(S) ANOTHER NORTHERN LEADER CLAIMS CONTACT WITH

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 BAMAKO 000071

C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (TEXT PARA 7)
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/02/2019
TAGS: PTER PREL PINR PINS ML
SUBJECT: (S) ANOTHER NORTHERN LEADER CLAIMS CONTACT WITH
HOSTAGE TAKERS

REF: A. BAMAKO 00037

B. BAMAKO 00024

C. 07 BAMAKO 00994

D. 04 BAMAKO 01731

E. 08 BAMAKO 00636

F. 08 BAMAKO 00485

G. 08 BAMAKO 00217

H. 07 BAMAKO 00056

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Classified By: Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1.(S) On January 30 former National Assembly Deputy from
Bourem, Mohamed ould Mataly, told a Malian official he knew
where the four European hostages captured on January 22 south
of the Mali-Niger border were located and was in contact with
the hostage takers. The Malian official subsequently relayed
this information to British representatives now in Bamako.
Earlier in the day on January 30 the Embassy met with one of
the newly arrived British officials to discuss the unfolding
hostage crisis, offer tips on northern leaders of consequence
(including ould Mataly),and provide recommendations for
navigating the Malian government. As reports indicating that
the four tourists have already been passed to AQIM increase,
we believe it important for those following this crisis to
understand the Malian government's likely response, or lack
thereof. While it is possible that Mali will regard the two
simultaneous hostage crises as a threat to Mali's
international image and internal security, Mali is more
likely to view the missing tourists and Canadian diplomats as
neither an urgent issue nor a Malian problem. As a result,
President Toure will lean toward the path of least resistance
- non-action - unless one or more of the nations with
citizens now captive in northern Mali make a concerted, and
calculated, effort to move President Toure in a different
direction. End Summary.

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Ould Mataly Claims Contact with Kidnappers
--------------

2.(S) On January 30 Ministry of Territorial Administration
official Kader Bah informed the Embassy that the former
National Assembly Deputy from the northern town of Bourem,
Mohamed ould Mataly, had contacted him with the claim to be
in touch with those holding the four European tourists
kidnapped on January 22 in Niger south of the Malian town of
Anderamboukane. According to Bah, Mataly specified that he
did not want to work with any Malian officials who had been
involved in negotiations for the release of the two Austrian
hostages in 2008. Bah said Mataly chose to contact him, as
opposed to more regular channels such as those leading to
Director General for State Security (DGSE) Chief Col. Mamy
Coulibaly, because ould Mataly felt burned by Austrian false
promises and the conniving of other Malian officials who
prevented ould Mataly from receiving a percentage of
Austria's reported payoff to AQIM.

3.(S) Mohamed ould Mataly is a Telemsi Arab from the town of
Bourem north of Gao. He lost his National Assembly seat in
July 2007 to Ibrahim ag Mohamed Asselah - a Tuareg who later
became one of the northern leaders implicated in Austria's
effort to win the release of their hostages from AQIM. Using
a satellite phone, Mataly called Bah several times on January

30. Bah guessed that Mataly was located somewhere near
Almoustrat or Tarkint. At one point Mataly reportedly
started to enumerate demands from the hostage takers, but Bah
said he cut him off, stating that he didn't want to hear any
demands without first receiving proof of life for the four
Europeans and an update on their medical conditions from the
hostage takers. Bah then recommended Mataly return to Bamako
for consultations.

4.(S) On February 3 Bah contacted the Embassy again to say
that he was in touch with British representatives and that
Mataly had returned to Bamako. Bah told the Embassy that
Mataly had requested three items from the British: a document
from the British commissioning Mataly to seek information on
the hostages' whereabouts; a satellite telephone to keep in
contact with the British; and various provisions - such as
dates and tea - to offer not to the hostages but to those
reportedly holding them in order to ease discussions. The
British requested proof of life from Mataly before entering

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into discussion about any subsequent deliverables. Bah told
the Embassy he would relay this to Mataly on February 3, and
that if Mataly refused, Bah intended to withdraw from the
entire hostage affair.

5.(S) Bah said ould Mataly wanted a document from the
British in order to "earn the trust" of the hostage takers by
proving that he was a legitimate intermediary. A more likely
explanation is that ould Mataly has learned from his mistake
with the Austrians and hopes to get something in writing from
the U.K. to ensure that this time around nothing slips
through his fingers. On February 4 Bah told the Embassy that
the British were giving ould Mataly the "run around" and were
demanding specific information that ould Mataly was either
unable or unwilling to supply. As a result, said Bah, ould
Mataly was now shopping his wares to the Germans.

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Where Are They Now?
--------------

6.(S) Together with the Mayor of Tarkint, ould Mataly is
believed to be in close touch with northern Mali's community
of illicit traffickers, both Arab and Tuareg. If ould
Mataly's claims are accurate, it would seemingly indicate
that the hostages have been passed to either Malian Arabs
north of Gao or to AQIM. On February 3 Kader Bah told the
Embassy he believed the hostages had been passed by Tuareg
traffickers to a group of Malian Arab traffickers. On
February 2 Sikabar ag Oufene, a Tuareg who had previously
claimed to be in contact with two Tuaregs widely suspected of
having participated in the actual kidnapping of the four
tourists south of Anderamboukane on the Niger side of the
Mali border, also contacted the Embassy to say that he
believed the tourists were no longer in Tuareg hands and had
been passed off to either Malian Arabs or the "bearded ones,"
meaning AQIM.

7.(S) On February 4 Sikabar contacted the Embassy again to
let us know that he and Kidal Chamber of Commerce president
Abdousalam ag Assalat had been summoned by DGSE chief Mamy
Coulibaly the evening before to discuss ways of locating the
hostages now that they no longer appear to be with Malian
Tuaregs. Sikabar said Coulibaly discussed whether Tuareg
rebel Ahmed Anakib, who was captured by the Malian army on
January 12, could provide any help (Ref. A). Mali apparently
believes that Anakib headed the Tamanrasset based cell of
traffickers to which one of the Tuaregs suspected of
participating in the abduction of the four European tourists,
Intewika ag Ahmayed (aka Ousmane),belonged. Sikabar and ag
Assalat subsequently telephoned Anakib's brother in Kidal,
promising to put him in touch with Anakib from his Bamako
prison cell in return for other, unspecified information.

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Briefing the Brits
--------------

8.(S) Prior to meeting with Bah on January 30, we met with a
British political officer recently arrived in Mali from the
British High Commission in Abuja. The British asked us about
two northern leaders, Sikay ag Ekawel and Assarid ag
Imbarcaouane. Ag Ekawel is a Chamanamas Tuareg from Gao who
was frequently cited by other Malian Tuaregs and Malian
government officials as a potential intermediary when the
four tourists were believed to be in the hands of Chamanamas
Tuaregs north of Menaka and Anderamboukane. On January 29,
ag Ekawel appeared at the Embassy under the mistaken
assumption that he had a meeting with us when, in fact, he
had agreed to visit the Canadian Embassy. We met with ag
Ekawel for about 15 minutes before sending him to the
Canadians. Ag Ekawel, who is probably in his late fifties or
early sixties, appeared extremely disoriented and said he had
traveled from Gao to Bamako the day before for medical
consultations. At one point, he wrote down a telephone
number without realizing that no ink was flowing from his
pen. He then asked the Embassy to verify that he had written
the number correctly.

9.(S) Ag Imbarcaoune is the 2nd vice president of the Malian
National Assembly and an Imghad Tuareg from Gao. Although ag
Imbarcaoune is supposedly among those advising President
Toure on northern issues, during meetings with the Embassy ag

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Imbarcaoune has proved remarkably uninformed. On January 1,
2009, unknown assailants threw a hand grenade into ag
Imbarcaouane's residential compound in Gao. Grenades were
also thrown at the residences of two other influential Imghad
Tuaregs in Gao. The British asked us if we believed the
grenade attacks were carried out by individuals unhappy about
not receiving a cut of the money supposedly paid out by the
Austrians for the release of their two hostages in 2008. We
said that we regarded the three grenade attacks on New Year's
Day, and the subsequent grenade incidents on January 7 and 9,
as the product of internal tensions between Tuareg Imghad and
other local groups which had nothing to do with the Austrians
or AQIM (Ref. B). We provided the names of a few other
northern leaders of note from the Gao region including ould
Mataly, Ibrahim ag Mohamed Asselah, and the National Assembly
Deputy from Menaka, Bajan ag Hamato.

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Malian View of Hostage Crises
--------------

10.(S) During recent meetings with our European colleagues
we have noticed a tendency to presume that events in northern
Mali (such as the January 2009 grenade incidents in Gao) are
linked, in one way or another, to AQIM. A second presumption
appears to be that Mali will regard the current hostage
crises as a threat to Mali's image abroad or security within
and will therefore play an active role in seeking to resolve
the crises as quickly as possible. We have a slightly
different view, which posits that Mali regards the hostage
situation as neither a pressing issue nor a specifically
Malian problem.

11.(S) Since 2003, Mali has weathered a number of hostage
crisis involving foreign tourists, Tuareg rebels, and Malian
nationals. This includes the 2003 kidnapping of 32 western
tourists by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
(GSPC) in Algeria, the brief abduction of a Pakistani and
Qatari by a Berabiche group in 2004, the 2006 capture of
Tuareg rebels by AQIM (Ref. C),the capture of as many as 100
Malians soldiers and civilians by Tuareg rebels in 2007 and
2008, the two Austrian tourists in 2008, and now the two
Canadian diplomats, their Nigerien driver, and the four
European tourists. In only one of these cases - the 2004
abduction of a Pakistani and Qatari game hunter by Berabiche
near Lerneb between Timbuktu and the Mauritanian border - did
the Malian military take rapid and decisive action, tracking
the hostage takers across northern Mali and then attacking
them, killing two and capturing others while freeing the two
hostages northwest of Kidal near Aguelhok (Ref. D).

12.(S) When Tuareg rebels abducted scores of Malian soldiers
and several civilian officials during 2007 and 2008, Mali's
position was generally to let events play out. Limited
attempts to win these hostages' release, both successful and
unsuccessful, were undertaken by self-commissioned Tuareg
delegations or the Libyan government. The presumption that
the abduction of four European tourists, two Canadian
diplomats, and their Nigerien driver will cause President
Toure to embark on a course of action that he studiously
avoided when Malian nationals were at risk appears rather
tenuous.

13.(S) During the Austrian hostage crisis, President Toure
described the Austrians' presence on Malian territory as an
embarrassment to Mali (Ref. E). However, Mali has
historically viewed the "bearded ones" as an Algerian
terrorist group dedicated to the overthrow of the Algerian
government. Since the GSPC re-branded itself as al Qaeda, we
have made some progress in sensitizing President Toure to the
dangers posed by AQIM, yet Mali's leadership still regards
AQIM is largely an Algerian problem (Ref. F). In 2008
President Toure told visiting AFRICOM Commander, General
Ward, that there would be no Islamists in Mali if only
Algeria, as opposed to Mali, could control its borders (Ref.
G).

14.(S) Nor are we convinced that fear of a damaged
international image and lost tourism revenues will greatly
impact Malian decision processes as far as the hostages are
concerned. When Timbuktu lost tens of thousands of dollars
following the cancellation of the Timbuktu stage of the Dakar
rally in 2007, Malian officials denied there was a threat to

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rally participants, preferring instead to question French
motivations for raising security concerns (Ref. H). Two
years later, Malian officials are more candid about the
threat posed by AQIM but there is still a large gap between
the levels of western concern and that of the Malian
government. Mali's tourism revenue is already paltry and
those who go to northern Mali are generally extreme tourists
who spend little and may even be attracted by the heightened
sense of danger, not repelled.

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Comment: The Long Haul
--------------

15.(S) With reports indicating that the four European
tourists may have already been passed to AQIM, and various
"good Samaritans" coming out of the desert to peddle
information in return for a piece of the presumed payoff, the
British, German, Swiss and Canadian representatives may be in
Bamako for quite some time. Unless there is a concerted
attempt by one or more of these nations to deftly move
President Toure in a particular direction, Mali will likely
be content to sit back and wait along with everyone else.
MILOVANOVIC