the most seriously wounded - approximately
9 soldiers. Ag Interawt told the Embassy that he spoke
personally with Bahanga to negotiate the release of the
seriously wounded. Approximately 24 soldiers remained with
Bahanga. Some of these are lightly wounded. Ag Interawt
said others were suffering from fatigue, dehydration and
hunger.

7.(C) Ag Alla, ag Bibi and other Tuareg contacts place the
total number of hostages at 45 - a number that likely
includes the 24 tired and wounded identified by Ag Interawt
plus those who fled during the attack and were later picked
up by Bahanga. Sporadic small arms fire continued through
March 22, with Bahanga encircling six vehicles that escaped
from fighting the previous day along with three additional
cars and one BRDM dispatched from Tinzawaten. There were no
reports of additional casualties. Early on March 23 Bahanga
reportedly told ag Alla that he would not withdraw until the
Malian military had completely evacuated Tinzawaten. Later
in the day ADC leader Iyad ag Ghali, who just returned from
Uganda where he traveled with President Amadou Toumani Toure
to celebrate the Mawloud with Mouammar Qadhafi, reportedly
asked Toure to order the Malian military to stand down.
Bahanga pulled his men back a few hours later.

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Red Cross Seeks Visitation Rights
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8.(U) The Malian Red Cross intends to visit the newly
captured hostages as early as March 26. According to ag
Interawt, the Red Cross has already received the green light
from the Governor of Kidal, Al Hamdou ag Illyen, the Malian
army and Bahanga who is apparently eager for the Red Cross to
visit his wounded as well.

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Comment: Who's In Charge Here?
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9.(C) This is a serious defeat for the Malian military.
Although leaders of Mali's Tuareg, Arab and Songhrai
communities in Bamako have denounced the violence and
appealed for calm, Kidal's real power-brokers, Iyad ag Ghali
and the ADC remain silent. Ag Interawt said there was a
"precarious calm" in the town of Kidal as residents digest
the events of the past few days. A new hostage crisis and
the substantial loss of military personnel and hardware will
greatly increase levels of uncertainty and insecurity in the
north and possibly beyond.

10.(C) The Malian military's movements around Tinzawaten
appear odd given that less than three weeks ago, on March 8,
Libya and Iyad ag Ghali convinced Bahanga to release the 22
Malian soldiers Bahanga had held for more than six months.
One would have thought that the hostage release would have
been followed by cooling-off period. To make matters worse,
the contingent of Malian soldiers that ran into Bahanga on
March 20 included just one northern Malian - a low-ranking
Tuareg soldier who was among the severely wounded later
evacuated to Kidal. Given the emphasis on mixed units of
northerners and southerners as outlined by the Algiers
Accords, it is surprising to learn that the Malian military
is conducting movements in Mali's extreme north without
relying on the cadre of Tuaregs and Arabs who remain faithful
to the Malian government. This group of Tuareg and Arab
soldiers, together with irregular Tuareg soldiers belonging
to the ADC, played a key role in preventing the fall of the
Tinzawaten garrison in August 2007 when it was last encircled
by Bahanga's forces (Ref D). Had loyalist Tuaregs been
present on March 19-20, the outcome could have been quite
different.

11.(C) There are also questions of who is directing Malian
military operations in the region of Kidal following the

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evacuation of the region's former commanding officer, Didier
Dacko, who was seriously wounded in a March 13 land mine
incident (Ref A). Although it seems likely that ATT was kept
abreast of recent events, his absence from Mali during this
critical period may have encouraged some disarray in the
chain of command prior to the decision for the army to stand
down on March 23. At one point during the engagement with
Bahanga the Malian military ordered the evacuation of
Tinzawaten. A military withdrawal from Tinzawaten
constitutes one of Bahanga's key demands and is something
both Mali and the U.S., with our airlift of humanitarian
supplies in September 2007 (Ref E),have sought to avoid. In
the end, only logistical constraints prevented the Malian
military from fully evacuating the town.
MCCULLEY